ENTOURAGE FINALE- Hollywood size load of garbage: Media Meditation #2

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Last night I finally got the chance to watch the season finale of Entourage: season seven. If you've never seen Entourage, it WAS an awesome HBO series. It's based around the lives of four guys that moved from Queens, New York to Hollywood. The main character Vince (played by Adrian Grenier) becomes a huge movie star, and his friends ride the coat tails of his success. For the first 6 seasons, we've seen drama, love, sex, and scandal. Standard to any series based in Hollywood. But as for the season 7 finale, I have very different things to say. There was a lot of hype surrounding this season, the expectations of the viewers were high. Check out the seventh season trailer:










There was always something different about Entourage. There’s a unique dynamic between the characters, each playing off each other’s roll so well. The producers/writers for the show created four characters that were living the glamorous life, but staying true to their rougher upbringings. Plain folks was a prominent tool used to make the audience relate to the characters on a personal level. While mixing in the perfect amount of glamour and extravagance we viewers thrive on. A balance rarely found in television today. For the first 6 seasons, the show was written to make everyone love Vince. He was the good looking, down to earth, movie star. The show was based around him being an unbelievably cool guy. However, in season seven, Vince took a turn for the worst.

After seven seasons of building Vince up, they ruined him as a character in the finale. He turned into a drug addict, started dating a porn star, and turned his back on his friends and family. I understand the show needing a place to create drama and thrill, but I thought the way it was done very poorly. There were not enough sub-plots surrounding Vince’s issues to hold the show in place. So the viewers were left in the end with nothing but a show revolving around a character they hate. Media and Culture states that”serial programs are open-ended episodic shows; that is, most story lines continue from episode to episode." And this is a great tactic to keep viewers watching week to week. But at the end of the season, we need some type of "answer". The Entourage finale left me with no resolution. No problem was solved- it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth about the show, and no desire to watch next season.

There is a balance that needs to be found between keeping viewers intrigued, and giving them what they want to see also. Entourage lost the balance in an effort to keep viewers watching. I think it's safe to say there's a large group of Entourage fans that won't be tuning in next season.

PHISHIN' in Saratoga- Media Meditation #1

In June of 2010, I attended the most amazing media experience I have been a part of thus far in my life. I was invited by my friend Lauren to attend a Phish show in Saratoga, New York. I had seen Phish before in concert, but was excited to experience the show in a new light: front row.

We watched Phish from the pit at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. This was my second time having seen Phish, and the experience was completely different. The Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), for anyone who hasn't seen a show there, is unlike any other venue I have been to. It sits in a large field surrounded by acres of trees and little babbling brooks. The environment definitely enhanced the overall media experience. SPAC houses tons of great performers; I highly suggest checking out their show list.

They began the show by bringing all their children out on the stage and introducing them to the crowd. This instantly made us feel like we knew them. They didn't seem famous or glamorous; they were just averages guys with families like ours. They were dressed in flannels and tee-shirts, nothing fancier than what my dad wears while gardening. Phish definitely used the Plain Folks idea to connect with the crowd in the beginning of the show. All their kids were also really cute! Definitely brought the warm fuzzes out of the crowd that night! This changed the vibe of the show from a concert, to an experience. There was a strong social interaction between the crowd and the band- making it a lasting memory in our minds.

When the lights went down , the first cord grabbed my limbic brain by its core- and rocked my world. They opened with Tweezer Reprise- if you've never heard it check it out- awesome song!

GET PHISHY PEOPLE

Aside from the physical show, there is so much that happens after the show in terms of social media and networking. Minutes after the show, it will be on YouTube/blogs/Twitters and Facebook accounts. You can go online after a show and find that people were updating blogs and streaming videos during the show! This is changing the entire concert experience, because bands are not just playing for the crowd anymore, they're playing for everyone on the web as well. Bands are going to be pressured into enhancing the show to make it appeal to the entire web. I think there is a change in the way shows are produced and performed- so it can appeal to multiple media forms vs. the band to audience experience from the past. Light shows and special effects are being used more and more to enhance the show. As the web continues to grow, we'll be seeing huge changes in the way concerts and performed. Phish even pulled out the trampolines and showed us some REAL skill!!

Introduction- A Sliver of my Media Filled Summer

The most interesting thing I did this summer was attend Camp Bisco. Camp Bisco is a three day music festival in up state New York, where bands from all over come together and perform for three days and those who attend camp out. The main band was the Disco Biscuits, but many other smaller bands and DJ's performed as well. My favorite band that attended was SOJA. They are a really cool reggae band that I follow and love. This was a special show for me because they opened with my favorite song: I Don't Wanna Wait.

Great Song: Check it out!

Hearing this song live made my experience at camp worthwhile. I was surrounded by many different kinds of media at camp. There was tons of people videotaping and photographing the shows and advertisements for bands all over the place. The taping of concerts was a type of media I have never first had experienced before, so that was a really awesome. After the shows, people take the live footage and post it on Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and Youtube- expanding it from a live media experience to a multi-platform media experience.

One of my favorite media experiences is reality television. I think it's fascinating that the television company has created something that people are addicted to watch because it is so ridiculous. My least favorite quality of media is the prominent violence found it a lot of media experiences. I think people don't realize how violence in the media affects people because we have become so used to it. Young children see violence on the TV, in video games, and on the internet. This affects them in negative ways, and is a definite downside of media today.