Jersey Shore on Top of the Heap

Of the past decade, the most prevalent and ubiquitous Television programming has been the reality show, and the genre’s most recent pop-culture following has been MTV’s gold mine “Jersey Shore” which hit initially amused and judgmental viewers across the country like a brick by the summer of 2010. The show offset the second round of Jersey-mania, the former being the early-millennium era of “The Sopranos”. “Jersey-licious”, and “Jersey-Couture” are a couple of Jersey-based reality shows capitalizing on the perpetually kindled fire of the Garden State. Many across the country (Jersyites included) must question just what it is about the eclectic Southern New York neighbor that is so enduringly appealing, in such a way that has rendered a simple peek into a tiny slice of it the highest rated television show today? And what is it about “Jersey Shore” in particular that has millions of viewers across the country finding themselves incorporating the Guido/Guidette star cast’s slang words into their vocabulary, such as “grenades” to describe a girl deemed unattractive? Is it the affably doltish and superficial ways of the Seaside Guido “juicehead” that charms us so? Or is it the pint-sized “Meatball” Snooki and her catty girlfriend posse of perpetually fake-tanned and overly made-up Italian sex dolls that dramatically and humorously co-exist with the former? Or is it the train-wreck theory in general? All encompassingly, it’s safe to say it’s all of the above.

The premise of MTV’s sleeper phenomenon (having just recently completed its third season) is disparagingly simple: a small group of charismatic male and females in their twenties co-exist in an amiably ostentatious (duck phone anyone?), high energy beach house overlooking the Seaside Heights boardwalk, where they are employed (“employed” is one word, “work” is another) at a custom t-shirt shop. Jersey Shore’s sub-categorization in the lucrative reality TV spectrum can encompass the following: docu-soap, docu-sitcom, reality sitcom, reality drama, lifestyle programming, and perhaps even (and it’s a stretch calling it this), romance. What separates Shore from most reality shows today is the ever-present competition aspect of the run-of-the-mill “gamedoc”, ala “America’s Next Top Model”. The show’s boundaries (mainly the house) are decked out with omnipresent means of documenting the rat pack of charmingly shallow, sexed-up narcissists; roughly thirty remote cameras are set up in all rooms of the house (apparently, the only privacy the cast gets during shooting periods is when they shower), and a few handheld digitals operated by cameramen.

The overall aesthetic and viewing format of the show is leisurely surveillance, voyeur, confessional (where the cast sit in front of a camera in a medium close up to relay what they are going through and feeling at certain points in the day in documentary-interview style format), and docu-drama. All this is, of course, edited in post to highlight the most high energy, dramatic moments where the cast’s personality traits are exemplified to intensify. In post, the editors isolate moments of cast at their most idiosyncratic best (or most often, worst), which is what ultimately provides the can’t-look-away shameless entertainment that keeps us watching. Each episode is structured similarly: during the day, we will usually watch the cast lounge about in the house providing some slacker juvenile humor (such as playing harmless pranks on each other) or doing the same at the boardwalk t-shirt shop. Once night hits, both sexes prep for some wild clubbing (usually frequenting their favorite, Club Karma), with the narcissistic guys looking for a hot girl to take home for the night to “smush” (cast’s slang for having intercourse), and the girls endeavoring to do the same, but instead hunting for hunky “juiceheads” of course. The latter half of the show documents the night out; after spending an exorbitant amount of time doing themselves up, with hairspray often filling the entire room, we are in the dark and loud clubs that require the producers to subtitle any dialogue taking place inside.

What must draw viewers in is the “hate that you like it” (or “like that you hate it”) shamelessness of watching these extremely well-groomed Italian-Americans go about their superficial existence of hanging out, partying, getting drunk, and having sex. It’s the wanton lifestyle that makes for some entertaining escapist television, replete with the catty drama that often leads to fights (verbal and physical) to mix it up. New Jersey has clearly become a hot commodity, and Snooki and co are no exception. The show ultimately gives viewers (through the power of editing and some burgeoning hammy egos) a well-balanced mix of comedy and drama. Many seem to find it irresistible to kick back and observe such shallow, over-the-top behavior and excess, as most of us would like to escape from our mundane, over-worked lives. However, underneath it all remains a close bond between these friends, and viewers can really get to know these people who, despite all their faults, are often akin to a family that sticks close together, which is something almost everyone can relate to.

Thoughts and Observations at Kean University

Hitting the Starbucks addition to the newly remodeled library on campus after retiring my first class of the day, my burdened, cerebrally turbulent self felt the vague onset of a nap. I made my way over to the pretentious yuppie coffee chain on this grimy, dysphoric, wet mess of a day, scanning the area for a nice place to rest before my forthcoming Yoga class. It's funny how distant and guarded people are today, as they look at you as you seem to have found a space to occupy on a public study table like, "Oh no, are you going to sit near me?", or, "Are you going to now be somewhere within the ten to fifteen square feet of my spacial occupation?" So to bypass that subtle and inane vibe in this situation, I leave at least one chair between myself and the other person. You know, because god forbid I sit next to them.
Anyway, I secured an adequate spot in the center of a long study table occupied by just a couple guys comfortably spaced (of course) from each other, and whenever in a public study-esque area like this, my first obligatory action is always the brief people scan. Well, in this case, it is, for the most part, a female scan. Now, don't get me wrong, I am soon to be happily engaged, but that doesn't mean I am no longer going to enjoy the visual pleasure afforded from an aesthetically pleasing young woman. Suffice to say, the hazel-eyed kitten sitting about six or seven yards adjacent from me at a booth table fit the bill, albeit in that generic, prep-yuppie, contemporary university college sort of way.
There is something about this generation of youth and their insatiable need to be perpetually "connected" and communicating by digital means that has been really bothering me. There were only scarcely intermittent moments where this tawny-haired life novice would retire her Blackberry to the table's surface. As if one item of modern-day gadget porn weren't enough, she of course had her sexy little Macbook Pro plopped open in front of her, providing a bluish-white fill light for her face. I never thought that one day, someone could be nonchalantly manipulating a laptop computer with one hand, and, using only the thumb, adroitly hammering in a text message (sometimes without even looking) on some smaller yet equally sleek toy on the other. I have been feeling very strongly, for most of the 2000's, that we really need to simplify in a way that is becoming progressively imperative, but each year, it seems to be getting further and further from that.
At one point we had made eye contact, and it's one of those typical things regarding green femmes of today, where they look away almost instantly, like they don't want you to have the satisfaction of them having looked at you in a way such that may cause you to believe that they perhaps, even in that transient moment, found you even slightly palatable to the eye. This is something I experience daily in my on-campus college endeavors. People seem to feel the need to be so disconnected personally in the physical, but when it comes to a petite, digital mobile display, they have no problem going all out. Also, by this comely girl's act of not allotting further occasions of eye contact makes me feel the need to reciprocate the non-favor, so as to not make her head swell at any hint of me finding her attractive. How ridiculous, right?
I wonder how, not only she, but every other eighteen/twenty-something female in this cafe would react if their dear, fancy little gizmos with such minor capacities of, say, starting their car and making pancakes for them, were to spontaneously combust. I'm confident that it would be no contest compared to, say, a loved one passing. I know that that isn't quite fair, and I'm generalizing and hyperbolizing to underline my point about our unhealthy attachment to electronic means of communication. I have been noticing that the more things convert to 0's and 1's, social warmth, humanity, humility, and chivalry severely fall to the wayside. In regards to little miss I'm-too-cute-to-sustain-you-a-look, I'm hard-pressed to imagine those delicate, young ivory hands ever, say, hammering a nail through one piece of wood into another, or, by her own will, handwriting a letter to a person in glorious ink cursive.
In the end, this pulchritudinous young lady is a palpable archetype of a yuppie, gen-z, multi-texting, candy-coated gadget toting college girl (not that there's anything wrong with that). So the looker ultimately rose from her seat to reveal her donning what could be called my visual kryptonite; black leggings hugging a curvy waist area under knee high boots. Well, at least I was now able to bury my face in my arms, with some aesthetically pleasing imagery to nap to. I don't know. You just gotta love these girls.

My Home Photography

Below is a collection of stills I've captured with my Sony Handicam (you can take stills on standby with it as long as you have a memory stick). I used two lenses that I've acquired separately over the years. There is no way that a video camera's (at least broad consumer price) default lens will ever suffice. You've gotta at least pick up a standard wide angle lens. Anyway, with these photos, I'm covering a decent array of "types" of shots around my house with my doggy, K.C. In addition, I've amassed a bunch of shots of myself in my room, playing around with rudimentary lighting principals (I don't own any legitimate lighting equipment; I simply McGuyvered a crude room lamp setup).

In the first set of the outdoor stills, its obvious that I'm a fan of deep focus shots. There is just something about the shallowing of the depth of field that creates really interesting looking images that gives them this vague tinge of professionalism, regardless of what quality camera you're using. You pull off a deep focus shot, and you're automatically a cut above the conventionally mundane rest.

Framed by architecture or nature: I used my back deck stair banister to provide a physical border or frame for my dog within the actual shot.

Depth of field for attention: in this trio of shots, I've got a deep focus of my dog right of frame in the foreground, with an approaching young man with sports gear down the sidewalk left of frame. In the first two shots, we've got a generally empty middle ground with the dude in the background. In the final still, he occupies the foreground space (if only there had been one more person approaching about fifteen/twenty yards behind the sports dude, so I would have filled all three spacial planes).

Depth of field for Attention/suggestion of movement: here is local neighborhood legend "Mike Bike" doing his thing down my street. I feel the shallow depth of field, in addition to Mike's framing left as he approaches, accomplishes this.

Depth of Field for attention 2: I threw in another deep focus, this time of two skater boys trailing some relative in the rose red Jeep.

Above, my neighbor approaches in the far background walking his dog, while K.C. is chilling in the foreground, left of frame. In the first shot, I use a wide angle lens, getting a deep depth of field; K.C. has much dimension and volume, and the mid and background seem to be on such separate planes and just stretch on. Also, the skater tween and his dog seem to be over fifty yards away; they appear as just a tiny black shape way off in the background. In the subsequent stills, I had switched lenses, from wide to long. See the difference? I shallow the depth of field, and in doing so, K.C. appears flat and not as sharp and focused, seeming to merge into the background. Also, the approaching kid, not all that much closer at this point, is now clearly visible. In the final shot, skater boy and his dog approach midground, and all three planes seem to be shorter and not as separate.

The above shot is simply to utilize negative space in a way that balances out the shot in regards to the statue's basic indicating lines of direction.

Horizontal Composition: My backyard; the fence, covered pool, and surrounding houses/garages all follow a basic midground horizon line, albeit curved.

Symmetry: I threw this shot in just for the hell of it. I like being able to get a nice, symmetrical composition.

Vertical Composition: I figured the fire hydrant located directly in front of my house is a given for a low angle, center framed vertical line indicator. I also threw in my porch's roof column and chimney on the side of the house, both of which I gave a bit of a dutch tilt to enhance their overall composition.

Here, the back of my house, for a rudimentary horizontal composition.

Second Set: Indoor Dramatic Lighting

Use of Negative Space/Nose Room: I framed myself off to one side, leaving no other subject within frame, thus creating negative space, but in such a way that I'm balanced out by the corner lamp.

I made a crude three way lamp setup in my pint-sized man cave, and for this shot I used only two to create fast falloff with a backlit edge. I've got my one lamp just a few feet to the front left of me for the key, and another directly behind me, just below my shoulders as the backlight to rim me out nicely.

With this one, I tried to get as high key as I could get for low key lighting. The floor lamp I had in the corner of my room was the fill. As a result I'm fully yet softly lit, with a slow falloff on my face.

With this one i kinda went for the same thing, except I moved the key closer to my face to give it a more dynamic look.

With this shot, the lighting set up was the same as the previous two, only I had shut off the fill lamp, leaving the right side of my face (left side in terms of the frame) in shadow with fast falloff. The key was moved away slightly as well, so the lighted part of my face is dulled a bit and not quite as brilliant.

This is one of my favorites. The lighting setup was the same as the former, only I really wanted to get that nice, highlighted contour, which required me to merely move the backlight in closer and just a tad higher. As a result, you can see how much stronger the backlighting rims me out here.

In this shot I pulled back a bit for a center-framed medium close up, and turned my fill back on. So I'm generally fully lit with a slower falloff, replete with strong backlit highlighting that extracts me slightly, giving me more volume.

Here are four slightly varied experiments with cameo lighting. In the first, I kept the backlight, but pushed it further down and back, keeping it minimum. I'm a fan of the second shot, which is bordering on an extreme closeup, splitting my face with a very high contrast between the lighted part and the shadowed. I've also made the backlight slightly more prominent. The third and fourth closeups are the same minus the backlight, and in turn, my highly shadowed right side isn't separated from the background and seems to just blend right in. The extremely fast falloff in my face, set off against the dark background, is similar to a crescent moon in the night sky, where the lit part seems to be the whole portion's sole existence in terms of what lighting allows the viewer to see.

Here are two shots of below eye level lighting. Also know as "Halloween lighting", this lighting technique is so archetypal, as every kid at some point has shone a flashlight from underneath the face to look scary and/or complement the mood in telling a horrific tale.

"A Hard Day's Night" (1964)

Below: the fab four on the run from screaming tweens in "A Hard Day's Night" (1964)

Good ole' bewildered Paul.

In 1964, at the height of Beatlemania, Richard Lester directs the fab four in their first feature film, "A Hard Day's Night", and what a charmingly clumsy, entertaining, and musically satisfying romp it is. I had seen a decent chunk of the picture nearly ten years ago at my buddy's band's studio, and viewing it a second time confirmed all the delightful, ahead of its time aspects that I had originally picked up.

The second time around, being even more familiar with the Beatle's history and their work, I was initially pleasantly surprised and impressed with their acting ability. Granted, they were just being themselves, but trust me, when you're put on the spot, surrounded by crew and under harsh studio lights, and the director yells, "Action!", even that isn't as easy as one might think. I don't know if others feel the same (as they probably dug Lennon's droll, deadpan Brit wit), but I felt the star of the show was Mr. McCartney. His boyish, goofy charm and overall energy and charisma was a joy to watch, and I was very impressed. Not a lot of members of a band that become the biggest in the world can pull that off on the big screen. These guys were truly special, no doubt.

In regards to the film being ahead of its time, just compare "Hard Days" to just about any other picture that had been released in '64. By and large, other films of the time just weren't shot in quite the same way, and the overall "speed" of the picture in general is more akin to what we're accustomed to today. Three major filmmaking aspects: cinematography, lighting, and editing, are what made the film really standout and take it just slightly ahead of the curve at the time. The pacing, rate of succession of shots, artful camera angles, use of the zoom, are all examples of why. I also noticed a couple scenes where a helicam was used. I believe that that and the zoom are facets of the art that haven't been commonplace until the end of the decade, into the seventies. The first quarter of the picture, which takes place on a train, gives you a sense of claustrophobia, with the quarters being tight and the shots just as so, with many closeups (you don't see that many a succession of closeups in an early 60's film) and canted angles. Other techniques I picked up were scenes that were undercranked (for fast motion) and overcranked (for slow motion). The musical numbers in the film are definitely a precursor to what we have known since the early 80's: the music video. The intercutting of the band members playing (replete with extreme closeups) to gyrating girls and starstruck fans dancing excitedly are the rudimentary aspects of a music video. I was pleased with not only the quality of these early Beatle's songs, but of the sound quality during these scenes in general.

"Hard Days Night" would not only more than please Beatles fans, but of any fan of film and music in general. It set the stage for the customary music videos to come, and even the now all familiar "rockumentary". The picture has a joyously chaotic and relentless energy to it, with a wit and sharp humor that felt fresh to me even today. "Hard Days" doesn't feel dated, despite its subject matter from a dated era and with it obviously being over forty years old. I dug the clever, humorous writing, the amiable charisma of the band members, and its capturing of that epochal time, at the peak of Beatlemania. I certainly recommend.

Stanley Kubrick's Photography-Aesthetic Analysis

There have been many great cinematographers and film directors with a sharp photographic eye for lighting and composition. I have always felt that Stanley Kubrick was a cut above the rest. He could photograph a scene that is lighted with dull, mundane overhead fluorescents and manage to make it look interesting and original. I have always said that if you start playing a Kubrick picture, I defy you to take your eyes off it. I know I can't.

Below is a still from "The Killing" (1956). This shot is a prototypical, hard example of chiaroscuro (even bordering on cameo) lighting. The illumination is selective, the background predominantly dark, and there is a high contrast between the lighted areas and their attached shadows, accentuating and intensifying the noir-ish, gangster vibe of the picture. The harsh, angled lighting further illustrates the three dimensionality of the subjects, ie, the arm of the man far left of frame, with the very fast falloff on the creases of his jacket.

This is an early photograph from Kubrick. It employs chiaroscuro lighting in the vein of Rembrandt; the lighting is again, selective, and generally low-key. The background is illuminated, but the fairly high contrast between light and shadow creates a density and three-dimensionality about the woman standing in lingerie in the foreground, and the woman sitting at the desk in the middleground. The source of illumination is directional, making many lighted areas of the woman abruptly convert into dense attached shadow.

Below is a classic image from "The Shining" (1980). Note that the hallway is fully lit and just shy of high-key; opposite of what you'd expect from a horror movie. Kubrick's ability to successfully defy normal conventions and break new ground in such an understated manner is evident in this film. The scene is brightly lit, yet the twin's faces manage to have a fast falloff, particularly on the eyes, giving them a ghostly, unsettling appearance. Kubrick proved here with his adaptation of "The Shining", that subjects in a horror picture do not always have to be done up in a classically macabre manner and lit low-key to be disturbing.

This is another early one from Stanley's excursions with Look Magazine in the 40's. The photograph has an angular, yet predominantly horizontal composition. The placement of human subjects naturally leads the eye from left to right. As it is quite dense on the left portion of the frame (headed by the bold, heavily shadowed waiter in the foreground) the well lit chef to the right of frame balances it out, almost providing a reverse value framing for the folks sitting at the table. The key light in the shot is definitely the prominent and driving light source, with very little effect from any back or fills.

This is a still from Kubrick's breakthrough feature, "Paths of Glory" (1957), which is a good display of a deep focus shot with an ideal potential for a rack focus. Stanley always liked to use a long lens to shallow the depth of field (in my films, I zoom in quite a bit to essentially the same effect) which gives everything a flatter, painting-like look. Again, Kubrick's photography is analogous to an artist painting a canvas. His canvas was the camera frame, and his means of painting in it was the meticulous manipulation of light and shadow, field depth, and of course, the positioning of the subjects. Kirk Douglas's focus can easily be pulled here to the soldier behind him, left of frame, and pulled right back to Kirk; a basic, prototypical setup for pull/rack focusing.

Below, is a still from "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), and a decent example of silhouette lighting, in which the background is fully lit and the subjects in front of it aren't lit at all. As a result, the features of the gang of troublemakers cannot be made out, as they appear as mostly dense shadows. And, since the strong light source is coming from behind, long, dense cast shadows are created by the subjects, stemming from their feet in the midground, extending all the way to (and way past) the foreground.

Kubrick was a master of the art of visual symmetry. This shot, from Kubrick's epic scifi masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), is a fine example of this. The negative/positive values of the white and black portions of the ship hull create a forced and archetypal one-point perspective, and its lines literally shoot out at you from the octagonal hatch that they begin from. And the protagonist's placement at the very center, almost one step ahead of midground, balances out this symmetry perfectly.

In this early shot of Stanley's from his Look days, there is much leading room from the jaded woman on the left. If it weren't for her large message written on the wall, this would have left the photo with tremendous negative space, in turn making it appear unbalanced and dull.

Back to "Paths of Glory". This is a wonderful shot because it employs much of the lovely craft and aspects of photography. The man is framed a medium close up, fairly left of frame, and with a decent amount of head room. This creates the sense of the space, the vastness and openness of the room. We can tell that the ceiling is very high, in that the soldiers in the mid and background have a tremendous amount of space above their heads. The weight of the shot, in regards to the man in the foreground, is balanced out nicely by the cluster of men to the right of frame in the mid ground. The other factor that further communicates the epicness of the space in the size of the room, is Kubrick's use of the short lens. With a short lens, you get a very deep depth of field; the subject is highly in focus and very separated from the background, and in turn gives it a much more three dimensional look (as opposed to the other shot of Kirk Douglas from earlier). This shot could also be an example of Rembrandt lighting. The background is lit, but the lighting is more selective and not completely omnipresent and evenly distributed. The attached shadows on the man are mostly transparent, and in some areas, there is fairly fast falloff (particularly in the man's eyes and under his nose). You can tell that the main light source (the key light) comes from the front of the man and slightly above, and there is enough fill to render all areas visible. Overall, there is a density and volume here, and most of all, a broad sense of depth.

Below: simply a great, classic, symmetrical closeup from "2001".

Stanley Kubrick-the Photographer

Most people recognize the late great Stanley Kubrick as the obstinately meticulous, reclusive film director responsible for cinematic classics such as "The Shining", "A Clockwork Orange", and "2001: A Space Odyssey". What most people don't know is Kubrick's roots in photography. In the 1940's, the young New Yorker developed a near genius affinity for chess (becoming quite the little hustler) and subsequently, still photography, after receiving a Graflex camera as a gift from his father. He soon grabbed the attention of Look Magazine, after selling some of his photos to the company. Stanley subsequently became an apprentice photographer for the magazine, and within no time, promoted to a full-time staff photographer.

Below: A still from "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964)

Kubrick's work as a photographer ultimately led him to directing films, and anyone who knows his work, knows that the imagery in his films are unique and unparalleled. Kubrick's canvas, is what ultimately shows up within the frame. His roots in still photography are written all over his work. Once he made a name for himself, he was able to attain great, and eventually (by "2001" in '67) full artistic control over his films, and it shows in the overall look, editing (he was one of the few film directors in the history of the medium to have final cut), meticulous pacing, and shot composition. Below, is a B&W still from "The Shining" (1980), from the infamous hotel hallway shot of the Grady Twin ghosts. His talents as a photographer, in regards to his ability to light and compose his subjects and environment within a camera frame to create such simple, yet brilliantly startling images, is undeniable, and one of the reasons he is among the greats of filmmaking.

Below: Stanley doing what he does best