A Creative Scene from a Great Show

The proper use of the word F#@%

Read All About It!! Doug Ellin Creates a REALity TV Show!!

The tag line for the network is, "It's not TV, it's HBO." Doug Ellin proves this in his creation of the show Entourage, one of the longest running original series HBO has ever had. If I had a dollar for every time I have watched and re-watched seasons of Entourage, I would have as much money as Doug Ellin is probably getting paid by HBO. By watching his episodes, and becoming entwined with the characters, I became more involved with how Doug Ellin went through the process of writing the show and how he conveyed his ideas to the audience. Ellin uses techniques that are evident in each season and each character, that truly make you care about what is going on with their lives. It has been a while since I have watched a TV show, and trust me I watch a bunch, that I have actually felt emotionally attached too. I am not going to talk about a love affair between a TV show, and me but I will talk about Ellin, where he came from and how he got his start as a TV writer, and the techniques and styles he uses that make the show the hit that it is today.

Doug Ellin born and raised in Merrick, New York, was pretty quiet until he created Entourage. In the commentary from the first season of Entourage you get a sense of his roots and the kind of person Ellin is. This transforms into his shows when in the first season, episode one commentary he talks about how he wanted to create a show that showed what real New York was like, and how family and friendship was the most important theme in his writing. Before Ellin created Entourage he worked as a staff writer on the short lived Life With Bonnie show. The best decision Ellin made, however, was leaving the show, and leaving New York for Los Angeles. He continued as a stand up comedian in LA working at clubs like The Improv and The Comedy Store. You can even see the transformation of a stand up comedian to a show that has a very stand up feel type of laughter. In a later episode of Season 1, Ellin once again stated how he wanted a show to real to its audience, and here is exactly how he completed this objective.

In the first season of Entourage (actually the first episode) the audience is able to get a feel about one of the elements Ellin uses to connect to his viewers and make them attach to the show. The best line to describe this is when Ellin says in the commentary "I wanted to make it feel real, like if you were in LA this is how it would be." Ellin uses this concept of reality in each and every episode and it works, it works extremely well. He uses hot spots in LA where real celebrities eat, such as Jerry's Deli as his film sets, portrays what the day to day life of a celebrity is like, from the lavish parties to the behind the scenes of working how an actor selects a film to be in as his story lines, and even uses real celebrity cameos as his characters to beef up the Hollywood scene, i.e. Jessica Alba in the first episode. One of the techniques he uses is a follow-style of camera work, where the audience gets the feeling that they are actually there. This helps the audience understand even more what LA is like and how the life of a celebrity can be.

However, Hollywood is not all the glam and glitz it is made out to be, and here is where Ellin takes a plain show about famous people from Hollywood and shows the relationships between four best friends that make Entourage a success. Since Ellin was from New York he chose only actors with ties to New York to play the four friends that make up the "entourage". Ellin mentioned again in the Season 1 commentary how the show could only work with four guys from New York, and in the show you can see it, the rapport between the four of them is amazing, like they actually grew up together. Although a modest person in nature, Ellin gives himself credit for rigorously pursuing the four main stars to act and believe in the show. Both Ellin and one of the other characters played by Jeremy Piven have stated how these four friends and their relationship are the core to the show. The dialogue Ellin writes for them makes it seem as if these four have known each other from birth. Through the bantering of the four friends, like Turtle and Eric always ripping on Drama for being an unsuccessful actor compared to his brother, or the emotional connects between Eric and Vince about their careers and love lives, these relationships created by Ellin’s dialogue make the show relatable to a real group of friends.

The last part Ellin uses is the basis for his story lines. As I stated before, Ellin wanted to deliver a show that felt real. He used stories about the characters real lives in the shows, which made everything seem so much more believable. Whether it was in season five when Vince's career seemed to be at a cross roads and he was living on an island of the coast of Mexico, or in almost every episode how Drama would constantly talk about all the different TV spots he held, these were things that happened in real life. Ellin talked about little things that happened in either his own personal life or in the other actor’s lives that added to making the show more believable. By using these story lines it made the actors almost not have to act because it was something that actually happened to them, and as any actor knows it is easy to play yourself.

It starts with the tag line of the network, because the show Entourage isn't TV. Perhaps it's the dining and nightlife spots and all of the celebrity sightings, or the male camaraderie and banter amongst best friends. Whether it is the New York ties, or the script that follows a path of reality, one thing is for sure, when you watch Entourage everything feels real. Perhaps Ellin is rewriting what it means to be a reality TV show through his use of realistic dialogue to camera work and sets that put the audience into the world of a “real life” celebrity. I am excited to see where the show will go from here and will continue watching and re-watching, over and over and over again.

Your Friend and My Favorite,

Kevin McVey

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0254120/

DVD Commentary Use:

Season 1 Commentary Entourage

Season 2 Commentary Entourage

Season 3 Commentary Entourage

Season 5 Commentary Entourage

A $1,000 Dollar Purchase Leads to a 1,000 Word Post

I live with five other people. We just bought a new TV, which has led us to all be watching it because, well, we all want our $200 share worth of the crisp plasma screen. This has also led us to watch a lot of shows, and a lot of them all together as a group. And no one, in the least bit, is afraid to express how he feels about what we are watching. Criticism of television seems to be a past time for a lot of people, because quite frankly there are a ton of different views and ideologies on the internet, TV, newspaper, magazines, etc, about television shows.

My goal for being involved in TV Criticism is to add my viewpoints about TV to the community, to show how TV can explain a lot about why people do, what they do. I also, not necessarily want to change your thoughts or views about a topic, but want to encourage you to participate as well. Just as the purchase of the TV brought us together as a group, TV each and every day forms communities of people all around the world. As stated in my info box, I hope to enrage, or excite you enough that you go write a blog, write a book, write on a napkin, write something to get your view about how you feel about TV out in the world. Television criticism is important and I strive to be able to show how criticism can impact the way we live each and every day.

Television criticism is important and I strive to be able to show how criticism can impact the way we live each and every day. Yes I know I just wrote the same sentence, but I want to stress the importance. O’Donnell (2007) asks the question "What is the advantage of being able to perform television criticism if your not going to be a professional television critic?" He then goes on to answer himself by pointing out how the process of critical awareness can help members of the community enhance their understanding of culture, human nature, and interpretation (3). O’Donnell also stresses the importance of being able to understand not only your reaction to TV, but also the reactions of others (1). This enables people to be informed members of community and helps them move away from ignorance. Sillars and Gronbeck add to this notion by saying "The ability to analyze communication messages clearly helps you from being victimized by misunderstanding (4)." Through this ability to analyze communication messages

Sillars and Gronbeck also go on to explain the importance of how TV is more than just a show. How TV (and movies alike) are vessels for the way people act in their everyday lives, "because film Sillars s are bigger than life and because we usually think of them as entertainment rather than sources of cultural education (6)." They stress how the TV shows and movies we watch can explain actions in our everyday lives. Butler (2002) goes along with this idea by saying how many different ideologies are presented in TV, that TV is polysemic, that televisual texts offer a multiplicity of meanings (10). He also points out how TV does not present these meanings equally. "The television text does not present all meanings equally positively or strongly...the television emphasizes some meanings and de-emphasizes others (10)." This then ties back in with what O’Donnell, Sillars and Gronbeck are all saying.

By us (the people) being critical thinkers we should be able to try and figure out what the important meanings are in shows, what the unimportant meanings are, and how they relate to what we do in our everyday lives. I am a pretty big 24 fan, but I think with the level of critical awareness I have, I am able to figure out the important meaning may not be how Jack Bauer survived another mass explosion or terrorist attack, but maybe how certain branches of the government work during a terrorist invasion, who does what and why it is important to me.

In some cases (perhaps not to the extreme of Jack Bauer and 24) TV becomes an answer for problems in our own lives. As Corner (quoting Fiske) (1999) suggests "audiences seek to make what they watch fit their own experiences and lives (10)." Perhaps you've just gone through a rough break-up, what you thought was love, was over and done in less than a week. You flip on the tube and Flavor of Love 16 is on, and you can relate with "Fierce" or "Candy Shop" (if you have seen the show you'll know what I'm talking about) and you fit their experience with being "dumped" in one show with your story of being trashed in a week. TV provides meaning for situations and Corner suggests the idea that TV programming being related with everyday life should be celebrated and not criticized (10).

I think that last line is a great place to wrap things up. TV programming being related to life should be celebrated not criticized. It may not be clear, because we have to be critical, but I think our critical reactions of how TV develops along with our own lives is celebrated through the process of criticism. Criticism brings communities together, as O'Donnell pointed out, it makes meaning for our everyday lives, and allows us to fit what we see on TV with our own personal soap operas. I am writing this blog because I want to be apart of this community, of higher critical awareness. Your mother may say "TURN OFF THE TV", but I promise you she will not have a comeback if you simply state, "But Mom, TV is making me an better informed member of society through the process of critically analyzing shows and how they interact with our everyday lives." So I encourage you to become a critical member of society, to dive in to what TV has to offer. I am certainly going to try because with all that TV has to offer, I never know what I might find.

Butler, J. (2002). Television: Critical Methods and Applications (2^nd ed). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Corner, J. (1999). Critical Ideas in Television Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.

O’Donnell, V. (2007). Television Criticism. New York: Sage.

Sillars, M. O. and Gronbeck, B. E. (2001). Communication Criticism: Rhetoric, Social Codes, Cultural Studies. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.