Week 2: Media-Days of Our Lives

Blog Assigment Week 2:

            This assignment was really hard for me. I only watch TV at night and that is just background noise in my apartment. However, I got a break when my director sent me home early for a mental health day when I only had 2 babies. So I got to watch a soap opera. I watched Days of Our Lives.

            I wasn’t sure how I was going to record it when I do not have a DVR or a tape recorder. So I asked my parents to record it for me. What was interesting is that on Tuesday I watched it without sound and then Friday night I watched it with sound.  With a lot of time in between, I felt like I would have watched it and had a different perspective. However, due to the communication style the actors used I did not gain different insight.

           

            The few scenes that I watched intently with no sound the characters relationship is not a happy one or the one scene the few people in the scene were very happy. In the scene where the man and woman have a not so happy relationship, they had very mad faces. There faces got long and body language was very ridged. Just from looking at their mouths it look like they were yelling at each other. They both never stopped moving. They were constantly walking around the room. The other scene where there was a woman and man with another older lady with red hair, they seemed happy. They were standing very close. At one point they were hugging each other. They smiled. Their bodies were really close to one another.

            On Friday night I watched the show that I had watched with out sound. I learned that in the first scenario, the couple was fighting over custody of a child. They were yelling at each other and saying mean things. The second scenario the family just found out good news about a son not being convicted of a crime. The words they used were more relief and happy. Words do make a difference in this scene.

            My assumptions were pretty correct and non-verbal communication really set the feelings and attitudes towards the plot. Words were what really explained the plot. The one thing that I took away from this that I want to share with my colleagues is that body language can really show the emotion to what you are saying.  I also think that words can explain the feelings that you portray. Words and body language work hand in hand to create an overall picture of what you are feeling and thinking and even know.