TeeVee for Beginners, Friday Period Two

[chosehumanity]

When students entered the classroom, they'd find that there were no tables, and all the chairs had been replaced with comfortable-looking couches. In front of the class stood Mitchell, without sunglasses, but dressed to the hipster nines and wearing his usual pair of fingerless gloves, his face pale and a little on the sunken, shaky side if you actually chose to pay that much attention to it. He smiled as people came in; as soon as they were in, he started to talk. "Welcome to TV class," he started, "If you're here, it's likely because of one of two reasons: either you don't know much about television, or you're looking to have a bit of fun."

He grinned. "Not that the latter is anything to be ashamed about," he said, "Everyone deserves something fun in their lives, something to make you smile. We used to just have books back in the day, theatre, stories passed on from mouth to mouth." He patted the large TV in front of the class. "For those of you in the first category, this is a television. When it's on, it lights up specks of colour, divided up in lines, that form moving images. The images can be anything you can see in real life, but captured, so you can see images from other places, other people." He gestured at the screen of the TV. "In the first few televisions, you didn't have a great deal of lines, so the image was unclear." He smirked at some private memory, "Faded."

"Television really started with radio, with broadcasting; people discovered how to project sound across great distances, not just to one person, but to everyone in the area who had a special box designed to capture the noise. The word comes from farming practices, actually -- to 'broadcast' is to throw a lot of seeds out in a circle, to cast them out. The radio did the same, except with a signal, and anyone with a radio box could capture the signal, capture the seed and listen to it. The possibilities seemed limitless at the time, there was anything you could do with radio, broadcast plays, festivals, whatever was happening in someone else's living room, people couldn't stop imagining about it. They thought radio would last forever."

"And they did get a lot of things done. Radio channels were formed, you could change the numbers on a radio so it would capture other bits of sound, and they'd broadcast music and other programmes across the area." He smiled at the class - he'd gotten a little carried away with his own memories, but that wasn't a problem. It was nice, it was going fairly smooth.

"It didn't last forever, though. There was some time spent tussling behind the scenes about the technology, but around the forties and fifties, the first commercial television was a fact. It was as big as the iPhone then, in the fifties. Everyone had to have one. Line standards grew rapidly until they were standardized in the sixties. The amount of channels grew exponentially, new genres were invented or ported over from radio: soaps, dramas, news, everything you could think of. People would crowd together in each other's homes on special nights just to watch the television, to get to talk about it the next day. Housewives loved it because it meant something to do in a time when they weren't allowed to do a great deal besides sit around. The television quickly became the center of a house, a place where everyone could come and relax and be themselves with the family."

With a flop, Mitchell landed himself on his own couch, pointed towards the kids. "That was what television was like for people back then," he said, "What's it mean to you? Does it mean anything to you? Have you even heard of it?" He pointed at a random student, "Tell me that. And your name and age, please."

Pause.

"Oh, and George? You're not getting out of assisting me." Mitchell did not at all smirk at that one. No. "When we're through, we'll be watching something to get you all into the subject matter."

Mitchell should probably not be this enthused.

[[ wait for the ocd up! ]]

Comments

Sign In

[chosehumanity]

Lounging!

Re: Sign In

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine Peters

Listen to the Lecture

[chosehumanity]

Listen, make notes, abuse your personal couch like it's going out of style.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[thatsamilkshake]

No, seriously, a couch? Marshall might actually have to jello-wrestle the new teacher for rights to the title of Francine's Favorite Class Ever.

.......Ew.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[future_sandworm]

While the couches were comfortable, they didn't make it easy to take notes using ink and quills. Leto settled for just listening instead, noting that Mitchell did seem to have a very vivid knowledge of the development of television as a medium.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex couldn't really complain about a class where he got to sprawl on a couch and listen to someone talk about television. Well, he could but it would be kind of pointless. This wasn't that bad.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[bitten_notshy]

Jack wasn't sure how he'd ended up in this class, but (as he sat back on the couch, and idly thought the instructor looked like he was recovering from a rough night or five) he realized it seemed like it would be more useful than quizzing everyone he talked to about this century's technology. His posture stayed casual -- he was, after all, lounging on a couch -- but his eyes were alert.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[bad-nose-job.livejournal.com]

Penelope sat comfortably on her couch, and actually took notes.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[wantstodirect]

Tony suspected he was going to love this class.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[heromaniac]

YAY! A class about tv!

Momoko chose a couch and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged, pulling snacks out of her bag and piling them beside her as she tried to find a notebook. Who knew she'd be taking notes in a class about tv?

YAY! TV!

Introductions

[chosehumanity]

Name, age, experience with the medium!

Re: Introductions

[future_sandworm]

"I am Leto Atreides II," he said, "And I'm sixteen years old. As there is no television where I'm from, my only experience is what I've managed to find out here in Fandom. As it seems to be an important cultural phenomena here, I decided to learn more."

Re: Introductions

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

"Alex Karev, seventeen," he recited like clockwork now. "Pretty experienced with television. Never had cable but I made due on the three or four channels I got. TV's a nice--" Escape. "--time passer for me."

Re: Introductions

[bitten_notshy]

"Jack Priest, seventeen," Jack said, for what seemed like the fifteenth time this week. "It's 1899 at home, so I've never seen television before. We have moving pictures, though, and I've been to the cinema."

As he talked, he brought his left hand up to brush a bit of hair aside, and the ruby in the ring signaling he was of Sebastien's court caught the light for a moment.

Re: Introductions

[bad-nose-job.livejournal.com]

"I'm Penelope Wilhern," she began quietly. "I'm sixteen and my only experience with television is what I've seen of it here. And I was in the Movie Appreciation class last semester. We had a small television at home used for security purposes."

Re: Introductions

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine had her feet drawn up carefully on the couch, soles of her shoes not actually touching the upholstery. "I'm Francine Peters, and I'm seventeen now. I don't think we ever didn't have a tv in our house, except maybe when I was a baby, before we moved to Texas. I love it, especially dorky older sci-fi shows like Bitterwoman and Galaxy Quest."

Re: Introductions

[wantstodirect]

"I'm Tony Foster, I'll be eighteen in a month and I've watched a lot of television. Really a lot. Classics and modern. The older stuff's a lot slower paced, but I like seeing how they used the cameras and lighting back then. I mean, you can see this whole evolution of-" Tony paused, realizing he was rambling on. "Sorry. I like TV a lot."

Re: Introductions

[wantstobehuman.livejournal.com]

It took George a moment to realise it was his turn, when it came around to him; he'd been too busy examining the material of the couch he was on, and wondering where he could find the nearest IKEA -- if this was going to be a class about TV, there needed to be a much better television stand. And tables! Oooh, and couches, new couches would be good, and tables to go with them, and maybe they could do matching curtains for the windows!

"Oh! Uh. I'm George," he said, as he clued in that it was his turn. "And I'm seventeen. I guess you could say I've got a lot of experience with television? At least modern stuff. I don't really know the classics or anything."

Re: Introductions

[puppy_fair]

"I'm Zack Fair, fifteen years old, and my experience with the television is..." Zack tilted his head, thinking that over. Thinking was hard. So was sitting still in order to watch television. This was going to be an interesting class. "I used to watch it back in my hometown, to catch the news reports on SOLDIERs and heroes in the big city. So I guess you could kind of say that what I saw on the television helped to inspire where I'm taking my life, now."

Hence the uniform. Thing. Uniform thing. Purple turtleneck.

Re: Introductions

[fabulous-secret.livejournal.com]

"I am Adora," she said, smiling. "I'm sixteen years old and my only knowledge of television comes from making a sports program last semester and watching E-S-P-N in the common room."

Re: Introductions

[heromaniac]

"Momoko Akatsutsumi, 16!" Momoko jumped to her feet with a grin. "And we've always had TV! My mom and dad have been buying me and my sister dvds for as long as I can remember. I was excited when I got here to find so many different shows."

The Television

[chosehumanity]

"This is 'reality' TV as it started," said Mitchell, "People, famous people coming over to talk with television 'hosts', people who were there for every show to lead the proceedings, and have a spot of fun. This is two of the greatest legends of all comedy making an appearance on a show like that..." Watch, react, talk amongst yourselves about Laurel and Hardy's appearance on This Is Your Life in 1956.

Re: The Television

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was old. It wasn't like Alex hadn't ever heard of the people in question but old.

And still kind of funny.

Talk to the TA(s)

[chosehumanity]

For one TA that's already been picked, and another if he wants to ping in after getting the job.

Re: Talk to the TA(s)

[wantstobehuman.livejournal.com]

George was... not quite comfortable, perched on his couch, but he was attentive, ready to help anyone who needed it. Not that he particular foresaw anyone needing any particular amount of help in the class.

He was eying the classroom, contemplating what could be done to it -- and what kind of budget the school might give him Mitchell to work with.

Talk to Mitchell

[chosehumanity]

He's here. He's cool. He's... lying around on a couch with a bag of chips sitting on his stomach.

[[ tas have already been picked, alas, but feel free to try ]]

Re: Talk to Mitchell

[wantstodirect]

Tony approached Mitchell after class. "Professor?"

OOC

[chosehumanity]

It has been way too long since I wrote one of these. Ow.

But damn, I love the television.