Category: TV Drama

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TV Drama Feb / Mar 09

Concepts

Shot types

And camera angles list and analyse the range of shot types and effects created by them – specifically look at Merlin and write analysis. DONE

Do again

Harley Street – watch and comment on the opening sequence and how the character Dr Robert fielding is privileged by the text, what we learn about him, his character and relationships, also the likely narrative arcs.

Genre

Why is genre useful for institutions? (saleability / expectations / familiarity)

Why do audiences like them? (expectations / reassurance / familiarity)

What conventions for each genre? See w/s 3 and 4

Why are hybrid genres popular? (wider audience appeal)

Work through w/s 6

Narrative

Todorov’s narrative theory.

For each genre how do the narratives go? I.e. what is the narrative arc? Watch Dr Who ‘The girl in the fire place’.

Look at narrative construction using w/s 9
Lost – note how starting with Jin gives a particular impression; if it had started with Sun then we’d have a different idea of the story line.

Characters

Research Propp.

List character types in different genres or individual programmes.

Levi Strauss – binary oppositions; list in different genres. w/s 5

W/s 13 look at audience positioning – work through the suggested activity.

Ideology

How do genres uphold dominant ideological views? E.g. crime drama – good vs. bad guys; good guys win; crime gets punished; often poor people associated with being criminals; women as victims; police seen as guardians of the common morality; etc

Watch Ashes to Ashes first episode. Compare with Shameless.

w/s 17 analyse the representation of the police in the two series.

Other genres?

What about social class; family life; women’s roles; sexuality; gender; ethnicity…

Realism

What is realism and how is it constructed? w/s 10 read and discuss.

Watch Casualty – how is realism constructed here? (Already seen Life on Mars)

Discuss Soap opera and realism. Show extract of Hollyoaks or other. To what extent are they ‘real’?

Institution

W/s 14 and look at the current BBC homepage

See w/s 15 read discuss then answer as comprehension.

Research Barb website collect facts and figures for popularity of drama shows and a top ten, citing which channel broadcast on and time. See w/s 16 for example.

Go through TV listings mag and make a note of all crime dramas screened, channel, time and audience.

Look at Saturday night’s schedule. How important is TV Drama in it today? Why? What is it competing with both on and off the TV?

Title sequences

Watch an example and write an analysis: How is the setting or theme of the television drama represented? Timed 30 minutes.

w/s 25 look at and work through Shameless‘s title sequence.

Intertextuality

Using e.g. Dr Who Big Bad Wolf analyse the audience pleasures in the use of intertextuality.

What is the importance, for the BBC, of the series and franchise Dr Who?

Ethnicity

What are the most common groups seen in dramas? Why? Why have the BBC gone for the youngest ever Dr Who?

W/s 22 discuss the representation of Muslims in 24 or Spooks and the view of terrorism.

Sexuality / gender

W/s 12 mind map favourite examples of TV Drama with women in and then analyse the ways that women are represented in them.

Come up with ‘types’. What factors contribute to the representations?

Analyse the representation of women in Dr Who ‘School Reunion‘ see w/s 24

Gay sexuality w/s 26 need Shameless episode 1 series 1?

 

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Teaching TV Drama

  • Fictionalised action in narrative form produced for TV; Diverse sub genres but all TV drama.
  • The link is that the way all use characters to tell a story
  • Controversy is rooted in whether it is high or low culture – the high prestige of the single-authored drama versus supposedly lower prestige of soap operas etc – economic compromise!
  • But different audiences find different values in the dramas they watch!
  • TV drama is vital to attracting large audiences
  • ‘in a digitally converging environment where new platforms are providing new forms such as ‘mobisodes’ and interactive drama and new means of distribution such as downloadable drama, the impact of the genre is se to continue…it is thus important to find out how audiences relate to them and what kind of influence they may have.’
  • How do institutions shape media products? What are the different ways audiences respond?
  • How far does the media influence the way people think and feel?
  • The media deals not with a ‘window on the world’ but is a constructed representation of it.
  • Genre and conventions associated with the different ones. Also hybrid.
    • Repeated motifs.
    • How industry and audience needs are balanced e.g. if audience turns away then it is modified.
    • Flexible and open to change
    • Reinforcing of dominant ideological beliefs = conservative.
    • But can also challenge and raise social issues.
    • Audiences know what to expect and genres became formulas of predictable ingredients which audiences liked.
    • Central purpose of genre is reaching a mass market.
  • Narrative –
    • Fast-paced, elliptical, challenging, series form, flexi narrative approach.
    • Positioning audiences through character and narrative structure.
    • Conveying of ideologies
    • Reinforcing the idea of causal links e.g. crime leads to punishment.
  • Realism
  • Representation e.g. –
    • Gender
    • Ethnicity
    • Age
    • Sexuality
    • Region
  • Institution
  • Audience – readings of text: preferred / dominant / oppositional / negotiated see p 51.
  • Characters – see Vladimir Propp’s character theory – a set of stock characters with some variations
  • Narrative theory see Todorov :– equilibrium –- disruption -– disequilibrium – -resolution –-equilibrium
  • Representational issues – see Levi Strauss’ binary oppositions – the attraction lies in the mythical resolutions which are possible in narratives in the way that they were not in real life.
  • Gender appeal – some dramas appeal to women others to men.
  • Connotations of mise en scene – creating realism also underlines issues of narrative and representation [think of Desperate Housewives]
  • Intertextuality
  • Camera work – TV drama is most associated with establishing shots, shot reverse shot, medium close up and close up for emotional moments. These particular help to tell the story without getting in the way.
  • Sound – diegetic and non-diegetic which helps to punctuate the action and create effects such as suspense or tension and underline emotional moments.