Analyse the way TV dramas are established in the opening 5 minutes, identify how conventions are used?
The three TV dramas I am going to analyse and compare for the purpose of this essay are; Eastenders, Waterloo road and Merlin. All three TV dramas are different but also alike in a number of ways.
Eastenders is more of a reality TV drama where conventions are heavily used, as it is shown on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and there is an Omnibus on Sundays. This makes the TV drama more of a part of the viewers life, as it is on most days. The opening of Eastenders has now become more symbolic as it is unique and once again a part of the viewers life. The opening 5 minutes is more or less an equilibrium of the last episode or 'the morning after', as we see in the first 5 minutes of this episode, carol has lost her son Billy, and its 'the morning after' the only sound is diegetic and it is of people outside in the square. There are faster cuts as the camera moves to her face. The scene then changes to a family breakfast scene where the atmosphere is more lively and loud, the diegetic sounds include radio, chatter and dishes being washed. As you can see Eastenders has no non-diegetic sounds during the scenes, the only diegetic sound is the theme tune at the beginning.
Compared to Waterloo road which has more non-diegetic sounds throughout, this is due to the target audience as it is aimed more at youth, the conventions are becoming more powerful as Waterloo road has only just in the past years been shown. Before the opening Waterloo road shows the previous episodes scenes as the convention are weak, this helps the viewer to regain the equilibrium of the last episode. The first scene after the opening is another family breakfast scene, but it is more of a disfunctional family with faster camera movements which connotes this. Non-diegetic music is used as students pour into the school, and the school is downhill from the gate which connotes a negative atmosphere of the school. The shot of the father, daughter and son walking into the school is a slow tracking shot which also connotes a lazy slow personality to the people. Waterloo road uses a lot of connotations in it's production.
Compared to Merlin which uses mostly dennotations, Merlin is a high budget series, as you can tell due to the grapohics ursed in the opening and throughout the episodes. The non-diegetic sounds are voice overs and music in the opening, but during the episode there is no non-diegetic sound apart from music. The opening scene is Merlin and Arthur running through a forest being chased by men with weapons, the weapons, non-diegetic music and camera movement anchor the idea of them being chased as the music is up- beat and the camera mnovement is fast along with the cuts.
Eastenders is more of a reality TV drama where conventions are heavily used, as it is shown on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and there is an Omnibus on Sundays. This makes the TV drama more of a part of the viewers life, as it is on most days. The opening of Eastenders has now become more symbolic as it is unique and once again a part of the viewers life. The opening 5 minutes is more or less an equilibrium of the last episode or 'the morning after', as we see in the first 5 minutes of this episode, carol has lost her son Billy, and its 'the morning after' the only sound is diegetic and it is of people outside in the square. There are faster cuts as the camera moves to her face. The scene then changes to a family breakfast scene where the atmosphere is more lively and loud, the diegetic sounds include radio, chatter and dishes being washed. As you can see Eastenders has no non-diegetic sounds during the scenes, the only diegetic sound is the theme tune at the beginning.
Compared to Waterloo road which has more non-diegetic sounds throughout, this is due to the target audience as it is aimed more at youth, the conventions are becoming more powerful as Waterloo road has only just in the past years been shown. Before the opening Waterloo road shows the previous episodes scenes as the convention are weak, this helps the viewer to regain the equilibrium of the last episode. The first scene after the opening is another family breakfast scene, but it is more of a disfunctional family with faster camera movements which connotes this. Non-diegetic music is used as students pour into the school, and the school is downhill from the gate which connotes a negative atmosphere of the school. The shot of the father, daughter and son walking into the school is a slow tracking shot which also connotes a lazy slow personality to the people. Waterloo road uses a lot of connotations in it's production.
Compared to Merlin which uses mostly dennotations, Merlin is a high budget series, as you can tell due to the grapohics ursed in the opening and throughout the episodes. The non-diegetic sounds are voice overs and music in the opening, but during the episode there is no non-diegetic sound apart from music. The opening scene is Merlin and Arthur running through a forest being chased by men with weapons, the weapons, non-diegetic music and camera movement anchor the idea of them being chased as the music is up- beat and the camera mnovement is fast along with the cuts.
No comments:
Post a Comment