Police Drama Conventions
Audience Expectations - Entertainment,
Narrative Ideas - Police catch criminals, good vs evil
Characters - Good cop, bad cop, criminals
Locations - Police station
Representations -
Values - Good vs Bad
Props - Guns, handcuffs,
Why is a scene depicted from one person's point of view and not the other?
The attraction to audience (Blumer and Katz) of police crime stories is that they pose questions that the audience demand answers to; hence they have a built-in enigma (a question that the audience want answers to that drives the narrative of every story).
Title sequences and opening credits are very important in establishing audience ideas as to what a programme is about. Music, graphics and the content of opening credits all help the audience in terms of getting into the right frame of mind for watching a programme. For a romantic serial drama, we might want to induce a mellow mood; for a detective serial drama, we might want to create a mood of excitement or a mood of peril and threat - and the opening credits are key in shaping this in the audience mind and attracting that audience viewer base.
Opening credits are usually a few bars louder than the rest of the episode to grab your attention.
Think of any show that you regularly watch and how the credits are a signal to you not only that the programme is starting but also in setting the mood and how the music and images construct a sense of the pleasures the product offers to an audience and reminding regular watchers of these.
THEORY REVIEW: BLUMLER AND KATZ - theorists from the 1970s researched how audiences consume a media product with the aim of getting a particular pleasure from the product. They identified 4 pleasures: Entertainment, Surveillance, Self-identity, and Social identity.
What do the opening scene and credits suggest/tell us about the genre, narrative and characters? What would the audience expect from this series?
- Music is quite quick and upbeat, doesn't follow conventions, edgy, going for younger target audience
- Split screen, dodgy graffiti in the bottom right and police in top left, this is a show mostly from the pov of police
- Colours are very bright, don't follow conventions
The opening sequence for Cuffs actually breaks a lot of genre conventions, implying that this crime drama is different from any others. The non-diegetic background music is very upbeat and a bright yellow was the main colour present, breaking genre conventions to most likely attract a younger target audience
How has sound been used to create meaning?
The extract opens with the diegetic sounds of seagulls and heavy, dramatic non-diegetic music, immediately implying that this scene takes place at a beach and that something serious is happening. As the sequence continues, the narrative is developed through the diegetic sounds of a police radio and sirens, further implying the serious situation that's happening.
You have spent too long on your notes and not left enough time for the practice questions. Overall, your writing style is L7-L9 but your practice question grades do not reflect this as you have not written enough/developed enough points to get 100% (which is what you are capable of).
ReplyDeleteOpening Question: 2/5 TARGETS:
- Develop your points further and make sure you make five points.
Sound Question: 1/5 good use of terminology BUT this answer is largely descriptive and does not link to the question. TARGETS:
- Talk about more sound examples.
- Explain how your chosen examples connote the genre, progress the narrative and attract the audience.