Regional Identity- Doc Martin

Within this extract of Doc Martin, regional identity is presented by the four main areas of filming; Mis-en-scene, camera angles, editing, and the use of sound.

In the first shot we see a low angle sink shot; it’s dark, and dull, with old run down furniture. The camera then pans up the characters, revealing themselves; the plumber, the son, and Doc Martin. Instantly we see that the composition is a '3 shot', and the doctor is towering over the other characters showing higher authority and has a shallow focus on the doctor. Although the Doctor is higher in authority anyway, it really accentuates this, and makes it more prominent. The big plumber is also slightly higher in position to his son.

 With the lighting Doc martin is slightly lit with the natural lighting peeping through the curtains. The diegetic sound reveals that the characters are not equal by their accents. The plumbers are strong Somerset accents, whereas the doctor has Standard English, and is spoken with diction. The scene is extremely long, and doesn’t cut until 21 seconds. This portrays that the conversation is dragging, and droning on, and is boring.

In the next shot, the plumbers son says ‘unless it came from the old asylum in town or it could be a literary reference’  this changes the way we perceived this character, he is well educated but then his father brings him down by saying ‘what are you on about boy?’ It’s condescending and patronising, therefore brings the education barrier down, and makes him look a fool.

When the plumber tweaks the wrong part on the sink the water starts to gush out. After this incident happened, the cuts are faster and the pace becomes quicker because of the straight cuts.
The scene becomes complicated and there are many distractions, with the digetic sounds of water, the Doctor swearing, the phone ringing and shouting. A strike of panic waves across the scene.