The Kings Speech on Prezi

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.  

Prometheus Prezi

Prometheus on Prezi

Hustle-Gender Essay

In an extract of the TV drama Hustle, gender is presented in different ways with stereotypes. In TV dramas stereotypically we expect females to be hardworking, likes shopping, perfect, make-up, clean and classy. The males tend to act like the alpha male, strong, have high paid jobs, and into football and rugby. There are six characters that I am going to analyse and feed back on their behaviour and appearance and whether I think it will fit in with the stereotypical type of male and female.

The shop we first see is obviously designer, as we can tell that there are not many items and looks really well made dresses. Therefore we expect the type of customer to be a rich, classy female who knows what they want in life. Whereas in the men’s club we expect to see the men laughing, drinking, smoking and joking.

 

The first scene is in the designer clothing store, with back lighting, cream shades and chic dresses, then the camera pans onto an older lady who seems to look out of place with grey hair, piled up messily. She pulls out a dress which is out of her price range. The shop assistant is extremely condescending towards her, and only gets on with rich people, therefore wants this lady out of his shop as soon as possible.

 Once the older lady scurries out, the camera immediately goes to the other lady in shop, called Sarah, who is part of the scandal which is about to take place. The camera starts on her ring, a huge diamond wedding ring. This portrays wealth, and the shop assistant skips over to her almost as if he is excited.

 

The next scene is presented with a ‘wipe’ editing technique, and the sound effects to go with it. This links to the idea that she is in a changing room. The shot is over the shoulder and mirrored so that the audience can see the back of the dress with the crystals and the reaction that the dress provides. I noticed that there was a slight drum roll after the shop assistant reveals the price, as to whether she was going to buy the dress or not.

On the other hand we are introduced to some more characters, which are in a different setting, of a men’s club with no females. The surroundings are darker in colours, there is smoking and drinking occurring and it isn’t very well lit. We see an older American man who would be stereotypically be classed as ‘posh’ as he was dressed well, with a silk handkerchief in his pocket. We later on realise that the well dressed man is trying to con the other man, who is dressed in all black, and looks too scruffy to be in the men’s club. The American man is getting the scruffy man drunk in order for the con to take place smoothly.

 

The scene is swiftly changed by another ‘wipe’ edit, this time with a non-diegetic sound of a zip, which goes back to the designer store. The camera then focusing on the woman’s bag. The camera quality seems to have changed to a hand held camera, as it seems shifty and jerky, which portrays panic, and moves around with Sarah round the shop. The lady is screaming and is hysterical which represents a ‘typical female’. ‘My husband will kill me’, this implies that the ring is extremely expensive and is the end of the world to this woman. She is playing the role as a typical ditzy, female blonde. Within this scene Sarah breaks the 4^th wall, by quickly giving eye contact to the audience (camera). This then engages and involves the audience to be part of the chaos that is occurring.

Yet again another wipe edit is used, to swiftly move on to the next scene. This time we see the shop assistant on his hands and knees attempting to look for the expensive ring. The con man then enters the room, like with Sarah and her ring, focusing on one feature on the person, the conman is first seen with a zoomed in close up of his shoes, which look like they are designer and strikes him as being wealthy. There is then a slow pan up his body, with a low angle shot making him look higher in authority and the shop assistant looking vulnerable whilst scrambling to find the ring. Although the conman is dressed well, his accent is cockney which brings his status down, he is not a typical ‘business man’, as he is chewing gum, scratches his nose, and uses the term ‘bird’, for his wife. Although he is extremely streetwise and knows what he is doing and wants. He too breaks the 4^th wall, by giving eye contact to the audience.

 

Prometheus Marketing

Ford (AS) Media: Prometheus Marketing: Click on the image above to go to the Forbes article on the marketing of Prometheus.

Ford (AS) Media: Prometheus Marketing 2

Ford (AS) Media: Prometheus Marketing 2: Click the image above for another site on the marketing of Prometheus.

How is DISABILITY represented in the clip from 'A Touch of Frost'?

Whenever there is a disabled actor on television, us as an audience reacts in different ways. Some could feel uncomfortable watching them, some may not be fazed by the disability and some may feel sorrow for them. The audience are affected in different ways, usually based on the severity of the disability. Using a disabled actor can create a really powerful atmosphere within the TV Drama.

I am analysing the TV drama, ‘A touch Of Frost’, the character in this extract is Billy, who has Down syndrome. As we can see in the clip, police are looking for a girl named Trisha, and they believe that Billy may have something, or knows something about what has happened to the girl.

We first see Billy in the woods, he is quite muddy and has a few grazes and cuts which look fresh. In the background we see dark forests, but the main focus is on Billy as he is very well lit. We hear contrapuntal sound, as we see that Billy is disabled, so our first instinct is that he is innocent and wouldn’t cause any problems, and because of the lighting he seems innocent and maybe having a casual stroll through the woods, but we hear non-diegetic sound of creepy, and quite scary, ominous music. This makes the audience query on what has just happened to Billy and why he is so lit up.

The next scene is the inspector and Billy’s father talking in the hallway they are speaking in hush toned voices, and with a high angle shot, the camera looks shifty, as if the audience are eaves dropping into the conversation. The inspector says that Billy is ‘Mentally Subnormal’ which nowadays would be a derogatory term, but his father corrects the inspector and says that he is ‘handicapped’ which in my opinion is still offensive. Billy is treated as abnormal and therefore he is treated like a five year old. The inspector wants Billy’s father to come into the room with him, in case Frost does anything wrong or as he said ‘break any rules’. This scene is quite intense as it portrays innocence on Billy but also shows that he has no authority or power to have a say in this case.

When Frost enters the room he is shadowed, and Billy is still well lit, like the woods scene. This could suggest that Frost is a bad and evil character who is quite mysterious. Whereas Billy looks angelic and quite yellow lit, with strikes of innocence again, with the prominent cuts and grazes to his face.
Billy’s father is sat behind him, like he is protecting Billy, But Billy is still sat lower than the others. This gives the impression that he is vulnerable, and that he is in the wrong.

In addition to the high angle shot, Frost looks down on Billy. He starts talking to Billy in a condescending and patronising way implying that Billy is an outsider and almost seems pitied by him. Billy pleads his innocence, but Frost becomes frustrated that Billy isn’t listening to him and not participating with any of the questions and shows all the signs of his mood, such as raised eyebrows and deep sighs.

The editing is different to some other TV dramas, as this one isn’t fast pace, and made out of jump shots, but of quite a slow pace, which creates even more tension, and is more effective than jump shots. It leaves the audience longer to think about what has happened and to really sink in Billy’s character.

Overall the audience feels a slight confusion towards the situation as some may think Billy is innocent because of his disability but some could feel that he is guilty because of the mysteriousness that is occurring and the secretiveness.