Coursework: Summer Project 2019 1) Research: TV drama trailer analysis

1) Research: TV drama trailer analysis 

TV drama trailer 1: Narrative and genre

How is narrative and genre communicated quickly and clearly to the audience?

You

The main thing about this trailer that is significant for the narrative is the voice-over of the protagonist/ villain as if he’s talking to his love interest. The character puts us inside of his head, the audience knows what he’s thinking all the time and because of that we can clearly see when things are starting to get a little bit out of control. Also the way that the trailer starts with the couple already together in a good, happy relationship, there’re no other characters speaking, the main focus is on the two. Then when his narrative starts to get a little too intense and creepy the music changes and the other characters start to appear and tell their own point of view. There’s definitely a climax at 0:42 when the music drops and we see that their relationship is far from perfect and that the girl has friends that are actually suspicious of her boyfriend, but aren’t perfect themselves. The big part of the story is also the danger of social media and exposing ourselves. This narrative is so good because the writers tried to touch upon the aspect of familiarity and reliability that the audience can feel and because of that, fear the villain even more. There’s also a lot of Hitchcock’s suspense writing in this narrative, the audience get a lot of information that no other character knows about (besides the villain) to build a very effective tension and engagement between the audience and the narrative. 

TV drama trailer 2: Mise-en-scene
What do you notice about the use of mise-en-scene to create meanings for the audience? Think CLAMPS.

Brooklyn 9-9

The trailer starts off very intensively with police cars on the highway, helicopters in the sky, lighting the main characters on a roof of a tower block. The protagonist is wearing a dirty white shirt and the rest of the characters look at him hopefully.

This is the perfect example of over exaggerated crime genre text conventions. The mise-en-scene is a perfect example of what an original, clean crime genre should look like, it’s just a little intensified.

The trailer continues with the hero finding a solution for other characters to get of the roof, which is sliding on the back of the building holding on to a rope, then the protagonist decides to make a dangerous move and jump of the roof to a helicopter.

The video is packed with almost parody of a crime genre, but making sure that the audience gets is by the use of way too much props and adding too much to the mise-en-scene.  It actually works because of the characteristic comedy in the show. That is proven in the next show when all of the over exaggerated setting is gone and we see a poor replica of that scene as Jake, the main character tries to present the ides to the rest of the squad in the ordinary office in Brooklyn. Everyone refuses to do the project and go back to their work.

The mise-en-scene changes so drastically from over-the-top setting to the realistic one. The trailer is important to me in this aspect because I don’t want to get over the top with the trailer.

TV drama trailer 3: Camerawork

Here you are looking for particular camera shots and movement. E.g. Are close-ups used to introduce key characters to the audience? How are establishing shots used?

Euphoria 

The work on the camerawork in this trailer is very significant for me because that's what I want to focus on.

I love how they play with different shots and music to really becomes a part of editing. 

Camerawork is what I want to focus on mostly in my trailer and that video is an amazing representation of the use of cinematography to create a certain mood and understand what the character is thinking about.

In this trailer we can see just how powerful camerawork is in media text.

There’s a lot of camera movements like crane shot or a tracking shot. There’s a lot of slow motion to the camera shots which makes the whole experience a lot more aesthetic and visually appealing. The music as well as the audio is well synchronised with the performance and the camera movement. In one scene we can see the main character tripping and slightly falling on a wall next to her at the same time when the camera spins around so it looks like she’s falling because of the camera movement. That’s also how they make a transition into another shot  which starts with the camera spinning n the same direction so it looks very smooth.

There are also good shots of the protagonist feeling insecure and  scared and we can easily see that by the camerawork.

TV drama trailer 4: Editing

Analyse pace, transitions, number of shots and juxtaposition e.g. eyeline matches. Does the pace speed up towards the end of the trailer? 

Orange Is The New Black 

The trailer starts off with the equilibrium, the main character living her normal, happy life, her talking about showers being her favourite part of the day, then suddenly cutting to her showering in prison as a juxtaposition. There are a lot of cuts between talking characters and the conversations move on pretty quick so the editing runs smoothly throughout the trailer. Also jumps between her life in prison and then her meeting the family. The editing help us understand just from the trailer what the main character is going through. For example in the most important cut at the beginning the scene of her and her husband, happy in the shower contrasts with the scene that it cuts to, not just because of her face expression and environment, but the colours. The scenes are edited to fully contrast with each other, so the tones of the filter used would match her current situation: happy at home – worm, bright, more of an orange undertone, scared in prison – cold, dark with more of a blue undertone. The shots are well combined from the start to the beginning, starting with the action packed sequence at 0:45 mixed with the slow scenes with her friends and family where the pace of the editing matches with the music being cut out. The trailer leans more to the comedy then drama, but the editing of certain scenes as well as the trailer overall:

First 10 -her old life

Next 10 -first experience in prison

0:20-40– her story/how she got there

0:40-52 – the summery of living in a prison

0:52-1:20 – the living in prison

1:20—2:00 – emotional/psychological side of the events

2:00-the end – positive look on the situation

TV drama trailer 5: Sound

Analyse both diegetic and non-diegetic sound - music, dialogue, voiceover, SFX, background or foley sound etc.

Daredevil

The Daredevil is an action crime series that is produced by Marvel Studios so the expectations for the sound in the trailer are based upon Marvel movie trailers. Packed with diegetic and non-diegetic sound, full of action and tension.

The trailer starts off with a very intense voiceover with a familiar line 'when I was a kid..." as well as the steady and still quiet background, allowing the audience to slowly dive into the mood of the trailer and assure them of the action that is yet to come. Then a simple diegetic sound of the villain punching a man and him breathing out with a short narration before that as well as the non-diegetic sound of sounds that build up the tension and introduce the character on the screen as dangerous. 

The trailer goes on with the dramatic music for the build-up that then turns to an actual song as well as the narration as the characters explain the storyline and what is everyone’s goal. The music speeds up as we go to the intense fighting scenes and tones down as the narration combines with the image on the screen to make the words stand out. The diegetic sounds smoothly goes with the beat of the song.  At the end the protagonist had his one last word, saying what is his purpose of doing all this with the music a lot quieter then with the action sequences. 

TV drama trailer 6: Trailer conventions, graphics, text-on-screen etc.
Here you need to explore trailer conventions - what does this trailer have that you've spotted in all the trailers you have analysed so far? Look for things like text on screen, graphics, title, release date, social media links and more.

Elite

The show is good for that convention because it is a Spanish show with English subtitles. It’s also a good representation of ‘cold lighting and warm lighting that I want to do for my trailer. The cinematography is very important for me and this trailer has a great examples of it. I also gained inspiration for my narrative structure from this show, with two different beginnings an flashbacks before the tragic event.

The trailer starts off with the main character in the place of the crime with a cold lighting with blue undertone and talks about the events of death of his friend. Then with the warm lighting there are flashbacks to the times in school. When the music starts to pick up, in between the shots there’re the title with the name of the show slowly appearing from the middle as the intense shots from the show are cut to short parts to create tension. There’s also a sign that says ‘this year’. The whole trailer overall is a great example of a great background music and perfect editing used to create tension and lure audience into watching that show. There’s also a logo of Netflix appearing couple of times just. This is the important reason to have good broadcasters like Netflix, which is itself a  huge promotion of the show considering the popularity of the streaming service.

Statement of Intent

    I’m making a supernatural crime drama trailer that touches upon mental illness called Dissociative Identity Disorder as well as depression and anxiety. The story is about a young woman that struggles with a DID (alter-ego) that turns out to be ‘family inherited’. The story goes on with the protagonist turning into the villain and having blackouts where she commits a crime like stealing or even killing. She finds out about the DID and tries the treatment. Some of the characters in the story struggle with their mental health like depression, neurosis, anxiety or like the main character, more serious mental illness like DID. I would like to create a supernatural crime drama so I’ll need work around the 12A rating that is required for our coursework. I want to create a show that will be divided between realism and the supernatural. What is so unique about this story is that the protagonist and the villain are the same person. Their characters will be binary oppositions like water and fire. 

My narrative is inspired by the show ‘Elite’ and the supernatural part, the atmosphere, from a popular show ‘Stranger Things’ as well as the way that supernatural is normalized from the film ‘About Time’. When it comes to the cinematography, I’d like it to have the visuals of a show called ‘Euphoria’. 

 

  I want to challenge Mulvey's theory of the ‘male gaze’ and have female characters challenge themselves and show the balance between being strong and independent as well as being aware of your body in a way that is not aimed for the ‘male gaze’. I want both characters to learn something from each other and accept their fate. I also want to explore van Zoonen’s theory that nothing had changed over the past 70 years. We still live in a world where women’s bodies are highly sexualized and I want my female characters to challenge that and countries like Poland are the best setting to challenge it. 

 One of my most important aspects of this project is camerawork, lighting and costume as well as other parts of cinematography. I want to create an original media text that will communicate with the audience through visuals and be aesthetically pleasing for the watcher. I want to use a lot of juxtapositions in the mise-en-scene, making sure that the audience member knows what is happening and won’t get confused. I also want to include narration in the form of a diegetic sound, different characters talking to each other, explaining the story in bits, to then have a sequence with just certain diegetic sounds of some of the climax scene. 

  

The show overall would be a combination of other media texts that will reflect the normal life but also make the audience appreciate life and make mundane actions seem out of this world. The show will overall be a lesson for people that don’t appreciate what they have and make the best out of every situation and every person that might stumble upon in your life.