Questions posed in tv drama presentations 23/11/2009

Group 1- The OC:

In what ways the mood of the scene created?

mise en scene

Dark,low key lighting creating very pronounces shadows on their faces,"grimy" setting of the street and natural clothing creates a sad but realistic mood to the performance.

camera work

very focused on their faces, the use silhouettes when the man is carrying Marisa away from the scene of the car on fire, its very james bond style. Often the camera looks down on Marisa as if it were the view of the man, however we can see the side of his face, again when the camera is focussing on the man its as if it's from Marisa's perspective.

sound

soothing, low, quiet music, gentle humming to create the mood. a man is singing a sad song with no music, negative. Very heavy loud breathing. Fading in and out of music to change the mood from negative to positive back to negative. The chosen song hallelujah is very sad in itself and very emotional. The lyrics are very moving. It's slightly bought back to reality by the background noises of the crickets. When she actual dies it's silent however then the music comes back in, giving it a kind of eery feel. Good use of diagetic music(sound outside of the context, adding to atmosphere)

editing

Chopping of scenes, blurring between scenes to show two places at once, representing memories.

The over all elements of the scene create a very depressing, emotional and upsetting, this is a natural reaction to a death. The music however I feel creates most of the mood.

Group 2- Waterloo Road:

What does this extract show about the attitudes towards teens?

The extract portrays a very "typical teenager" situation, there are quite a few noticeable themes, relationships when one of the girls is referred to as slaggy, another is rivalry, they are both of two sides. The two groups are either in red or blue, the red could represent anger and the blue the coolness of the other group. The music in the piece is very modern and quite upbeat to fit with the scene. Its a representation of what older people generally think about younger people. The "cat fight" is quite common in TV drama's, however not actually that realistic. The interveening adult, who in the case the teacher is always there to sort out the situations. The costumes of the three separate group of people helps to segregate them. I personally feel that this isn't a very accurate portrayal of teenagers in today society, we don't have such extreme groups and such segregation of "classes"