Thursday 10 September 2009

Dexter essay

Dexter Essay

In this essay I will be Analysing a television drama title sequence of your choice to discover how it communicates meaning about Genre, Character, Narrative and Style to the audience. You may wish to consider: Cinematography Sound Mise-en-scene Editing.

The cinematography in the title sequence starts with focus on a mosquito and shows us that the main character kills it. This automatically indicates violence on this drama After Dexter squashes the mosquito the camera focus’s on Dexter face and you clearly see a smile, this indicates Dexter has no guilt for killing anything. Within the title sequence we seen Dexter cleaning up after he’s breakfast and we experience some close-ups on the meats blood and also preparing breakfast for example the cutting of an orange and cooking sizzling steak, It looks similar to human blood which again indicates death. At the end of the title sequence Dexter locks the door and it looks like he is withdrawing a knife from within piercing skin This is another example of violence and death.

The sound plays a major part in the title sequence because it freaks us out and makes us imagine scary things, a fine example of this is the way blood drips when Dexter is shaving this informs us that there is scary and maybe gory scenes within this series. Dexter also flosses in the title sequence and we get the noise of a squeaky scratching sound which is highly scary and freaky. The sounds of preparation for breakfast also play a huge part because we can relate it to death, For example the sound of cutting orange sounds like somebody piercing skin. Also Dexter eats some steak and the way he eats it is very crunchy and it gives us a image of cannibalism.

The mise en scene many things creepy for example blood, fruit and other red liquids relate to blood, The facial expressions that Dexter uses are very creepy and disturbing. When Dexter is within the house he looks very scary but when he leaves the house its like all he’s evil is lifted from within him. He then leaves the house and looks like an angel. Its like he’s living two different lives, And when he walks off of he’s porch he looks and smiles at the camera as if he knows its there.

The editing is very scary and bloody, for example the title Dexter is writing in blood. The editor jumps cuts from him waking up and him shaving it then goes to him cooking breakfast. This saves time but also shows us he’s daily routine and informs us about the character Dexter.

As a conclusion all these effects and techniques like mise en scene, editing cinematography are all used to enlighten us and show us that the series is exciting and contains bloody images.

By Jack Healy

Dexter Notes

Cinematography:
Start- focus on mosquito. kills it. camera refocuses on to dexters face (smile).
Extreme close-ups - e.g. cleaning blood,cooking,cutting orange shows intimate detail
Close up on face before leaving house
Mysterious, only see his face clearly at end
dark side

Sound:
Foley track (emphasises sound) digetic sound
- blood dripping
- flossing
- pulling key out
- cooking
- slicing orange
- killing the fly
- eating
- shaving
Non-digetic sound
- creepy music
- jolly/fairground
- ticking
- casual/jaunty
- click at the end
- music fades away when he gets outside (matches his facial expression)

Mise-en-scene
blood, fruit and other red liquids murder
cloths white t-shirt (normality) suggest smuthering
Facial expression creepy and seems like a syco, but is the opposite when he leaves his house
props the way he shaves shows the first sign of blood.Normal morning- Breakfast, flossing, shaving etc.

Editing
Dexter is written in blood
Jump cuts : him waking up and him shaving, the blood drips in the sink and him wipeing the blood slithering down his neck, him wipeing his neck and him cutting open the meat, him putting the meat in the pan and him stabbin and twisting it, he then puts the meat into his mouth and begins chewing it, also the eggs he breaks the eggs and then stabs it it in the pn and twists it like painful stab wound.
The part where he locks his apartment and walks away locking away h

Friday 5 June 2009

Detention

Our title sequence and film description

Characters=

-bill=Strong sense of humor
-Terry=Strong minded
-keith=Fast worker and huge knowledge
-dave=Very serious about life
-steve=very quiet and shy

Storyline-

In the series of detention it is based upon a group of friends who go to school together and abserlutly hate school, but they sooner realise its not just them who hate school its the teachers aswell. The group of friends (see above) slowly but surely realise that their friends go missing but they start to find accessories of their friends in their school canteen. The group of friends slowly but surely notice theyre teachers are getting paranoid and aggressive so the group of friends start to spy on their teachers out and inside of school. After following them for some time the school children see their teachers asking their friends to stay behind after school but their friends dont go out of detention, Well not in one peice.

The target audiance is for 12-18 year olds and it is on at 9:00 on bbc one every friday night.
The reason it is on so late it because there is alot of blood and guts within this series that would effect the timid minds of young children.

The reason detention appeals to children is because every child goes to school and every child at one point of their educational life wants to kill their teachers

Friday 1 May 2009

1/5/09 Media Classwork Homework.

Textual Analusis - Moving image texts.
Starter: Make a list of all the different things that can be represented in televison drama. For example:
*Gender
*Race
*Regionality
*Sexuality
*Class
*Age
*Nationality
*Religion
*Culture
Task 2: What do the images on the board represent . E.g What do they want you to describe these people as, what do these images show? (See Board Source).
*Fat
*Skinny
*Spotty
*Slag
*Chav
*Pikey
*Teenage pregnany
*Troublesome
*Premiscuous
*Fratanising
*Bitch
*Rude
*Stroppey
In what way are teenagers represented in this trailer? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuzUrNdpk9w)
*Drunk
*Agressive
*Sexual
*Druggies
*Violence
*Out-going
*Rough
*Hyper
How are these representations constructed?
Music > Loud > Fast > Paced
Setting > Pub
Do you think the representations are realistic? Are they stereotypical? Are they positive or negative.
Like most stereotypes these images are pretty violent and sexual , now every place you go every culture every race even every gender there will be a vast majority of those who will break the rules and not do as theyre supposed to but thats life. This trailer is pretty over exadurated but then also pretty realistic when you think about the rough areas of the world.
Jack Healy :D

Thursday 30 April 2009