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