Monday, 29 December 2008

TV Drama Updates; Britannia High

I watched the season finale of Britannia High and in the process i had to recollect this information:

Scheduling information

  • Time- 7:00 pm
  • Date- every Sundays
  • Audience- young teenagers and family as it is broadcasted during prime time tv hours. Also, it is targeted as family as it brings the sense of happiness.
Brief summary of the storyline

Its the end of year showcase and all the students are being faced with a distraction, Danny has a dilema of choosing one girl he reallly loves, between Lauren and Claudine. Whilst all this is occuring, Lauren gets her results from her hospital telling her whether or not she has a disease that might end her career as a dancer. Steph on the other hand, is back taking Lola by surprise and on top asks her to come away with him.

Groups, events, indidivudals, places that are represented and how the representation is conveyed

  • Groups??
  • Events??
  • Individuals- Each character has their own representation e.g. Danny, one of the students, is represented as a 'ladies man'. This is reinforced through using cheeky comments such as, "Which one is the fittest?" in his speech. In this particular episode, he is foregrounded as a jerk by showing a two shot of him having a conversation with Lauren about how she is the chosen one to be his girlfriend and when she rejects him, the same shot is used showing him saying the exact same words on Claudine. This helps him relate to the audience of young teenagers as they might be in the same situations and it sort of gives them advise on how not to deal with situations such as that or related to that.
Claudine is one of the main characters. Through the perfomance of her and Lauren whereby she was dressed in black representing evil and mean in comparison to Lauren who was wearing white which connotates saint and peace, the audience recognise her as a the jeaolus character. Also props are used in addition of her representation; black bob hairstyle. Close up shots of her frawning when looking at her enemy, Lauren also reinforces her representation.

  • Location- The city, London is represented in various ways. In the opening sequence, we see the London tubes, London bus stops signs on them for the audience to emmidiately identify the setting. During the episodes, they also show glimpse of The London Eye and the Swiss Re, one of the most famous London landmarks.

Examples of binary opposition

  • Good and evil
  • Boys and girls

Intended overall message

To forget about the past and the problems surrounding it and move on, look forward to the future. It is easy since we are all friends which makes the drama believe in Todorov's theory which illustrates that at the begginning is in a state of equllibrium, a distraction occures caused by an event, the distarction is notcied therefore is is dealt with and everything goes back in order but with different establishments.

Any alternative readings?

Yes, the way in which teenagers are represented. Ofcourse there are recognisions of the main ideology of how teenagers are e.g. not able to make up their mind therefore doing silly things in the process but Britannia High represents teenagers as determined, very positive and very focused towards their future. This makes Britannia High seen as a drama that, subversives the genre as the other dramas e.g. Skins and Hollyoaks represents them very negatively,in such an open sexual manner, lost, wild, drunk addicts and junkies which is compeletely different with Britannia High.

Friday, 12 December 2008

Welcome to my AS Media Studies blog!

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am an AS student and currently studying Media Studies. As part of my course, we are focused on British TV Dramas and delving deeper in their categories and the differences between them; one off (Tess of the D,Urbevilles), series (Britannia High) and serial (Hollyoaks) dramas, further, their codes and conventions. Moreover into the dramas, we are recognising the diffferent genres as well as how camera work, mis-en-scene and setting helps to identify the types of genres.

We have just recently started studying binary oppositions and ideology, a bit confusing but interesting when it comes to talking about gender and how its represented in TV Dramas.

Hope you enjoy reading further on my blog!