Television-Drama

Research and Analyse of Drama Programmes

Typical examples

• causality

• Eastenders

• Doctor Who

• Happy Valley

• The bill

• Call the midwife 

• coronation street

• Luther

• Emmerdale

• Holby City

Format

Each show runs in a series with episodes lasting about 45 mins and having from 13 to 20+ episodes each series.Adding a new episode once a week in some cases, others do thing like Christmas specials, e.g doctor who who adds one hour long episode at christmas. The start of a new episode will always recap the last few episodes before so the audience can catch up on anything they missed or to re-cap as the episodes are a week or longer apart. In every episode there is always a problem that the main characters will need to solve, the problem is always solved in one episode and a new one arrises in the newest episode.

Appeals
The appeals of the genre are mystery as every time a new episode is released is a follow on from the one before. The episode before the newest one is always left as a cliff hanger giving hints as to what could be the plot line in the next one. One of the main reason for why the audience may watch these types of programmes would be to gain entertainment/ escapism purposes. As a form of escape from everyday pressures and a source of entertainment.

Target Audience
There are many different audience types for this type of television genre. The drama programs will normally entice a certain audience type, which would be the explorer. As they are often the first to try something new out ideas or experiences. They respond to brands that offer new sensations, indulgence and instance effects. The seek out the difference in society, new shows, new ideas and new ways of entertainment, their core need in life is discovery. This also means that they would fit in to the self actualisation section in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Meaning their sole purpose would be to find new discoveries and to find enlightenment.

opening sequence
The Doctor Who series 8 opening sequence that is shown at the top on the page doesn't exactly who a certain setting but we see an object falling or flying passed clocks and roman numbers. When the opening sequences starts the camera shows different size clocks around the out side of the framing. All the cogs interlock and all are ticking while the camera moves through the scene. 7 seconds into the opening sequence we see a bright orange light, once that light dies down we see a spiral of roman numbers spinning with he Tardis flying out of the centre. The opening sequence doesn't really tells us much about the show but it does gives us hint, the clocks that are present throughout the sequence tells us that the show revolves around time,past, present and future.

Setting
For shows like Causality, The Bill and Holby City all have similar settings. Which would be a small village or city. In which the main characters all live and work, their everyday lives revolve around all the problems and issues that happens in the town. Eastenders and Emmerdale  also take place in towns but they are a lot small, where everyone knows each others problems. Call the midwife is a British drama series which follows around a group of nurse midwives working in he set end of London in the late 1950's, early 1960's.
























Technical codes
Different camera shots are always used in all of theses different shows. Close ups are used to show how the characters are feeling, we see all the raw emotion on their face. Medium/ long shots are used to establish the setting for background of the scene. They can also be used to shows who else is in the shot with a character. Fast pace editing used in the opening sequences of drama shots to show short clips of the problems that happened in the episode before the newest one. Slow pace editing it also sometimes used when a problem is about to unfold e.g. a car crash, when are person is confessing to a problem or when a character dies. Music is always used in more dramatic shots that keeps the audience eon the edge of their seats. Loud and fast music can be heard when we know some thing bad is about to happen and soft quiet music will be heard when a touching moment happened, between close friend, family or main characters.

Characters and representations

• The bad boy
• The quite girl
• The trouble maker
• The mean girl
• Innocent child
• The helper
• The villain
• The heart breaker 
• Loyal friend 

These are they types of representation, characters and stereotypes that are normally found in drama programs.

Narrative

For each episode the problem that occurs is always solved in that one episode and a new one will occur in the next episode. Problems that happen in these types of programs will not normally happen in day to day live. Problems that do happen in these types of programs , will not normally happen in day to day life as they have been largely exaggerated, for the purpose of entertainment for the audience. In drama series family is always valued, telling us that in every day life we should also spend tim with family and enjoy the time that we do have with our family. Also relationships are seem to be important in drama programs, suggesting that in everyday life we, the audience, should also value relationships.