Questionnaire

1. What type of music do you expect to hear in a short opening scene of a crime drama?___________

2. When you think of a crime drama what are the first few characters that come into your mind straight away?_______________

3. If you were to make a crime drama, what would you call it?__________________

4. What location do you think is a good place to film a crime drama and why?______________

5. When you are watching a drama what are the main conventions that you look for in a crime drama before deciding what genre it belongs to?_______________

6. Before you start watching a crime drama what do you expect to see?__________________

Homework-Analysis on two Crime Dramas

The Wire

Representation

• The roles of men and women are not equally portrayed in the drama as nearly all of the characters in the drama were men.
• However, as the clip was going on we begin to see a difference in how men and woman are being represented. Near the mid stage of the drama we see a woman who becomes in charge of the investigation which shows a change in atmosphere within the drama.
• The drama is quite stereotypical in the way that it portrays black people. The people that can be seen in the gang are mostly black this shows black people in a negative way as they in the gangs.
• The part of America that is portrayed in the drama makes America look very rough and a run down area.
• Within the drama I got a sense that gang violence is something that is seen as normal and not such of a big deal as the people that live their see violence often and don't take it with such surprise.

Mise-en-Scene

Figure Expression

• The expression that is on the bodies of the gang members are of one that shows that they don't really care and gives me a sense of that they don't really care what they are doing even if they are doing something wrong.
• The officers in The Wire are really dedicated to their job as they stay professional at most times except a couple of times when they have a joke around.

Costume

• Police uniforms
• Suits and smart clothing for the all the important characters like the people that are in charge of the investigation.
• The gang members that are in this drama wear hoodies and tracksuit bottoms, this also maybe a convention of gangs and how they dress.
• The colour scheme in this drama are quite dull as the officers wear dull colours because of their profession were as the gang members also wear colours like grey and black this maybe because of how they portray themselves in the neighbourhood.

Props

• Guns
• Cigarettes
• Walkie talkie
• Mobile phone
• evidence of the investigation

Lighting

• The lighting in the drama is bright and sunny, this shows that the investigations and the violence is taking part during the day, whereas in normal crime dramas most violence takes place in the dark.

Setting

• The interview room- They are interviewing the suspect
• The roads were the crimes are taking place- so the crime scenes.
• There are alot of shot reverse shots used this makes it look like there are alot of scene changes.
• The police headquarters- were they are looking at all of the evidence that they have collected.

Genre conventions that are used in this crime drama are;

• Police
• suspects
• DSI's
• Gangs
• Violence
• Court

Analysis of a crime drama-

The shield

Narrative

• At the beginning we see some police officers who are talking to some suspects who are not responding how they want them to and are finding it challenging to get anything out of the suspects.

• Seeing all of this the officer decides that the only way through is to turn violent towards the suspect in the questioning room in return for some information that will help them in the investigation.

• After seeing all of this a woman police officer decides that she can do something about this matter and steps in.

Representation of Gender

• Woman’s role is seen less important in society and not really looked upon as people are not really valuing what the women have to say in society.
• However, DSI Tennison tries to change these passive female gender expectations by showing her dominance within the workplace and interview room by bossing people around and telling them what they should and should not do.
• Some gender stereotypes are broken in this crime drama. An example of this is when we can see the crying in the male suspects which is not really something that we often see in dramas and is normally that the females are shown in this way as being really emotional.
• DSI Tennison is shown as a strong minded and opinionated woman. She uses her femininity to get important information out of the suspects something which the other officers were incapable of doing as they didn’t really think about the emotional side of a person.

The Shield;

Mise-en-Scene:

Setting:

• In the office
• Interview room
• Police station
• Police chase
• Outdoors

Genre Conventions

• Police officers
• Violence
• Suspects
• Victim
• Police station

Props:

• Mobile
• Police badges
• Guns
• Computers

Sound:

• Shot-reverse-shot music
• Tensed music in between scenes
• Gun shots

Camera:

• Zoom into suspects face- to see emotions on the face
• Crab from left to right, when showing police officers panicking to show their face expressions
• Point of view shots to show shots from a particular characters P.O.V so that it makes people see what the actual character is seeing so that we can relate with what they are seeing.

Editing:

• Credits
• Music
• Blank transition
• Gunshots sounds
• Effects
• Shot-reverse-shot

Step outline of our crime drama opening scene

We start of at filming 360 degrees pan of lonely woodland (show credits)

[Cut to]

Police officer is talking on his walkie talkie.

[Cut to]

Low angel of body (crime scene) with inspector in the background, we could see the crime investigation tape.

[Cut to]

Zoom in to the victim’s body and a XCU into the victim’s hand (blood)

[Cut to]

Blackout into flashback

[Cut to]

Victim is running she is trying to escape from the criminal. (We see this from the criminal’s point of view)

[Cut to]

Victim falls over a stone/branch.

[Cut to]

Blackout/blurred vision

(Sound effect of victim being stabbed)... (Scuffling of leaves)... (Hand held camera)

[Screaming sound of the girl, transition dissolves to zoom out of the hand still showing the blood]

[Cut to]

Pathologists arrive on the crime scene

[Shot reverse shot of pathologist to victim’s body]

Pathologist examining footprints and picking up key evidence and putting them into the bags

[Cut to]

Killer lurking in the background he is looking through branches at the crime scene.

[Rustling of the leaves]

Police hear the rustling. (They all look back to where the voice came from)

[Cut to]

Pathologist picks up key evidence and puts it in his pocket.