Statement of Intent

Statement of Intent

From the brief, I have taken into consideration that I will be producing a Crime/family drama which will have many typical TV conventions to represent crime TV show drama.

The Trailer will consist of diegetic sound being the dialogue and non-diegetic showcasing a soundtrack of a slow melody in the beginning to compliment the narrative. The soundtrack may overlap some dialogues however; it will shift from parallel to contrapuntal sound as the trailer picks up some pace due to the fight scenes that will be shown.  As for cinematography, many of shots will be transitioning between close up to long shots since the trailer is going to pick up pace during half way through the trailer. Furthermore, over the shoulder shot will be essential in this trailer as there are scenes where two characters are having a conversation. This will be enhanced by a 180 degrees shot and many pan shots transitioning between two characters. Likewise with the print front cover of my magazine, I will be using a combination of close up and medium close ups to really express the actors’ and director’s emotions which correspond to the genre of my TV show.   During a fight scene, there will be shots less than 1 minute in a sequence to really increase the tension of the scene. This will enhance the fight scene overall and create many actions codes for the audience. Moving on to the editing section for this TV show, I will be including a lot of jump cuts and complex match on actions to increase the pace of the trailer and imply to the audience that there is a lot of intense scenes.

As for my print magazines, there will be a lot of references to youth background for the audience to relate to or in fact, be motivated by these young successful role models.  In my print magazines, I have deliberately used dark lighting and colours as my back ground to reflect on the issues such as violence and crime that youth face. The back ground of my content page and front cover also corresponds to the crime genre of TV show as it connotes mystery and ambiguity. Furthermore, the double spread gives an insight of the idea behind my TV show and encourages young audiences to feel optimistic towards their goal. 

Focusing on the Description, the Title for this crime drama is called Sightless. The Tagline that will be linked to the title is 'Necessity is blind until becomes conscious'. Every season includes 8 episodes but the narrative continues from one season to another. Whereas for my print magazine, the front cover will be called Epothy and the caption, relating to my culture magazine, is ‘Celebrate culture, be culture. Blumler and Katz theory on user and Gratification can be applied to this TV show since many of the audience can form personal relationships with the characters; creates emotional attachments with the protagonist due to him being very brave.

Additionally, the female characters that are in my TV Show subvert female stereotypes due to the female character being the villain of the show. This reinforces Van Zoonen's theory on the fourth wave feminism as the females are viewed as brave and empowered. In contrast, Male stereotypes are reinforced due the hero being a male actor and are portrayed as a robust and fearful in the trailer. However, it does reinforce Bell hooks theory on 'toxic masculinity' and 'normalised traumatisation' since men are vulnerable to the female gaze and are represented the same as they are in today's society. Men are objectified as Jack Daniels is manipulated to run a fake case.  The TV show also reinforces Judith Butlers theory since female characters in this show play male characteristics for example, being evil and malicious to be noticed and be valued in the society. The industries that I will be broadcasting my TV show on will be YouTube, introducing the first 8 minutes of episode 1 to intrigue the audience and hopefully act as a word of mouth. The Whole TV show will be broadcasted on Sky one at 7-8 pm before watershed to appeal towards a younger audience. The TV show will be promoted on Snapchat through creating filters that portray a theme of my narrative from my TV show. Furthermore Instagram will also be used to attract a wider audience by posting my print magazines to intrigue audience in purchasing and hopefully interest them in my TV show. 

Planning: TV drama concept

A Level Media NEA – Brief 5: TV drama trailer and culture magazine

TV drama concept

Our coursework brief requires us to create our own TV drama trailer and culture magazine for an original TV drama in the crime or family drama genres. Plan the following:

Title: 

UNAWARE, Blind Sight

Tagline: Necessity is blind until its conscious. 

Genre (and sub-genre/hybrid genre if applicable):

Crime/ family drama 

Setting (note brief – at least two locations): 

Hotel,  Riverside 

Number of episodes: 8

Channel and time/day of broadcast (note brief – prime-time, pre-watershed, family audience):

 Youtube , BBC 1, 8 pm to 9 pm

Logline – one sentence that sums up the whole TV drama series and hooks people in (25 words or fewer):

A disability is always seen as a weakness or an insecurity such as no vision, the loss of eyesight however, nowadays everyone feels the need to act blind whenever a crime occurs. What if an unlawful act occurs to someone that is indeed blind. Can that case be solved?

Other successful TV dramas that are similar to yours:

Prison break 

Narrative arc – what happens in the overall series and in what order:

The story begins in a state of normality( equilibrium ) where Tayla Smirnoff is surprising her sister Mya Smirnoff for her birthday, however due to her accident she lost in touch with a lot of her friends even her eyesight therefore nothing big was planned. As Mya enters the room, shes shocked at how many people arrived but Tayla didnt invite anyone. Suddenly, due to unfortunate events, Mya is continuously stabbed and taken by these people who were uninvited. Tayla starts to file a missing case but doesn't find any luck due to their being no evidence. She calls one of her best friend from high school who is an ex commando called Jacob Frye and he insisted in finding her sister. Jacob later finds out she was dumped in a river with many stab marks. Then realises how did Tayla  know that she had stab marks when shes blind... 

Episodic narratives – what will happen in each episode?

Episode 1- Tayla gets into an accident which unfortunately resulted her in a coma for 3 months. Luckily her sister, Mya endured minor injuries from the car accident. 

Episode 2- Tayla organises a very low key surprise birthday by decorating the area. As soon as Mya enters the room, she is shocked by the amount of people that arrived however, Tayla did not invite anyone.
Episode 3- Mya is harmed by a weapon such as a knife but Tayla was unable to help due to her being blind. Mya was taken and that when the case begins
Episode 4 - Tayla went to many police station around the city of London trying to file a missing case however there was no evidence or witnesses that could of helped. Every police officer thought she just ran away from the country.
Episode 5- Jack Daniels who is an ex commando finds out that Mya Smirnoff  has been declared missing, he put everything aside to go look for her.
Episode 6- Jack Daniels speaks to her sister Tayla Smirnoff to get as much evidence he can. He found out that she was stabbed numerous of times. Jack starts to investigate the area of the scene but find no blood samples, absolutely nothing as if everything had been erased.
Episode 7- Jack Daniels finds a ring which belonged to one of the kidnappers and from there, Jack Daniels tracks each person that was involved. 

Episode 8- At last after many days of searching, Jack Daniels finds the body of Mya Smirnoff which was thrown in a river. Jack Daniel realises how did Tayla know that she had stab marks if she didn't see any thing and not one but many. 

Main protagonist – their motivation, conflicts etc.:

The main protagonist is an ex commando from the USA army who is called in to investigate a kidnapping. He refused many times until he found out who was kidnapped. Mya  was a very close friend of Jack Daniels which is why he was eager to take on the case and find his missing friend. 

Other characters, their narrative role and their audience appeal:
The antagonist is Tayla Smirnoff , Tayla  plays the fake act of being blind and feeling remorse due to her sister being kidnapped. 

Target audience for your TV drama (note brief – family audience, pre-watershed broadcast etc.): age, gender, social class, interests, psychographic groups etc.

The target audience for my TV drama is going to be 15 and  over due to it appealing to a family audience. The Tv show will appeal to  a middle class.

Research: TV drama trailer analysis

Coursework: Summer Project 2019

The summer project is a vital element of your coursework - an opportunity to plan an outstanding TV drama trailer and then present it to class in September.

Your summer project contains compulsory and optional elements; everybody will be researching TV drama trailers, investigating their chosen drama genre, creating a TV drama concept, writing a first draft Statement of Intent and presenting this to class as an Ignite presentation in September. However, if you wish to also plan and film your production over the summer while you have time and actors available we would fully support you in this approach.

Summer project tasks

Complete the following tasks on a blogpost on your coursework blog called 'Summer Project: coursework planning':

1) Research: TV drama trailer analysis 

You need to write detailed 250-word close-textual analyses of six TV drama trailers in your chosen genre. For each trailer, focus on a different aspect of media language, and embed each one on your blog:

TV drama trailer 1: Narrative and genre
How is narrative and genre communicated quickly and clearly to the audience?


                              
The TV drama, Luther, Communicates a very action packed narrative consisting of many iconographies and action codes. These codes would engage the audience in the TV drama and allow them to create questions also known as enigma codes. The genre is clearly recognizable, alot of the audience would easily know that its a crime, action genre. The crime is exhibited through the police officer as he is shown as a rebel due to his actions to being right in the eyes of others. The police officer fights crime on his own and therefore is  seen as the main character of the TV drama. Audience will create personal relationships with the character as he goes through some emotional breakdowns and pictures him self as a protagonist to the audience. Audience may feel sympathetic towards Lucifer due to his life never being perfect as there are always obstacles that he has to overcome in this TV show. From a crime genre, you expect it to be very tense and to generate alot of suspense. This TV drama trailer delivers that perfectly as the audience are always gripped to their seat due to it surprising the audience with alot of iconographies.


TV drama trailer 2: Mise-en-scene
What do you notice about the use of mise-en-scene to create meanings for the audience? Think CLAMPS.

                           
Money heist uses alot of mise-en-scene since each seen scene is planned according to the heist therefore, including different costumes for each step that they are going to take, Each person has a unique role therefore, their movements will be different to the others. One costume that is commonly used the red costume connoting danger and fear. The mask to cover their identity complements the red colour as they both connote evil and foreshadowing an incredibly horrible and vivid moment in the TV show. In the TV show, mostly low key lighting is used to create a very intermediating look for the characters. The people that are kept hostage, high key lighting is used to create a vulnerable look and to make them seem terrified by these terrorists. During the show, a lot of medium/long shots are used to since a lot of the terrorist are very occupied in grabbing money, keeping the hostages safe and feeding them to stay alive. Some characters in the group are emotionally affected by the job and therefore, close ups are used to capture their emotions and seeing them realise what they are doing is wrong. The Netflix TV drama is mostly set in a factory where their is a safe which has  a lot of money.

TV drama trailer 3: Camerawork
Here you are looking for particular camera shots and movement. E.g. Are close-ups used to introduce key characters to the audience? How are establishing shots used?



At the start of the trailer, it shows a high point of view shot of the cars drifting around. This builds excitement for the audience at the very start of the trailer. Due to this opening, it engages the audience to continue watching and expect more scenes like this in the trailer. There is a medium/long-shot of the man shouting as well as including the deserted area that he is in. This creates many emotions and exhibits to the audience that there is not only action that is delivered but as well as emotions and really upsetting scenes. Later on, An over the shoulder shot is taken as the man drops his daughter of to school. The camerawork in that scene is used very efficiently as it creates a meaningful emotion which is regret and guilt that will be foreshadowed across the whole TV drama show. Having a variety of different shots creates a different meaning which can be interpreted in different ways. This show uses that perfectly as it all fits to the story line really well. Binary opposition is displayed through the use of camerawork as each scene portrays sorrowful emotions for example tears compared to the beginning of the trailer, it shows jealousy and blood.


TV drama trailer 4: Editing
Analyse pace, transitions, number of shots and juxtaposition e.g. eyeline matches. Does the pace speed up towards the end of the trailer? 

 The trailer starts of really slow portraying a sign of relief as the main character has just left prison. The trailer is still really relaxed however, it does have some simple editing techniques such as match on action when the main character leaves the premises through the door. The trailer starts to pick up when he starts getting into his old habit which are committing crimes in the city for money. There is an 180 degrees shot of the man and woman sitting on the table. The woman is surprised how people act towards the main character as if hes some villain. During half way through the trailer, fast pace editing is used to enhance the juxtaposition of the man committing crimes whilst having scenes in between sitting with his parents, discussing how he has changed compared to the past. A jump cut is used at 1:52, as it changes cut to a closer look at what the guy was viewing. When there is an action code being displayed, The editing becomes faster to create tension for the audience. Many jump cuts to different locations are demonstrated towards the end of the trailer speeding up the pace of the trailer. The trailer finishes at a long/ medium shot of the man looking down at something unusual. 

 TV drama trailer 5: Sound
Analyse both diegetic and non-diegetic sound - music, dialogue, voiceover, SFX, background or foley sound etc.

 

The introduction of the trailer with the name of the show has non-diegetic sound as it uses a loud base to grab the audiences attention. As soon as it cuts to the first scene, a very subtle music track is played over the shots. This really brings out only one emotional which is love with a mixture regret of loosing that loved one. The sound track fits perfectly in the background as it creates synergy with the shots shown on screen. Since its a trailer, alot of dialogue is used to really portray the narrative that is being presented through the shots, also known as diegetic sound. There are some background sound which is then recovered when it moves to the right scene of the character that is speaking. The music track is played throughout the whole trailer and then finishes when the outro is played which is the same as it was in the beginning. When someone raises their voice, background sound is muted such as people speaking in the background or the outside noise. This is used for the audience to only focus on the dialogue and not the surrounding as it is supposed to be a memorable dialogue in the trailer.

TV drama trailer 6: Trailer conventions, graphics, text-on-screen etc.
Here you need to explore trailer conventions - what does this trailer have that you've spotted in all the trailers you have analysed so far? Look for things like text on screen, graphics, title, release date, social media links and more.







                         
The institution logo which is Netflix is not presented at the start which usually does in every Netflix show. The production logo is introduced after familiarising the audience of the setting that the TV show is situated in.  English subtitles are used since its a foreign TV show. This is compulsory for all foreign language TV shows as it educates the audience of other rich drama that is made in contrast to our western cultural shows. The show cuts to black displaying a small quote saying " Based on case files from the Delhi police". The audience will understand this is based on non fictional acts that have occurred in Delhi. The caption also works as a surveillance for the audience. The TV show doesn't specify when the actual date is issued for this TV drama show but it includes in one of the text that it will be issued in 2019. At the end of the trailer, The name of the TV show is revealed to the audience along beside the institution logo 'Netflix'.