Skip to main content

Contextual research: TV Dramas

SUITS


Obviously I chose this show because I'm rederecting one of the episodes for this project. The show is about a guy named Mike Ross who has a photographic memory and remembers every bit of information he has ever read. Mike's parents have died in a car accident when he was little and since then he was brought up by his grandma. When Mike is in need of money, his best friend Trevor suggests that he should memorise and sell some tests, which he does and gets in trouble for and no matter how much he wanted to become a lawer the doors that led to that path were shut. Afterwards when he was, once again, in need of money, Trevor talked him into doing a drug deal for him which was a set up. Mike being as smart as he is he figured it out and managed to run away from the police and that's how he met Harvey Specter who was impressed by Mike and decided to hire him despite the fact that Mike didn't even had a legal right to practise law. Later in the show we meet Mike's love interest Rachel (played by Meghan Markle), we are more introduced to Harvey's secretary Donna (who's personally my favorite character) and other secondary characters. One of the main reasons why I love this show so much is the fact that it has strong female representation (both Rachel and Donna are very smart, independant and hard working and even the firm owner is a black woman). 
From the directorial side it seems that every episode has a pattern, mostly the scene starts with an establishing/wide shot, then it goes to shot reverse shot, a few CUs, if there's an important person walking in/out there will be a following shot. Also there's a lot of music which usually has classic rock vibe to it.

GLOW

I chose GLOW or Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling because I really liked this show. Most of this shows creators and cast are female and the show itself is based on a true story. It is set in 80's and is about an aspiring actress who loves acting but can't get the part because she's too real. She also want to play good roles and is sick of women playing the week roles and ends up reads male characters lines. The show perfectly shows and in the way makes fun of sexism that existed, and sadly still exists, in the industry. Even though some characters are oversexualised the show still has strong women and deals with things like miscarriage, unwanted pregnancy, cheating, coming out as gay, having a personality dissorder. 
From directorial side it's a bit more complexed than in Suits, there are more shots from diferent angles to show the "wrestling" moves. There are some typical shot reverse shot scenes, establishing/wide shots(that are pretty common in the series to show what's going on in the ring). Also there are good amount of hanheld camera shots (which I did in the first part of my extract).




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Influences DOPs and the genre

BEN DAVIS DOP in numerous superhero films, such as Kick-ass, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel. The films I want to focus more on is Kick-ass and Captain Marvel because the audience gets to see how the main characters become superheroes and that is more relevant to our project "The 7 Billionth Hero". In "Kick-ass" all of the superheroes are just people who don't have any special powers. The Protagonist decides to become a superhero and fight crime and starts a new superhero trend.  There's a lot of interesting POV shots  Mirror POV, when he's practicing what he's gonna say to the bad guys. Phone camera    I particularly like this film for lighting. Most of the fight scenes are filmed in low light and there's a contrast between his everyday life and his superhero life. It's bright, warm and slightly yellowish, but at the same time is very monotone to show the boredom a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Studio Idea

Personally, I found it really difficult to come up with an interesting studio production idea. But because "one idea is not enough" (Brown and Duthie, 2010)  I came up with 3 initial ideas: 1) Guess the song type of game show, but instead of guessing pop songs, the contestants would have to guess classical music. I got this idea from a game my friends and I loved to play and the way my music teacher used to test my class.  2) Travel guide about how to make the most of your trip, places worth visiting and places that are overrated and not worth your time. I got this idea from my sister who travels a lot and from the way she does loads of research about each and every place she visits. 3) Debate/Game show where 2 groups of people debate about nerdy topics ( whats better Marvel or DC, which Doctor was the best etc.). The idea comes from noticing how much rivalry there is between comic book lovers and overall 'nerds'. I feel like this idea is the stronge...
Post a Comment
Read more

Studio Production and Camera Research

(2016, London) "The camera operators frame the shots and operate the camera, panning, tilting and zooming as instructed by the director vis talkback." p. 51 Camera operators get camera scripts or camera cards as to know what shot their camera needs to be on. p.58 If you see words ' as directed ' it means that the camera OP has to follow the conversation of a guest or contributor. 'on the fly' means that the camera OP will need to use their own initiative in framing shots and listen carefully to the director's instructions via talkback. p.58 Shot sizes: *WS= wide shot; *MS = medium shot; *MCU = medium close-up; *CU= close-up; *ECU = extreme close-up; *2S two shot etc. Camera moves: *Pedestal (ped) up/down = moving the height of the camera up or down; *Dolly in/out = moving with the camera forward or backward; *Truck left/right = moving with the camera to the left or right; *Pick ups = retakes of any additional sequences. On pre-recorded shows ...
Post a Comment
Read more