Week 2

In week 2 we watched two TV dramas, Life on Mars and Casualty, and made notes on them such as the mise-en-scene, iconography etc. We then proceeded to write an essay comparing them. We looked particularly at the iconography and binary oppositions.

Iconography - Icons that are usually associated with the genre of the drama.

Binary Oppositions - Characters that are opposites of each other. Example Light and L in Death Note.  

Exam Dates and Definition of a TV Drama

Exam Date: 13th January 2010

Useful Links

BBC iPlayer

YouTube

4OD

These links all show TV dramas and will be useful for this unit.

A TV drama is a dramatic program made for TV that usually has exaggerated characters sometimes used for comic effect though this is not always the case as some dramas are true to life. They are made for the enjoyment of a home audience.

This week we have looked at signification, connotation and representation.

Signification - This is the establishment of seeing something so you'd know if you saw an apple that it was an apple.

Connotation - This is the establishment that and object is in relation to something or someone such as with the apple it would be the tree's apple.

Representation - This is the showing of how a characters in a TV show are represented. An example of this would be the old lady in the first episode of League of Gentlemen. She represents the stereotype of an old lady such as the old fashioned clothes, glasses and grey hair.