Monday 24 December 2012

Opening sequence research- BBC Drama


Turning by Karni & Saul-
Story: On his sixth birthday, Robert receives three beautiful old ladies in his mother's sitting room. Through his eyes, we visit the memory of this afternoon, visualized with the free spirited imagination of childhood, naive yet wonderfully dark. Ladies appear like birds, a gift scuttles across the floor, blue icing is nibbled from a magical cake, tea is sipped, lacy slip shifted, and between knobbly knees strange visions appear. The ladies weave an extraordinary tale of an emperor with no skin, and the boy himself, older and wiser, adds the finale... with a tail.
Main character: Robert (birthday child), beautiful old ladies, mother.
Interesting shots/ edits: Initially, each character is introduced through long, mid or close up shots. There are frequent straight cuts, changed quickly to each different character. The old women are edited to look like birds, and frequency change from their normal faces to birds, however still retaining features of there original faces. There are low angle shots to establish the difference between the position of Robert, and the old ladies. Use of shadows on a wall tells aspects of the story, which is more interesting and visually pleasing than a separate reel. As the old ladies describe a story, aspects that they describe and emulated on screen, for example, she describes the image and skin of a character, and their in a close up of the ladies aged skin.

Time goes nowhere-
Story: The tale of an unusual friendship coming to an end. Tommy, a young man with low functioning autism, and his career Janet's time is drawing to a close, due to him graduating to adult services. Janet reminisces over their time together and sees the world through his eyes one more time before she realizes that she needs to let go.
Main character: Tommy (young man with autism) Janet (Career)
Interesting shots/ edits: The establishing shot is a long shot, however it’s filmed from within, or behind a bush, adding a sense of secrecy in which the audience is only a part of. The career is looking through a scrapbook and the camera focuses on an image, which then cuts to the day the image was taken, establishing more about the characters life.

Two & Two-
Story: In a drab, anonymous grey school governed by a strict authoritarian regime, an apparently unremarkable day is turned on its head following a seemingly ridiculous announcement. Disbelieving at first, the all male, identically uniformed pupils are informed that what they had always been taught as fact is no longer true. When the incredulous students speak out, what initially seems laughably absurd becomes desperately real as they are forced to question how far they will go to stand up for their beliefs. Two & Two is an allegory for the absurdness of dictatorship and tyranny - and the resilience of the human spirit.
Main character: Teacher, student 1, student 2
Interesting shots/edits: the establishing shot zooms out to reveal the setting, which is interesting compared to the others I have analysed which go straight into the scene. There is good use of over the shoulder shots when the teacher walks into the classroom, making the audience feel like they’re part of the film word. Following this, there is match on action from an over the shoulder shot point of view, making the audience feel apart of the film world, yet also safe due to the fact they’re merely onlooking.

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