Long form Drama
Why did it come out?
Audiences were tiring and getting bored of 'before tn water shed' programming' PSB (Public Service Broadcasting) such as BBC has a remit to 'entertain, inform educate' the TV channel is funded by the viewers through license. Therefore viewers have got a lot of say about what programmers are on there, but the remit of the channel is basically educational.
Arrival of cable channels such as HBO
And also the arrival of the internet has meant that audiences world wire can now pick up and watch cable produced programmes and those programmes are alos bought by the streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu and also eventually by Terrestial TV channels.
audiences prefer 'time shifting viewing' watching programmes at their own leisure and digital technology has made all this possible even for BBC for instance bbc iplayer.
Genre:
Terrestrial channels were and are genre heavy when it comes to drama
Downtown Abbey- heritage drama
Costume drama such as adaptations of Charles Dickens
#Cop shows# are another big TV drama in UK Line of Duty
Genres have fixed codes and conventions
That the audience knows very well
Was based on Binary opposites=narrative
Levi Strauss argues that all drama is made from binary opposites ie
-Good cop/ Bad cop
-Hero/Villain
-Child/Parent (soap)
-Husband /Wife conflict (soap)
Long Form Drama breaks down a lot of traditional types of story telling
Sopranos-main character Tony Soprano
Sopranos had an interesting twist in that the head of the mafia was trying to learn to be 'good' he broke down the 'good/bad' stereotype.
Breaking Bad-
Breaks down the stereo typical good/bad opposites narrative
The Walking Dead
Explores corruption and survival, families and communities.
The Wire another popular widely viewed and considered Long Form TV drama exploring life in an area that has economically collapsed Baltimore.
Long form drama has more complex portrayals of life and people.
Multi-strand narratives which means they follow many character's lives.
The length of time that the dramas cover
Many years in some cases means the characters and the stories develop deeply.
LFD as been compared to soap opera because of this
However LFD has cinematic values they are shot some times with collaboration of film studios.
Really good camera work and technical qualities
Good use of cinema language range of shots and music
High Production values
True Blood
Horror/fantasy long running series about an American town which is inhabited by shape shifters, vampires werewolf
Why has LFD developed?
1) Cable channels aren't dependent on advertisers.
2) Terrestrial commercial channel like ITV #sell advertising space in order to survive in other words advertiser can make or break a programme.
3)Public service broadcasting channel on the other hand is controlled by license fees and also having a public service remit- so this restricts the range of programming.
4)Cable channels have less restrictions and have been able to experiment with more daring and shocking and unusual drama.
Genre
Long form TV dramas are 'hybrid genres' they combine several different genres together
They use a range of visual codes and narrative conventions.
Story-telling forms of narrative is new and original in Long Form Drama-
The stories can be told from multiple points of view.
Representation of characters-
Can be in more depth
Inter-sectionality- (theory of representation) by Bell Hooks
Intersectionality looks at the ways representation combines for instance #Working class,Italian, female#
#Young man with disability#
Patriarchy- are they reflecting a world that is run by men and what is a woman's role within that?
Stereotypes- shot cut to knowledge and they are reflecting genre.
Archetypal characters- are characters types we would expect to find in different genres.
for instance Sheriff in a Western .
Homework
Watch one episode of each of these long form dramas
-The Walking Dead
-Breaking Bad
-True Blood
-The Wire
-Sopranos
Codes and conventions of Long Form Narrative
Write down definitions:
-Multi-strand narrative: is when stories have multiple plot narratives for example there could be 3 story strands that are linked at the end in the same story. (there are many plot lines this is used in e.g. Long form TV drama Soap Opera will have that).
-Cable TV: is a system in which the signals are transmitted through wires to people who are subscriber of the cable TV instead of broadcasting.
-'Water Cooler' Moments in TV: is a segment of something that was shown on TV and will be shown the next day as it is a controversial or exciting topic. Moments that people will tali about.
- VOD- 'Video on Demand': is an interactive TV technology which allows a subscriber to download programmes or anything that is shown on TV and view them later on their demand.
- SVOD- 'Subscription Video on Demand': is a service that allows a subscriber to have unlimited access to any TV programmes with full control allowing them to view anything they want at any time for a monthly subscription fee.
- Time shifting: is when you can record a program broadcast and store it in your storage which you can view it after at any time.
-Verisimilitude: The appearance of being true or real which is similar to the truth of something. (Event that has happened which is filmed in a similar place and reenacted in the same way)
-Surrealism: is an art form which combines dream like sequence.
Explain:
-Mid season break: when a Long form drama have a break throughout the season ending on a cliffhanger, this cause the build up audiences excitement and suspense.
-Easter eggs: these are hidden messages which give a deeper meaning to the Long Form drama.
Inter textual reference- is when one text refers to another.
Post Modern style is to make reference to many other art forms and Stranger Things has a clearly post modern style and refers to the 80's culture.
Narrative Arc- how a traditional narrative is portrayed throughout the story.
Ellipse- jump in time (this is uses in trailers)
Flash forward- looking into the future e.g. Breaking Bad when the first episode starts with the ending and then it shows how it got into that point throughout the film.
Narrative- the way the story is told.
In Mr.Robot- Breaks down the 'fourth wall' ( not looking at the camera) characters talks to the audience and narrates the story.
Fact file on Mr.Robot and Stranger Things
Mr. Robot Stranger Things
Date first aired: - December 13, 2017 -July 15, 2016
Channel: - USA Network -Netflix
Viewing figures: -1.210 million -14.07 million
Genre: -Drama -Science Fiction, Horror
Narrative Structure: -Direct address ( breaking the forth wall) - Uses inter textual reference of ET
Visual Codes: - - Visually referencing 80's films
Key elements of Long Form Drama (particular looking at Mr.Robot)
-Narrative- how the story is told
-Visual Codes- lighting costumes camera, mise-en scene
- Inter-textual reference- the Long form drama makes cultural references to other pop culture and art
- Can run for years the title tells us that it is Long
-Non linear narrative can start form he back and show how it has developed to this point
-Walking dead refers to 28 days later which is a low budget film
-Long Form drama tend to be hybrid genres not one clear genre (The Wire combines 'detective/drama/crime/social issue/thriller' genres .
-Influence of a style called 'neo-noir' which we see in many Long Form dramas
-Stranger Things hybrid genre- 'adventure/supernatural/thriller/horror/sci-fi
-Coming of age and Goonies film to watch
Narrative structure
-How the story is told
-Narratives traditionally are 'linear' (theorist- Todorov) who wrote that a classic narrative starts with 'equilibrium' everything is normal... Then a disruption occurs in the character's life...
-Linear- means time moves forward i.e. the story starts at 6 am and move forward continually. Also called a 'classic hollywood narrative'.
'Cause and effect' (Stranger Things)- a boy goes missing which leads to his friends searching from him, his family search.
-In Stranger Things quickly it leaves the traditional 'narrative'.
-Multi characters and multi thread narrative is typical of Long Form Drama
-Non-linear narrative (flash back,flash forward,ellipsis- jumps in time.)
-Story is also told through inter-textual referencing, if the audience understand the references they create part of the story, they interpret parts of the story.
Characters in Long Form Drama
-Game of Throne? Multi-narratives, multi-characters- complicated characters are an important feature of LFD.
-Propp argues that there are only a limited number of charcters in any drama- his character types are: hero, villain, false hero, the helper/ friend, the donor (they give the main character something important), princess character, princess's father (king character/king type character) false friend.
-In modern films you can still see the basics of these characters but sometimes they can be combined e.g. heroes helper and donor.
-Levi-Strauss argued that character and narratives were always formed from 'binary opposition' e.g. two opposite characters hero/villain. You need to have clashes/disagreements/disruptions as they make up the story.
-Characters are hybrid and more complicated in Long Form drama- the characters develop and change quite drastically.
-Long Form Drama does not follow the conventions of traditional narratives or characters.
Long Form Drama and 'Noir' style
-Long Form Drama has the style and influence of 'film noir'.
-Film noir was a low budget genre which started in the 1930's/1940's in USA.
Film noir was described in this way because of the use of lighting. Lots of dark shadows silhouettes and dramatic lighting.
-Made by the 'b' units that made 'b' movies.
-Shot on locations, shot often in the evening.
Example of film noir: The Third Man where mystery is created through lighting.
Use of the 'unreliable narrator' in film noir ( the voice over not always says the truth and plays with the audience as they can not rely on the narrative character).
Long Form Drama essay- How does Long form Drama engage to the audience with a new experience compared to traditional genre TV Drama?
Practice ESSAY
Long Form Drama engages the audience more compared to traditional genre TV drama because according to Neal audiences enjoy the repetition of genre as well as seeing new things added to extend the genre. This can be seen in the Long Form drama 'Wire' which has been going for approximately six years. From this we can conclude that audiences really enjoy sticking to one thing instead of jumping into different into different Long form dramas.
Also, Long form dramas intend to use hybrid genres where there is a combination of several genres together. This can be seen in 'Stranger Things' which has a combination of genres: sci-fi, horror fiction and supernatural. Hybrid genre also tend to use inter-textuality which attracts the audience more as according to Barthes theory 'texts that speak to each other' are more enjoyable to the audience. This means that Long form dramas that refer to other texts and have elements or other long form dramas tend to attract the audience more. This is shown in 'Stranger Things' as the main characters ride bikes in the style of 90' which has a reference to the film 'ET' where characters rode bikes as well.
Furthermore, in my opinion long form dramas engage the audience more than traditional TV dramas because people have the option of time shifting which means that you can watch any program at any time you want. This makes the audience more connected as they do not have to follow the time line of the long from drama they are watching. The option of time shifting makes viewing experience totally different and more enjoyable making the viewer more loyal throughout the years of long form drama as he can watch anything at any time at their leisure. Today there are many streaming websites that provide one these options for example Netflix uses time shifting and tends to attract audience more that traditional TV.
Besides, time shifting long form dramas use unusual narratives that are not used in traditional TV dramas, for example in 'Mr robot' the main character is the narrator of the story and speaks straight to the audience. This is called breaking the forth wall which is really interesting as the viewer feels more engaged with the character. This can be linked to Stuarts Hall's reception theory that producers encode media texts in order for the viewer to decode it and to see the hidden messages. This is similar to Mr.Robot as the main character in not really talking to the audience, but everything we hear is all in his head, but the viewer intends to think that he is talking to the audience.
In conclusion, long form dramas engage the audience more with a new experience compared to traditional genre of TV Drama as not all of them follow the linear narrative as for example the 'Braking Bad' uses a not linear narrative starting the plot of the story from the end and then showing how it got there. This tends not to follow Todorov's theory that all stories are told from linear narrative, but as an example of 'Braking Bad' non-linear narrative works great and still attracts many people.
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