Camera Framing, Angle and Movement

Start by watching this tutorial about camera shot types. It's not sexy, but it's as clear and straightforward as you could want.

This next one is about camera angles:

And finally, a thrilling exposition of camera movements:

You can download a chart showing most of these HERE.

Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene means 'everything in the scene'. Once you have watched the clip and identified the stereotypes being represented, your first task is to find examples from the mise-en-scene which prove it.

For our purposes, mise-en-scene includes the following:

1. Costume (and everything about a character's appearance including height, hair colour, makeup etc)
2. Body Language
3. Props
4. Location
5. Set Design
6. Lighting

Remember that everything you see has connotations - that is, messages or values which are communicated beyond the literal object being shown. For example, if a character wears glasses it carries connotations of intelligence, cleverness, or possible geekiness. Even colours have connotations - at its simplest level, black=evil and white=good.

You are looking for connotations which have something to do with gender, or age, or disability etc...
Exercise: Watch the clip below, from 'Life on Mars' (Episode 1:1) up to 4min 45sec, and write two paragraphs:

Paragraph 1: What representations of gender can you see in this clip?
Paragraph 2: What details of mise-en-scene can you find to support your ideas?

Answering the Question: In Summary

Everything up until now basically is all about writing just the first paragraph of your essay. That first paragraph is where you really go into detail about the characters in the extract and what the audience is encouraged to think about them. It's no good starting off with something bland and wishy-washy like "this extract presents women in a very stereotypical way" unless you go into detail about which characters you're talking about, and what those stereotypes are.

So: what kinds of prejudices does the programme assume, and is it supporting those prejudices and stereotypes or is it challenging/subverting them? Make a bold, confident, detailed statement.

Here is how I would start an essay about the representation of gender in the Dr Who clip below ( it was the question in Summer 2009)

In this clip from Dr Who gender is represented along mostly very stereotypical lines, despite there being one or two moments where the expected power relationships are subverted. The main dramatic conflict between Martha Jones and the Master is very much that of dominant male vs subordinate female. In fact, all the female characters in the scene - whether they are 'evil' like the Master's wife on the balcony or 'good' like Martha's mother - are largely passive. When the tide turns and good begins to triumph, it becomes a battle between two alpha males - the Doctor and the Master, and the female characters are relegated very firmly to the sidelines as expectant bystanders. In all, then, this clip confirms males as figures of power, and females, at best, as supportive sidekicks.

The rest of the essay is about proving what you've just asserted.

You prove it by writing the next four paragraphs about:

1. camera framing, angle and movement
2. editing
3. soundtrack
4. mise-en-scene

Let's go through these one by one.

Answering the Question 3: The Importance of Binary Oppositions

There can be no Drama without conflict, and those conflicts are usually between two opposite things: male vs female, young vs old, rich vs poor etc. These are called binary oppositions (BINARY = two things).

Ask yourself: which characters in the extract seem to be the main participants in this conflict?

This will help you to avoid spending too much time writing about minor characters.

For more notes and an explanation of the theory of binary oppositions, go HERE.

Answering the Question 2: Who Am I Seeing?

Get focussed!

Now that you know what you're looking for, you need to ask 'What characters am I being shown in this extract?' but it's got to be relevant to the question.

For example, in the extract from Monarch of the Glen, there's no point saying 'I'm being shown a Scottish woman' because that's nothing to do with age; it's ethinicity and gender.

You need to say to yourself: 'I'm being shown an OLD Scottish woman and a YOUNG Scottish woman,' because the focus of that question is AGE.

Or again, in the Doctor Who extract, there's no point identifying the fact that one of the main characters is black and the other is white unless you can see that one is a black WOMAN and the other is a white MAN - because in that question GENDER is the focus.

Get focussed!

Answering the Question 1: Interpreting the Question

The question for the TV Drama section of the examination paper will be worded along these lines (three examples follow):

From January 2009: "How is the representation of age constructed in this extract?"


From Summer 2009: "How is the representation of gender constructed in this extract?"


From January 2010: "How is the representation of ethnicity constructed in this extract?"



In other words, the question is identical each year; "How is the representation of SOMETHING constructed in this extract?" There are really only two differences:

1. The actual clip, obviously.
2. What that SOMETHING is. You may be asked to write about any one from the following list:

Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Sexuality
Class and status
Physical ability/disability
Regional identity

So your first job when making your notes in the exam is to write down in big letters at the top of the page: GENDER, or AGE, or ETHNICITY or whatever...

Special Media Magazine Issue

There is an issue of Media Magazine devoted entirely to Drama, with some excellent articles on representations in Television Drama. Go to the MediaMagazine subscribers'site (ask your teacher or the librarian for the username and password) and hunt for Issue 29. Download a copy for yourself.