House of Cards 2

House of Cards 2

How Long form dramas came into being.

Terrestial TV

Schedule content was fixed (reliant on analogue (radio wave technology as pre the internet)

Viewing experience was communal (families watched the same/similar content) as content was transmitted via Radio waves.

Dramas developed to encourage regular viewing

Program content with high audience numbers secured revenue via advertising.

Advertising revenue or PSB income (TV license) pays for drama for e.g. a typical Eastenders episode costs £141,000

•There is a clear shift towards SOD (subscription on demand viewing of television)

•This has been enabled through the Technological change i.e. the provision of streaming services

•(2017) Netflix receives an income of 2.5 $bn from UK subscribers.

•Their income is used to fund “high end” television content such as the HOC

Historical cultural and economic contexts.

•HOC belongs to a genre called Long form television drama. (LFTVD)

•LFTVD (Game of Thrones, HOC, etc.)  are characterised by high production values.

•Series one and 2 of the HOC costs an estimated  $100 Million for the first two series (26 episodes) to produce.

•By comparison Eastender’s costs  £29.9 million a year for 212 episodes. (source: https://www.ok.co.uk/celebrity-feature/1207916/eastenders-bbc-one-time-cost-per-episode-year)

•Referring to the revision notes page 146, the cost of production of this High end Drama (HOC) is linked to

–Sourcing highly skilled actors
Kevin Spacey

–Cinematic styling camera work
wide shots
variety of shots
Peter Russo and Frank Underwood

-Lighting and editing
low key
shop motion/parallel editing

-Complex narratives (multi-stranded) (Barthes)

-Composed music
Jeff Beal

How Long form dramas came into being.

Digital (streaming)

•Netflix  - In just a decade, Netflix has grown from a video service with seven million U.S. subscribers to one that reaches 93 million people worldwide.

•The company's now worth about $60 billion

•2016, Netflix spent $5 billion on original programming.

•The income from subscribers has allowed them to commission highly rated long form TV dramas such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.

•2017 sales rose to $2.48 billion. With a global presence in 190 countries.

•Long form TV is an American concept which effectively is a hybrid of a serialised drama with the high production standards of film.

Long form TV Drama

(genre) conventions

Drama that runs in a series

they start with an intense beginning to grip their audience

They contain cliffhangers to maintain interest

they conclude the episode until the end where they conclude the episode.

very much dialogue led.

Production values are higher than TV drama (funded by subscribers)

High budgets permit high end actors and high end production

Ideology:

“A set of beliefs values and assumptions shared by a social group and embedded in social, cultural, political and economic institutions.”

Usually thought to reflect the interests of powerful groups.

Consumerism, freedom, equality and individualism are often considered dominant ideologies in free market capitalists societies as they reflect the economic basis of these societies 

The prime contexts influencing medium language in television dram may be ideologies such as:

•Individualism: e.g. focusing a drama on an individual protagonist

•Consumerism: e.g. judging characters on their possessions or desirability of their lifestyles

•Patriarchal: power and the challenge to this by feminism e.g. using or refusing to use women’s bodies as objects, or narratives that present a male, female or gender neutral perspective

•Racism and ethnocentrism and the challenge to those from multiculturalism and internationalism, e.g. narratives that present a monocultural, multicultural or minority perspective

•Levi Strauss’s idea of the binary opposition – that the system of myths and fables

•(narrative) was ruled by s structure of opposig terms  such as male/female, good/evil.   This narrative structure can be applied to LFTVD’s such as the House of cards as follows

House of Cards
Power/money	Service
Cynical ambition	Authenticity
Washington (elite)	The street (Freddies bar)

Todorov’s theory (Equilibrium and Dis-equilibrium)

Todorov in 1969 produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film. He believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages:

•the equilibrium,

•disequilibrium,

•acknowledgement,

•solving

•and again equilibrium.

The theory has its limitations when applied to LFTVD as the restoration of equilibrium may not be realised due to the serialised nature of the drama

•MICRO – ELEMENTS   relate to the following

•

•CINEMATOGRAPHY(camera work) – (angle, composition, etc)

•SOUND

•EDITING (& SPECIAL EFFECTS)

•MISE EN SCENE, (what is in the scene (set, costume, body language, etc.) including how lighting is used.

Candidates are expected to use appropriate language when analysing media (see p. 147 -148, OCR media studies revision notes).

–

Note the example where F. Underwood addresses Russo.

Frank is stood up connoting a position of power and authority whilst Russo remains seated implying vulnerability

Frank then demands Russo’s absolute and unquestioning loyalty

Diegetic sound.

•

Sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film: 

•voices of characters 

•sounds made by objects in the story 

•music represented as coming from instruments in the story space ( = source music)

•Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world