Life on mars - shot by shot analysis

When analysing a sequence you look at four micro areas which are sound, editing, camerawork and mise en scene. These four micro elements help to inform us of the macro areas such as the main story, characters and to help us understand them.

The camera in this sequence works with the shots - mainly to help us establish the main characters in the actual TV drama. We first get a shot of Sam Tyler getting into his car. This is a fairly casual shot and although it is not a long shot, it informs us of the location and what the character is doing. The first sound we hear is dialogue of 'My name is Sam Tyler'. This immediately gives us the characters name and is shown immediately at the start because it helps us to understand and establish him as a character. He is dressed in a formal suit, suggesting he is upper class and in a representation of class.

We then get a shot of him laying on the floor, after we have established him getting hit by a car - the camera is at a strange angle and perhaps this links to the confusion the character is feeling. The shot is a long shot then cutting to a close up, to show that Sam is clearly distressed. The fact that the camera is on floor level, aswell as Sam's eye level suggests this may be a representation of society, it is quite low suggesting his social status may now be low - and this is due to his position towards the camera (it is at a very low level - everything is higher up eg. the car and the building.)

We then get shots of him both looking at himself (in a car mirror) and shots of characters looking at him. This suggests to us he does not belong where he is, which we later establish is 1973 and that he has gone back in time. While this is happening we also get an explanation of what happened to him, 'I was in an accident, and woke up in 1973' this informs us of the main story of the TV drama and is there to explain this.We get a pan across shot of him walking to an office which informs us of yet again the location, and get in unison Sam Tyler questioning himself 'Am i mad? In a coma?' and this informs us of his thoughts and helps us to understand what has happened. After, this is followed by him entering the office.

This shot is a first person view and shows his eye view, it is a long shot and pans across the office, showing he is looking around & showing us detail of the office, the office staff are in suits too suggesting a representation of class once again. This is followed by 'Whatever's happened, if i can find out why im here, maybe it'll help me to get home.' and this is here to attract the audience to watch the TV drama as you want to find out why he is actually back in time. The title sequence music then comes in and is shown throughout the rest of the clip, after this there is no dialogue and i think this is because the main storyline has already been explained.

This then cuts to the intro to all the characters from what we assume is the title sequence, and we establish all the characters are dressed formally, in shirts, suits or poice uniform which shows they are of higher class. In the block effect shown in the intro, we first get lots of small shots of Sam Tyler, in what appear to be blocks - first his facial shot, then to a slightly longer shot of his head and shoulders, these are here to show us detail of the character. This title sequence is here to introduce us to the characters in the drama.

The characters are all portrayed in a similar way, they are all either cops or detectives (apart from the character 'Dean Andrews' who is shown in a balaclava and with a gun) and you establish the majority are police or detectives by the character 'John Simm's' police badge(which is a prop), and the others are seen to be in police uniform or suits, one is leading away characters in handcuffs. The camera shows us detail in order to help us establish the characters. There is no non diegetic sound in the sequence apart from the title sequences music. The rest of the sound is of dialogue and background noise, e.g cars screeching.

While watching the introduction you notice the clips at the start are extremely fast, with the car collision lasting less than a second. This suggests something bad is happening, or has happened quickly. While the sequence prgresses the shots are slower than the first one lasting less than a second. There are roughly 45 shots in the sequence, and considering this sequence is only a minute long, we can conclude from this that the sequence is quite fast paced. This is shot fast paced to show us the TV drama may have some action in and maybe to represent the characters fast paced lives in society.

We were asked to look at TV drama for part of our media AS level course. Previously we all were given a genre of TV drama, mine was police drama. We were asked to give examples of 10 or more dramas that we know which involve our genre. The next lesson included using this information to create a london underground map, but instead of all the stations we were asked to print out a blank one and fill all the spaces up with TV drama. This appeared easy at first but soon we discovered some stations interlocked and this became a problem as some things we could not find that contained both genres for example sci fi and soap. Each coloured line was given a genre of drama for example the pink line had soaps along it. Some lines were very difficult as some had at least 50 lines so therefore we had to find 50 TV dramas relating to that specific genre. Some things like soaps, medical dramas etc would not be hard to find 50 examples for but some others would be very hard to find.

For our previous homework we had to think of a TV drama that had 6 sub genres eg crime etc. For mine i chose Eastenders as it involved 6 or more sub genres, these included crime, youth, 1980's, soap, actors involved, romance. This was a good starting point for the middle of the underground map (kings cross station) as some genres interlocked and the kings cross station had 6 interlocking with it.

Therefore as a class we decided to use my idea as eastenders for the middle of the underground map as this would be a very good starting point. After working as a class for one and a half lessons, we were each assigned jobs and this helped us considerably. Some people were writing all the tv dramas down on a big sheet of paper ready to list on the map, some were on computers researching certain TV dramas and who was in them, what date they were first aired etc, and some were writing the TV dramas on the underground map (on the big whiteboard) and finding out where things would go - and what fitted with what genre. We got up to working from the middle towards the outer side of the map, and in my opinion i think working from the middle was considerably better as it gave us less chances of mistakes.

We still however need to continue working outwards from the centre of the map, checking for mistakes and ensuring the genres fit correctly and there are no mistakes. This needs to be done carefully and as a group as working in a group would get the task done a lot quicker. We need to finish the map effectively so this could take a while if we encounter any mistakes along the way, as changing one line of genre could result in the whole map going wrong.

If we had a chance to start it again as a class, we would have settled down to the task more quickly as some were not keen on the task and did not see the relevance, and some got confused about the way in which genres interlocked and fitted together. Overall i think we have done well so far considering it is an extremely long task to do and could go wrong at any time, perhaps causing us to start again. I think the assigning of roles was a very good idea as it got us focused on one job rather than trying to do everything simultaneously. I think the task is relevant to our media AS level and would help us in terms of TV genres. I like the fact we work as a class group as it would be considerably harder if we worked in smaller groups.

My first blog is a set task to investigate examples of crime (police force) drama. The relevant dramas i have found include:

The chinese detective (1981)
Dixon of dock green (1955)
Fabian of the yard (1954)
The gentle touch (1980)
Inspector morse (1987-2000)
Juliet Bravo (1980)
No hiding place (1959)
Othello (2001)
Prime suspect (1991-2006)
The sweeney (1975-78)
A touch of frost (1992) still ongoing

As you can see, these dramas are quite old by now, some even starting in 1955! However the most recent and well known police force drama is the bill, which is stil ongoing today from 1984! This was the drama i immediately thought of as it is the most well known, as well as inspector morse. The Bill has shown unusual flexibility for a drama and even shows some characteristics of a soap. It is a one hour programme showing two days a week, usually mid week eg wednesday to thursday.