Planning

25-11-09
I had completed a story board for our group crime drama in which was analysed and by the remainder of the group. Here we united to add developments to the storyboard in order to finalise the narrative of our crime drama. Also as myself and Shaheem vaguely estimated the time duration of the shots that will occur in the drama, Aminur had been searching for possible music and sound for the background of certain scenes. By splitting the tasks we ensured that time was being spent wisely by ensuring as much as possible could be completed relating to the storyboard task.

Final Synopsis of crime drama

The final synopsis of our crime drama is, it is a crime drama which in its opening sequence views a young man whom is sitting in regret on the floor of his prison cell. Here he starts to enclose a flashback, when he closes his eyes of the situation that resulted in his arrest.

The flash back begins when he is in a queue for the cash machine as he wants to withdraw money from his account; a young lady in front of him successfully completes her transaction and walks away. His turn for use arrives when he reveals he has no money in his account. An idea comes to mind when he decides to follow the young lady, to attempt in robbery for her bag, in order to reach her money. As the young lady is determined to fight in self defence, he withdraws his hands from his pocket releasing a gun. Where he holds his hand out to the young lady he shoots and spitefully murders her. He leaves her for dead and reunites with his gang proudly revealing the stolen bag. As his gang realise an officer behind the criminal they disperse in a hurry leaving him to be seized by the officer. This encounters in his arrest as from the point where he reaches his gang he was being watched by the officer in discrete.

Questionnaire

I have produced a questionnaire to gain information from potential audience to our crime drama. This will allow a greater number of audience to be obtained if the drama is produced to suit a variety of individual needs and interests. This questionnaire will be printed out a number of times and handed to random people to fill in.

Questionnaire on a crime drama production

1. Which is a better name for a crime drama:

· Fade out
· Fracture

2. Which prop do you most frequently see in a crime drama:

· Knife
· Gun

3. What would you rather hear in a drama more:
· Sound effects
· Dialogue

4. State a name for a male criminal............................................

5. What sort of crime would you prefer in a crime drama?
· Robbery
· Murder
· Drugs

6. Where would a crime be more effective
· Indoors
· outdoors


[FOLLOWERS- PLEASE SPARE A FEW MINUTES TO COMPLETE THE QUESTIONNAIRE]

Analysis of two crime dramas

Both 'The Wire' and 'The Bill' are stimulation's to our crime drama, as aspects of realism are created, in which we want our crime drama to hold. This allows us to gain ideas for methods in which we can achieve this. Although both these dramas are crime based drama they are productions from 2 different nations. This will allow our group to combine the two different styles of production and produce a sufficient crime drama which is relative to both national technical approaches.

The wire: This is an American crime drama, which is based on the crime of murder revolved around drugs.
Mise en scene:
· Costuming of the police officers states their profession and typical criminal clothing of hooded tops.
· Figure expression of victims’ friend portrays loss as keeps a still yet upset expression through his turgid body language.
· Props such a police vans, white gloves for detective, police uniform and walky-talky for officers.
· Setting in a dark street, during late hours of the day.
· Bright lighting when camera focused on an object or person.
Sound:
· Dogs barking, this creates fear and tension of the situation
· Police siren, this is an obvious convention that a crime has been convicted
· Dialogue, this is used for emphasis on characters involved in the situation but also characters reactions
· Background voices, the talking pursues realism
· Wind, this creates an atmosphere on the situation, in this case cold and hallow
· Music, this creates energy and pace to the crime drama
Camera techniques:
· Track left of the trail of blood from the victim
· Close up of the officer picking up a source of evidence
· Extreme long shot to portray the whole scene of the crime and the background, allowing immediate insight of situation.
· Shot reverse shot of the victims’ friend and an officer discussing the situation and the victim, allows viewer to concentrate on dialogue.
· Extreme close up of the victims’ friend to show his facial expression and reaction to the situation that had occurred.
· Low angle of the victims’ face, which shows his friend in the background, maybe suggesting he was looked up at by his friends.
Editing:
· Cut from crime scene to conversation of officer and victims’ friend
· Fade in from one area of the crime scene to another.
Narrative:
· A member of a gang is shot dead as he goes out as usual on a Friday to take drugs and sell it to regular punters, however unfortunately this time he was shot dead over drugs.
Genre conventions:
· The genre conventions are the use of police officers, a victim and a murder crime scene.

The Bill: This is a British crime drama, which has been running over 10 years and is extremely popular within the British society. There are a variety of crimes which occur over a period of time. However the audience is able to follow the sequence of reservation to the crime over a number of episodes.
Mise en scene:
· Costuming- the officers are in a typical officers uniform, a white shirt, tie and black trousers and the criminal is quite casually dressed.
· Figure movement of the criminal suggest loss of control as he is unable to stable himself. Also, the dominant officers dominate themselves by portraying a stable posture.
· Props used are police cars, walky-talkies, ambulance and a drink detector.
· The crime scene is set on the street during late hours, but also moves to a police station and a hospital
· The lighting varies from location to location as on the street it is quite dark and when inside a building bright lighting is shown.
Sound:
· Police sirens are present this is to reinforce the idea of a crime being committed.
· Dialogue of the officers is used to engage the audience into the narrative of the crime.
· Car horns create a sense of business as it is usually the sight of traffic, which in this case emphasises the situation of the crime being.
· Doors opening and closing as well as footsteps are used to pursue realism and add a more realistic effect to the episode.
Camera techniques:
· Hand held of the camera creates energy and adds effect to the conditions.
· Point of view- this gives the audience an insight of the driver and potential criminal in this case.
· Long shot- this is used to illustrate the whole foreground of the crime scene and creates realism as all aspects are shown to be present such as in a ‘real’ crime scene.
· Extreme close ups are used when the officer is shown to be looking at the driver present in an accident. This allows the audience to make meaning of the expressions pursued on the officers’ face.
· A low angle is used when two officers are walking towards the station; this forces the audience to view the officers from a low angle assembling them to look up at the officers. This emphasises their status.
Editing:
· Blurs are used quite frequently when showing the point of view of the driver, this adds to the situation of the accident but also the state the driver was in.
· Cuts are used to move from one location to another in this case from the station to the crime scene then to the hospital.
Narrative:
· The narrative of this episode was an officer which had been involved in an accident of his own fault due to exceeding his limit of alcohol when driving. This resulted into a crash, which killed a woman on the road.
Genre conventions:
· The genre conventions are a criminal which is also a victim of an accident, police officers and medics.

Final step outline

This is a developed version of the initial step outline for our crime drama:

This step outline sets a clearer view of what will be proceeded in the production of the crime drama as well as the finalised produce

Initial Step outline

Initial step outline:

The initial step outline for our group opening sequence of the crime drama, was created on 20-11-09. This was to create a set idea of the sequence of our crime drama. However, some changes may have to made as we are constantly analysing the ideas in order to make it practical to perform. This is the rough version of the step outline.

Props

The props that had been intended to be used were:

• A gun
• hooded clothing
• credit card

An alternative to the gun had been made as it was not practical for us to do so for legal reasons. In our group we decided to compromise the gun by suggesting this weapon using camera techniques.

Group Work

In our group of three 4 tasks had been split amongst us these are as follows:

• Myself- camera work
• Shahema- Team leader/director
• Aminur- Sound

And as we are short one group member the forth task -editing, has been decided that we all anticipate to this section.

As our crime drama will only consist of 2 characters for the opening, the two other members of the group will be the actors as I will be filming.

Initial Crime Drama Idea

As in our groups, our task was to produce an opening sequence of a crime drama. My group is produced of myself and two other AS media studies students. Our team name is Anonymous.
The initial outline of our crime drama was as follows:

• A criminal makes his way to a cashpoint, however they do not have enough money in their credit card to make a transaction in order to pay their rent.
• A young women makes a successful transaction, in which the criminal sees and spitefully robs this young lady for her money.
• The young women defends herself in fear, however crosses the criminal and causes her death as he shoots her.
• The criminal in caught and sent to prison, where he reflects on his regretful actions.

possible names for drama

Friday 13- group discussion on possible names for drama:
1-Fade out: to suggest how criminal fade into the background amongst other criminal, in our drama case how the criminal is unable to resist temptation of committing crime, but fades into criminal society influential.
2- Fracture: to suggest a dismantled mind of a criminal, how they are not stable in the mind so try to resolve their situation through crime but in fact don't succeed.

crime dramas

The crime drama myself and my group 'Anonymous' will be creating is very much inspired by 'The Wire' and 'The Bill', as they show much realism conventions as common crimes such as murder and robberies.
My first task set by the team leader was to checkout some crime dramas such as the above and select detail from them which would be considered to use in our crime drama.
Our plan so far is to include two crimes which are convicted by the same criminal to the same victim. These crimes considered are a robbery and a murder.