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Miss O’Dell

 To identify the generic conventions of TV


Drama

 To identify and explore conventions within


different TV Drama sub-genres

 To understand how TV Drama conventions


are used to engage a target audience
 Asa group brainstorm what you
think are the essential ingredients
for any TV Drama…
 Characters – a crucial element, deeply embedded in
narratives consider the roles they play
 Narrative – both its overall structure and how it is
constructed
 Sets and settings – locations against which the
story unfolds and which frequently take on a symbolic
significance
 Camerawork – particular kinds of camerawork are
often associated with particular sub-genres
 Dialogue, sound and music – sound and music
create effects and often underline emotional content
 Icons – these tend to be associated with particular
sub-genres
 Watch the clip from
er
‘Be still my heart”

 Fill out your allotted conventions on the


worksheet
 Share your answers with the rest of the
class to complete the worksheet as a whole
 http://www.nbc.com/ER/about/
 Particular sub-genres tend to have
items which make them immediately
identifiable. Icons that symbolise the
sub-genre:
 Police cars or ambulance
 Blue lights
 Operating theatres and scalpels,
triage/reception areas in hospitals.
 Each of you will be given a different TV
Drama sub-genre to explore independently

 You must complete the conventions


worksheet with information relating to your
sub-genre

 You will present your completed worksheet


information to the rest of the class
 Consider that this sub-genre
concerns age specific situations and
anxieties. Relies upon target
audience empathising with a range
of authentic characters e.g. Skins
 Find
your own example of a teen
drama and fill in the worksheet
 Considerthat this sub-genre never
ends, conveys a sense of real time
and depends on the audience
accepting them as socially realistic
e.g Eastenders

 Find
your own example of a Soap
Opera and fill out the worksheet
 Consider that they are often intertextually
linked to classic novels or plays and offer
a set of pleasures different to own time
and space can be one off or a series e.g.
Bleak House

 Find your own example of a


period/costume drama and fill out the
worksheet
Crime Drama
Conventions
 Consider the similarities with soap-opera
conventions, the interplay between victim
and villain and the use of a set of staff
(forensic scientists) for narratives e.g. CSI

 Find your own example of a crime drama


and fill out the worksheet
 What
are the conventions of a TV
Drama?
 Whatsub-genres of TV Drama have
we explored?
 Howare the conventions used to
engage the target audience?

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