Sub-Genres of TV Drama

Soap Operas or Continuing Dramas:

Eastenders and Coronation Street

Crime and Police Dramas:

A touch of frost and CSI:Miami

 Casualty and Holby City

Doctor Who and Buffy the vampire slayer

Catherine Cookson and Garrow's law

Contemporary melodramas:

Tale of Mystery

Comedy Dramas:

Family Guy and The Office

Skins analysis : Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs the representation of age using the following:

• Camera shots, angles, movement and composition
• Editing
• Sound
• Mise-en-scene

Throughout this clip there is a mixture of different representation towards age. This clip opens with an establishing shot  of a skateboard .  We can only see the skateboard and the the feet on the skateboard to start with which creates enigma as we don't yet know who it is however before we know who the character is we know that stereotypically skateboarding is young, cool and dangerous which gives us an idea of what kind of character we are about to meet.  There is a close up of the characters phone before we get to see his face.  Phones are typically for the younger generation which again connotes to the audience that this character is young. 

When we meet the first character we immediately notice that he is young, good looking and trendy.  First we have a close up shot of his face to allow the audience to see his reaction to the text he has just read and to give the audience an idea of what he's going to do next.  We then see a long shot of the back of him on his skateboard and his surroundings which, is a very dangerous road on a hill.  We immediately see that he is dangerous ad that to get where he needs to be he will do anything. 

 As the character is skating we see him hit into a police mans bike and knock him over.  Before This happens there is a  Mid-shot of the policeman which shows the audience that his focus is on his ice-cream and not looking for crimes.  There is also a close up of the police mans face which happens to be overly ecstatic over an ice cream and makes him look idiotic.  This challenges the representation of age as stereotypically a policeman is scary and looking for crime.  This policeman is so happy about his ice cream he doesn't notice the hazard until it hits him.  When he falls he gets back up and to humour the audience his ice cream happens to fall into the 'wrong' place.  He immediately jumps on his bike to chase the skateboarder. 

When the character reaches his destination we meet two more of his friends who are both young.  Immediately we recognise that the character in the red is yobby and load.  There is a close up of all the teenagers faces which helps give the audience an idea of what kind of characters they are. When we see the boy in red we notice that he is both smoking and drinking which gives us the idea that he is young and reckless.   We also notice that one of the teenagers we meet is geeky. We know this from not only the way he speaks but the way he acts and the fact that he is wearing braces as this stereotypically is a geeky thing.   I have noticed that there is a big contrast between the character in red and the geeky character because of the way they speak.   The character in red has a very common accent however the geeky character has a posh accent and uses very complicated English which rises the idea that perhaps he is more middle class.   As they are talking we know that it is early morning and that they are students however the character is red thinks that smoking and drinking in the sun with his mates is a better idea which connotes that perhaps he isn't bothered about and education and is quite fearless, although the first character is also smoking and drinking and pretty fearless he tries to redeem himself by suggesting that they should go to college which shows that perhaps he a little bit more mature than his friend.  After the character in red orders ore drinks he leans back very slovenly and belches.  This shows the audience that has no manners ad possibly no self respect.

In the next part the geeky character suggest that maybe someone should move the bike out of the ride before it causes an accident which again shows that he is the more mature character out of the group.  As he is speaking a car ironically drives into the bike causing him to lose control of the car and crash into the bollard.  A middle aged man angrily get out of the car swearing his head of and being violent to everyone around him.  Stereotypically you would expect him to act more calmly and civil to others due to fact that he is clearly a successful business man due to his suit and his car.  This challenges the way that age is represented as he is not acting the age that he should be.   The boy in the red again shows his immaturity as he laughs when the car crashes.  The middle aged man then picks on an innocent old woman.  He is shouting at her.  She speaks very slowly in a very strong accent.  There is a close up of the old lady showing her confused face and the fact that she is leaning forward suggests that she is hard of hearing as steroetypically old people are.   We then see the boy in the red top appear in the scene holding his head.  He claims that he was riding the bike and the man crashed into him.  To get revenge for the way she was spoken to the old woman backs up his story.