To what extent are TV shows shaped by specialised processes of production and distribution? Refer to the set episodes of Black Mirror and The Returned to support your answer
TV shows are shaped by their production and distribution contexts to a great extent. However, regardless of their specialised production contexts, all TV shows exist to minimise risk and maximise profit.
Plan
By 2016, Black Mirror was distributed in 80 countries - global audience
Les Revenants - primarily targeted European markets, though some Australian distro
2016 - BM acquired by Netflix
BM - commissioned and funded by Channel 4 - a risky venture. Ep 1 featured the UK PM blackmailed in to having sex with a pig
Netflix acquired Black Mirror after it had established a cult audience
Netflix - funded through a direct subscription service
Canal + huge TV conglomerate based in France. Partly funded through advertising, but also premium subscription service
Canal + specialise in prestige television
Les Revs: high budget! 1.8 million$!
Inspired through the success of cult TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twin Peaks and The X Files
LR targets a cult and dedicated audience. A very risky financial venture..
However, LR funded in a variety of different ways, including the Alps Tourist board and the significant financial power of Canal +. Typical of niche TV production
Netflix shaped the production context of BM, and production cost went up. Example: the rights to Girlfriend in a Coma by The Smiths = the most expensive aspect
Netflix: US company, European arm based in The Netherlands in order to circumvent regulation
LR soundtrack - Mogwai - target a presold audience
Themes of BM shifted to appeal to a US audience. SJ features established US actors and an American setting. Appeal to international audience
Les Revenants: Based on a film called Les Revenants by showrunner Patrice Gobert. Targets a niche, presold audience
SJ: many intertextual references to films like The Breakfast Club and videogames such as Outrun. Appeals to a fragmented range f niche audiences
Themes of life, death and simulation. Similar themes to the Matrix
Easter Eggs
Charlie Brooker - creator of Screenwipe, Nathan Barley, Det Set, all of which shared a niche audience and a bleak and depressing sense of humour
Introduction: DAC
Every media industry is a specialised industry. The TV industry is specialised as it focuses on sound and vision, and requires enormous financial investment. This means, that TV shows are typically produced by established companies, and distributed by specialised and established organisations such as Channel 4 and the BBC. In recent years, particularly after the release of the US TV show Lost, TV budgets have exploded worldwide, to meet audience expectations, which require significant financial investments. This shift in production contexts has made it significantly harder to produce TV shows, and means that the industry is now far riskier than before. In this essay, I shall argue TV shows are shaped by their production and distribution contexts to a great extent. However, regardless of their specialised production contexts, all TV shows exist to minimise risk and maximise profit. To explore this idea I shall refer to…
1 - One way in which these shows have been shaped is in their unique models of distribution:
- LR - initially screened on C4 in the UK. Also illegal torrents and physical distribution, such as DVD sales. BM now exclusively distributed on Netflix. An example of vertical integration, an anti competitive business practice
2 - Production process to target niche audiences…
- Netflix acquisition of a presold audience Vs LR a financially risky venture
3 - Both shows produced to target cult audiences…
- Previous cult success, themes of the show (sex and death and zombies vs euthanasia and simulation…! Niche ideas!)
4 - However, both shows are produced in such a way to minimise risk and maximise profit.
- LR - Mogwai, Zombies, refs to Twin Peaks, partly funded by Alps Tourist Board
- SJ - Netflix funding, agreeable themes, intertextual references to huge cult successes
Explain the role that fans and other niche audiences play in the success of TV shows. Refer to the set episode of Black Mirror to support your answer. [15]
Fans and niche audiences are vital to the success of modern cult TV shows.
Plan
Judith Butler argues that gender is a complex performance based on repetitive acts that shape the world around us. Evaluate this theory of gender performativity. Make reference to [the two tv shows] to support your answer
Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is extremely valid and useful in analysing these two TV shows, and it helps us to understand the complex ways that gender has been shaped and shifted in the 21st century.
Plan
Binary oppositions
Camera angles
MES
Hegemony
Genre
Unconventional
Sci fi
Horror
Hybrid genres
Codes and conventions
Sexuality
Editing
Costume
Symbolic codes
Hair and makeup
Anchorage
Canal +
Netflix
Sound and soundtrack
Mogwai
Heaven is a place on Earth - Belinda Carisle and other 80s hits
Girlfriend in a coma
Shot types
Low key vs high key lighting
Stereotypes
Ideology
Hegemonic ideological perspectives
Representations construct reality
Hyperreality
Introduction - DAC
Judith Butler argues that gender is constructed through a series of repetition acts. However, they go further and suggest that our performance of gender has complex and performative effects on the world around us. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is extremely valid and useful in analysing these two TV shows, and it helps us to understand the complex ways that gender has been shaped and shifted in the 21st century.
Points -
1 - gender is extremely complex
2 - gender is straightforward and even stereotypical
3 - gender is constructed through costume and MES
4 - gender is constructed through behaviour and performance
5 - gender is used as a spectacle for the target audience (more straightforward!)
San Junipero - the dress up montage
- The use of high key lighting constructs an ideological perspective of hegemonic norms and values. It reinforces the ideology that to wear makeup is a ritualistic act that constructs gender identity
- One costume is a backing dancer from the video to Addicted to Love, a highly sexualised representation. Here Yorkie not only dehumanises hereself to the role of backing dancer, she also briefly self-fetishizes, before signing and reverting back to her ‘authentic’ self.
- This scene explores the pressure placed by stereotypes in the media on the expectations of women. However, Yorkie rejects these expectations and performs her gender in an unconventional way
Les Revenants - Simon and Lena walk home
- Both characters are dressed in such a way that emphasises not only their hegemonic attractiveness, but also constructs a binary opposition between gender norms, femininity and masculinity
- However, Simon rejects these masculine hegemonic normative values through completely ignoring the hegemonically attractive Lena in order to prioritise finding his wife. A highly unconventional narrative
- Lena walks with a drunken swagger in a more hegemonically masculine way. After a night of drinking beer at the pub and attempting to seduce Simon, Lena subtly adopts some aspects of gender performance that are more stereotypically masculine
- However, Lena is also wearing more stereotypically feminine clothes, and is stereotypically hegemonically attractive. Combined with her stereotypically masculine traits, a complex construction of gender is made
- Simon is classically masculine in his appearance, especially costume. He is also rude and bunt in his performance, which has a performative effect on Lena. Simon is new, exciting and different from what she expects
How much influence do economic factors have on the TV industry? Refer to the TV shows you have studies in your response. [30]
Plan and content
San Junipero / Black Mirror
- BM - Created by Charlie Brooker
- Charlie Brooker - Creator of cult TV shows such as Nathan Barley, Dead Set and Screen wipe
- A presold target audience
- Black Mirror commissioned by channel 4. A risky financial venture with extreme violence and sexual situations
- Black Mirror earned a cult audience, which Netflix purchased when acquiring the show . Minimising risk and maximising profit
- Channel 4: a history of risky acquisitions
- BM: Science fiction is traditionally a niche genre. Recently, it has exploded in popularity
- C4 produced two series and a special of BM before selling it to Netflix
- The Netflix BM episodes tend to be more Americanised, glossy, and with a notably higher budget
- Music rights were extremely expensive, especially the rights to Girlfriend in a Coma by the Smiths. Only possible through the ecconiomic contexts!
- C4 sold BM to address budgetary restraints
- Curran and Seaton - power and profit dictate everything, and originality and creativity are sidelined
- Location shooting, CGI, high production values
- Intertextual reference to videogames such as Outrun help target a niche and highly motivated audience
Camille / Les Revenants
- Partly funded by the French alps tourist board
- Surprisingly big budget: 1.8million dollars/episode
- Canal + - vertically and horizontally integrated. Multinational conglomerate, primarily funded through a premium subscription service
- Emphasis on prestige television and film. LR definitely aligns with this
- Supernatural/mystery/zombie
- Commissioned through the international success of other cult TV shows such as Twin Peaks, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The X Files
- Produced by Fabrice Gobert, who previously directed the film Les Revenants. The TV show is a loose adaption of the film
- Soundtrack by Mogwai. Glaswegian rock band with a cult, presold audience.
- A confusing and complicated narrative. A risky business venture targeting a niche audience!
- Complex narratives cultivate a cult audience and a fragmented series of niche audiences
- After the success of Lost in the US, budgets for TV shows spiraled due to heightened audience expectations. TV now resembles cinema more and more
- The proliferation of digitally convergent media and the shift away from theatrical distribution means there is less distinction between film and television
- Owned by Vivendi, a massive French international media conglomerate
- Settings, high production values, an ensemble cast of actors
DAC
- One way in which economic factors have shaped television production is the increasing creep of production values…
- Another way is that both TV shows are associated with large conglomerates…
- A third essential factor is the essential nature and need to target a highly invested cult audience
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of semiotic approaches to television analysis. Refer to Roland Barthes’ theory of semiotics [the two tv shows you have studied] in your response. [30]
Plan
Introduction - DAC
Refer to both set texts in each paragraph
Evidence
1 - Les Revenants: Camille comes home
- Low key lighting , expressive, intertextual reference to horror films. A consistent atmosphere of suspense
- The POV close up of Camille’s hand in the fridge positions the audience in an unknown and uncomfortable mode of address, suggesting a sudden jump scare that never happen. We cut between horror and teen drama as the characters speak at cross purpose, deeply confusing the target audience.
- Claire’s gesture code functions as a hermeneutic code: her confused facial expression confuses the target audience
San Junipero - ending
- Montage - cuts between high key lighting and the black of the end credit, constructing a chaotic and shocking binary opposition
- Sci fi elements city with romcom elements: cross cutting between the server farm and the club constructs a confusing and unpleasant mode of address
- The binary opposition between the uplifting cheesy pop song and the miserable symbolic code of the slow zoom on the gravestone once more positions the audience in an uncomfortable mode of address
- The montage and match on action of Yorkie driving through the hyperreal Californian countryside is juxtaposed with a shot of liquid traveling down an IV tube in to the vein of the old and dying Kelly. This expert use of montage constructs an alarming binary opposition between and death, forcing the target audience to adopt a challenging and even postmodern mode of address
- Point two - use of intertextuality. Dress up scene vs Julie being stalked home. Explicit vs subtle
- Point three - Music and soundtrack.
- Point four - weaknesses: postmodernism. There is no deeper meaning behind either of the TV shows. They are both deliberately confusing to remind the audience we live in a meaningless world. Final sequence of Les Revs vs