Title Sequence AnalysisRepresentations of:•Regional Identity•Class and Status

This Week’s Outcome: Your own analysis of a Soap Opera Title Sequence – Homework for Friday

Exam Assessment Reminder

•The Exam will ask you to analyse the micro elements of a 5min extract from a TV Drama [Camerawork and Editing, Sound, Mise-en-Scene] and how they contribute to macro elements of the TV drama [Representations, Ideologies and Messages conveyed]

•Micro = small units of analysis•Macro = the wider ideological context of

the extract

Areas of Representation we will cover and that you need to be aware of:•Gender •Age•Sexuality•Regional Identity•Class and Social Status•Ethnicity•Physical ability/disability

Areas of Representation we will cover and that you need to be aware of:•Gender •Age•Sexuality•Regional Identity•Class and Social Status•Ethnicity•Physical ability/disability

Coronation Street

Title Sequence

Analysis – Micro/MacroThe title sequence has always been a very important part of the soap

opera. Coronation Street’s theme tune, unchanged since the beginning, heralds the start of the programme for those not already watching TV. The instrumentation, reminiscent of a northern brass band, plays a tune that is initially somewhat mournful, but whose rhythmic double bass and slightly upbeat swing style manages to combine an air of wistful nostalgia with cautious optimism. It measured, steady pace seems to perfectly capture the hum-drum, the ordinary, the day-in, day-out feel of the environment and its inhabitants.

The visuals are equally reflective of a certain perception of northern life – dissolving transitions of a rain-filled sky, drab uniform houses, the claustrophobia of tight-knit communities – and they make it clear from the outset that our concerns will be with these homes and the people in them, warts and all. The mise-en-scene is of urban, redbrick, hard-edged buildings, like the people who inhabit them. We are placed within a urban city landscape, but on the outskirts – tall, high-rise flats are in the distance, where people are more isolated from one another. In this programme the people are literally living their lives out on the cobbled streets in public view of all. In watching the rough, gritty surfaces of the streets and pavements, we are prepared for the gritty realism of the representations in the drama itself.

The title sequence is almost entirely devoid of people. The street, back alleys, back yards; all show virtually no signs of human life, just the occasional glimpsed figure in the background and a washing line, that’s all. It is as though this setting is waiting to be populated by the characters, which then appear in the episode itself, rather like a painted background on a canvas is ready to have the foreground detail added by the artist.

Annotation Exercise

•Read through the example response and highlight what you can identify as Micro analysis and Macro commentary

•Micro – Camera/Editing/Sound/Mise-en-Scene

•Macro – Messages, Ideas, Representations

Task – Pair-work in lesson, Individual Homework for Friday• Choose a title sequence from a soap opera and

prepare a presentation and written analysis of its micro elements in relation to the representational messages it is conveying at a macro level

• You should try to cover one or more examples of representation from the following:▫ Gender▫ Age▫ Regional Identity▫ Class and Social Status

• Examples you might explore: Hollyoaks, Eastenders, Home and Away, Neighbours, Emmerdale, new Coronation Street titles

Analysis – Micro/MacroThe title sequence has always been a very important part of the soap

opera. Coronation Street’s theme tune, unchanged since the beginning, heralds the start of the programme for those not already watching TV. The instrumentation, reminiscent of a northern brass band, plays a tune that is initially somewhat mournful, but whose rhythmic double bass and slightly upbeat swing style manages to combine an air of wistful nostalgia with cautious optimism. It measured, steady pace seems to perfectly capture the hum-drum, the ordinary, the day-in, day-out feel of the environment and its inhabitants.

The visuals are equally reflective of a certain perception of northern life – dissolving transitions of a rain-filled sky, drab uniform houses, the claustrophobia of tight-knit communities – and they make it clear from the outset that our concerns will be with these homes and the people in them, warts and all. The mise-en-scene is of urban, redbrick, hard-edged buildings, like the people who inhabit them. We are placed within a urban city landscape, but on the outskirts – tall, high-rise flats are in the distance, where people are more isolated from one another. In this programme the people are literally living their lives out on the cobbled streets in public view of all. In watching the rough, gritty surfaces of the streets and pavements, we are prepared for the gritty realism of the representations in the drama itself.

The title sequence is almost entirely devoid of people. The street, back alleys, back yards; all show virtually no signs of human life, just the occasional glimpsed figure in the background and a washing line, that’s all. It is as though this setting is waiting to be populated by the characters, which then appear in the episode itself, rather like a painted background on a canvas is ready to have the foreground detail added by the artist.