The Crime Drama GenreThe Bill - set in fictional london police station
Longest running uk crime drama
Originally 12x60 minute episodes
became year round twice weekly serial - 30 mins
crime/soap
Mise en scene = real locations or studio
authenticity
camera and sound - single or multi camera
visual style
narrative and genre conventions
realistic characters or stereotypes
acting naturalistic or exaggerated
diversity and gender representation
how many storylines? whodunnit?
Peak of viewing 2005 pulling audiences of 11 million rivalled coronation street
Evolved from literary detective fiction
in TV often police procedural sub-genre
realistic investigation of a crime by law enforcement teams.
Edgar allen poe murder in morgue
Whodunnit (enigma to be solved)
Howcatchem (audience know who did it pleasure is the process)
Technical conventions
editing chase scenes, montage, flashbacks
Single camera
camera movement - either handheld mockumentary style or steadicam, dollies, cranes
ECU for tension or reveal
tilted,low angle/high angle
Slow motion
CG Recreation
Graphical text
usually self contained closed narratives
Repetition relies on returning central cast (team) and location ( police station)
Lighting - low key many crime dramas use light dark contrasts in costume setting and lighting.
Authenticity - props, costumes and settings
new convention detection via computer. lighting and exposition.
Character
The rebel (hero/anti hero)
detective or senior cop
jaded doesn't always play by the rules. sometimes corrupt
The King (authority figure)
commanding officer or station sergeant.
The Innocent (Rookie)
audience surrogate and empathy
The Sage
Elderly, Wise if not senior figure often doctor or scientist
The Villain
Binary opposition to hero and rookie
Many crime dramas use binary opposition light and dark, good/ evil/ law and order/ but often the investigator has their boundaries challenged.
The rookie can also be challenged/corrupted.
Many also use Freudian triangles
Hero as ID, authority as super ego and rookie as Ego that tries to balance the oppositional
Realism - British crime dramas are often in social realist mode, many popular us crime dramas more escapist and may involve breaking with realist conventions.
Representation - gender and diversity; issues of political correctness vs empirical fact
psychoanalysis - genre character as Freudian archetypes, criminal pathology (the monster/the uncanny) crossover with horror genre return of the repressed.
critical questions - serial killers and the admiration they receive i.e dexter, hannibal etc.
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