Sherlock - BBC Drama

Sherlock is the BBC recreation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character Sherlock Holmes, in this Crime Drama writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat reimagine the detective not as a Victorian in 1880 but as a modern day consulting detective, who solves cases too difficult for Scotland Yard or private clients.

The series features Benedict Cumberbatch as Detective Sherlock Holmes, A socially inept consulting detective and Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson, who documents his exploits with Sherlock on his blog.

The series spends one episode per case, with a subplot running in the background, each episode is typically an hour long or more and follows the storyline of a case of the fictional Sherlock Holmes, similar to the books.

What I did like is the change of era, from the 1800's to the 21st century, this made the characters more relatable and understandable, it also allowed for variations from the original novels, such as the hound of the Baskervilles being hallucinogenic drugs and a genetically engineered dog.

From a technical standpoint Sherlock uses a variety of different techniques, such as when text messages come through on phones it is displayed on screen via text. When Sherlock deduces facts from visual cues, instead of verbally telling the audience text will appear, tracking the motion of the object, say for example a hand with the clue it has given.

The person with the most Director credits for the series is Paul McGuigan, he has directed the first and last episode of the first season and two episodes of the second season.

McGuigan works in a specific style using visually appealing shots along with a main shot to cut around.

"I tend to work by doing a big master shot which you could use as one shot if you wanted to and I never changed that process at all" - Paul McGuigan

There is also several instances of time slowing down to a crawl, helping to symbolise how Sherlock takes everything in at a glance, the time pausing effect is first shown when Watson meets Holmes, who is dropping a fluid onto a petri dish.  Holmes makes several deductions, correctly guessing that Watson was a veteran and he was looking to share an apartment. 

In another scene they are sharing a taxi to a crime scene and Sherlock reveals how he came to that conclusion, we flash back to the scene where they meet but time is paused, and then in a series of close ups and tracking shots we are talked through his deductive process.

McGuigan remarks that even though the episode length is similar to that of a feature film at 90 minutes, they had half the time to film at 22 days rather than a typical 40-50 day shoot.

"you only get twenty-two filming days where in the movies you’d get twice as much as that if not more. So obviously you’re tempered by that schedule. We were doing action sequences in like five hours when normally you’d have five days to do them" - Paul McGuigan

McGuigan also uses sound design to good effect when Sherlock is studying the Woman in Pink, as he looks at the word Rache we hear the sound of scratching on wood, he also examines her coat noting the wetness and we hear the sound of rain, this is a perfect use of sound design as we are shown two things at once, him noting the wetness and the sound of rain as he deduces she was out in the rain.

What Id like to take from Sherlock is the use of sound to help symbolise the thoughts in the main characters head, such as in my project I could have a rushing noise the help symbolise him losing his memory along with another noise that distracted his train of thought and caused him to become confused.

http://www.reelscotland.com/exclusive-interview-paul-mcguigan-on-sherlock/

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/sherlock/20536/steven-moffat-and-mark-gatiss-interview-sherlock