Contextual Studies: The Bill

The Bill ran from 1983 to 20010- in the begining it was quite a serious crime drama, but by the end of its run it was more like a soap. 

Crime Drama Technical Conventions: 

Single Camera

Camera movement eitehr manual, or mocumentry style. 

Some CGI sequences 

Narative Conventions 

Format- Episodic series based.

60 min episodes

Usually self contained naratives.

Repetition- relies on re occuring cast (team) and location (police station).

Resolution- The very nature of the cime/detective genres relies on crim and punishement as the central theme. The villan should always be caught. 

Other conventions

Low key lighting  

Authentic props

 

Character Archytypes

The king, authority figure (in this case cheif)

The rebel (hero/anti hero) detective who doesn't play by the rules.

The innocent/rookie acts as an audience surrogette. 

Critical Approaches

Realism (refelcts contemporary issues)

Representation (gender, ethnicity etc.)

Psychoanalysis (Freudian Archytypes