Easter exam H/W

Media Audiences:
What techniques does the opening sequence use to appeal to a weekday mainstream audience?

At the start of this sequence there is slow eerie music combined with a slow motion effect. This makes the audience have the feeling that something big/dramatic will stop this eerie peace. This creates an enigma code as it leaves the audience wondering what the disturbance to this suburban town might be. Although later in the sequence we realise that it may be the couple in the car who create this disturbance, further enigma codes are created through their use of foreign language, the reason why the couple want to wreck a seemingly ordinary couple and how the couple in the cars world was destroyed.

Furthermore, binary oppositions are used to draw in the audience to make them continue watching more. The serious, unerving couple inside the car contrast with the happy, carefree couple inside the house. This makes the audience fully aware of who is likely to be the main antagonists of the show. However the audience can also infer from the dialect between the two characters that they cannot be simply defined as "bad" and that perhaps there are deeper reasons for why the couple are going to do whatever there demeanors seem to suggest they are about to do.

What does this text tell us about the media institutions involved?

The opening sequence of this clip shows us the BBC logo. A government funded TV channel whose goals are to educate, inform and entertain. Through the use of music and drama we can infer that this text may be slightly more towards the entertainment part of the BBC's goals. Although this may be the case it is beileved that most BBC shows offer us some form of way to educate and inform us an example from another show could be "Mock The Week" which gives us a humouros detail of the weeks events by a panel of comedians. Spooks is a well known show that produces episodes centred around serious matter such as terrorism, rape etc so although it is an entertaining show other elemts of the BBC's policy can be put into the show because of this some may view it as slightly higher brow TV.

Media Forms: How does the extract follow the codes and convention of an opening sequence?

Many conventions of modern day dramas are shown within this extract of spooks. For instance, thee use of enigma codes thorughout the opening scenes keep the audience wanting to watch it for longer periods of time and many dramas such as The wire, CSI, Doctor Who etc use this as a means of 'hooking' the audience into the programme. Showing the BBC logo is also common in most BBC dramas and is most famously done in the programme life on mars in which they swap the bbc logo for an older version of it in order to illustrate that the show is set in the 70s ( the show was made in 2005.

By cutting at the end of a dramatic conversation also leaves the major enigma code for this episode and is done in most programmes in orger to generate further interest in other enigma codes. We also have numerous action codes such as the fcat that the couple in the car seem to have high tech equipment when spying on the couple in the house. This makes the audience aware that this isnt an ordinary couple and makes them want to carry on watching the show.

Media Representation: How are people and places represented in this opening sequence?

As i have mentioned before there is a clear binary oppoistion between the two couples of the opening extract. The couple in the car are more serious and the dialect suggests they be sinister although the girls remorseful tone suggest they may not be enitrely evil/bad we can suggest them to be the main antagonists.

whilst the couple inside the house are shown to be happy and carefree their seems to be a lack of focus on them to suggest they could be protaginists. Instead they are viewed as the victims and perhaps even the disequillibrium for our true heroes/protaginists to overcome.

The setting of the scene is in a surburban town presumably in the city of London although the surburbs are traditionally seen as a happy, safe place this time it is seen as having an underlying evil. This is hown best in the music and the slow motion start. Although the direct denotation of a girl playing is pleasant when it is added towards the sinister music and slow motion, close up camera shots it makes it seem a lot more sinister.