Crime Drama

PART 1 – RESEARCH

1. Research what makes a successful crime drama. Which modern crime drama shows have been successful, and which have been failures? Can you explain this audience response? How are you measuring success/failure?  

A successful crime drama needs to be engaging, and this is the most crucial factor, when watching a crime drama if you are not engaged in what you are watching and it is clearly unbelievable then you are not going to enjoy it over a prolonged period. Also, the characters in a crime drama play a major factor in whether it will be successful or not, if the characters aren’t set in place within a crime drama and by this I mean that the profiles need to be very specific in how they should act and what opinions they have on the other characters and also how they should act around them. Some secondary research I have carried out is analysing the viewing numbers and different revenue a couple of examples of crime dramas have achieved. There have been many successful crime dramas for example on Netflix we have “Safe” written by Harlan Coben which gained a rating of 7.3 (IMDb) and “The Capture”, achieved a viewing figure of 7.7million on BBC, and also got a high rating of 7.8 (IMDb), however I could not see that Netflix have released viewing figures for ‘Safe’ yet and it seems to be a similar story trying to find “The Capture’s” revenue. The two above examples that I listed were both successful because a large majority or people that watched the shows enjoyed it. This would also be quantitative research because IMDb collects their research through viewers rating the film or series and then across the amount of people that have rated it will create an average which is shown on their website. A crime drama that I think has been unsuccessful is called Hard Sun and here are the following reasons as to why I would class it as a failure… Hard Sun was a BBC crime drama that was first released on the sixth of January two thousand and eighteen, and alongside being released on the BBC it was also shown in America on the streaming service ‘Hulu’ on March the seventh. As in previously mentioned IMDb scores Hard Sun had a rating of 6.6 (IMDb), and no this does not seem shocking to begin with some of the critiques reviews of the series were not so pleasing. Sophie Gilbert a writer for ‘The Atlantic’ in America said this about the crime drama: “During its BBC run, Hard Sun managed to lose more than half of its 3.5 million viewers, possibly because the experience of watching dodgy cops and dodgy spies and even dodgier criminals all try to end each other just wasn’t a particularly fun one.” Hearing that ‘Hard Sun’ lost more than half of its already low (low for a crime drama in comparison to others) 3.5 million viewers, this tells me that the show can’t have been very engaging at all which is all of what I think a crime drama should be, otherwise as we have seen in this example and what I mentioned previously in this paragraph people won’t continue to watch it! Comparing ‘Hard Sun’ to another of BBC’s award-winning crime dramas ‘Line of Duty’ which on IMDb 88.7 percent people rated it a level eight or above and when comparing it back to ‘Hard Sun’ which achieved a total of 41.3 percent of people voting it a level eight or above, Line of Duty won by over half as much as Hard Sun. 

LINKS: (Safe IMDb – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7902072/) (The Capture viewing figures – https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/the-capture-series-two#:~:text=The%20Capture%20averaged%207.7%20million,biggest%20new%20title%20of%202019) (The Capture IMDb – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8201186/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) (IMDb ratings – https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/track-movies-tv/ratings-faq/G67Y87TFYYP6TWAV#) (Hulu – https://hulu.com) (Hard Sun IMDb – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6402362/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0) (Hard Sun review and loss of viewers – https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/03/hard-sun-review-hulu/555035/) (Line of Duty IMDb rating – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2303687/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt) (Hard Sun IMDb rating – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6402362/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

2. Audience Response. Ask the public. Ordinarily we ask you to record “Vox Pops” to find out what people think about the genre. This year please only ask people in a socially distanced way or only people in your “bubble” and use the internet to find other ways to get audience feedback (online forums, surveys etc…). 

Questions 

1. What are your thoughts on Crime Dramas? 

2. How many different crime dramas can you name? 

3. If yes, what do you like about the specified crime drama, what makes it appeal to you? 

4. What makes a good crime drama in your opinion? 

5. Do you think we see enough female lead characters in crime dramas? 

6. Do you think there is a specific crime drama suited for your age group? 

I decided to some primary research in the form of a vox pop, which is when you ask a wide range of people the same or similar question to see how their answers differentiate. I intentionally did this primary research within my class as their answers were all different because of their different preferences about crime drama, some people I asked knew a lot about the genre and others didn’t know much about it whatsoever, I think that this research is valid and gave a good incite to the genre. This is also qualitative research because of the open-ended questions asking the interviewee about their opinion of their favourite show (see video).

3. Watch a full episode of a British Crime Drama. Write an analysis of the episode – what happens? What crimes are committed? Who are the “villains” or antagonists (if you know), who are the heroes (protagonists)? How good do you think it is? Would you watch the rest? Why?   

Line of Duty (S5E1) 

When three police officers are shot dead during the hijack of a seized-drugs transport, AC-12 move in to investigate possible police collusion. 

What happens? 

1. At Eastfield police storage facility pallets are being loaded into the back of a white box truck while being supervised by armed police officers 

2. A woman has crashed her car into the hedge and while trying to save a ‘baby’ out of the car the female officer realizes the baby is fake and gets shot 

3. The female apprehender (crashed the car) could have shot the female officer very easily but decided not to 

4. Lorry is taken to a disused barn, unchained to reveal the packages inside (drugs) 

5. Inside a police station the hijack is reported, it is discovered the drugs were on the way to an incineration facility and it was heroin with a street value of £10 million 

6. Whoever leaked the information knew that the female officer would call a stop to the convoy because she has children of her own and an admission that the female apprehender saved her life by making the decision to not shoot her 

7. Lise then admits to the gang leader that she didn’t kill ‘the fourth copper’ 

8. News comes through at the police station that there was a betting shop robbery of a similar style the lower down officer says she was blocked when trying to access the CCTV of the robbery a higher up officer tries to then access the same files but is also blocked It is then told that thy have stumbled on an undercover operation by trying to access the files 

9. The lower down female officer comes back to the higher up male officer with a file of someone who she thinks may be behind the hijack 

10. The man on file has been using a burner phone and has been found to have £25000 hidden in his house, he could face life in prison 

11. Vihaan (man on file) was told something by a woman matching the female apprehenders description, he says “hers as much to blame as me” 

12. John (the gang leader) confronts Lise about not being able to trust her 

13. They go inside to make a trade with the drugs, back inside the club they say they are ‘minted’  

14. Inside the police station a meeting is started with the lower down female officer who turns out to be Vihaan’s cousin, she was passing information onto Vihaan when she shouldn’t have been, the lower female officer gets fired and is told she may be charged 

15. Vihaan’s cousin visits him in prison when Vihaan asks her to help him while they are both crying, she agrees to help 

16. She meets with Lise from the gang to talk about Vihaan 

17. Mr. Hastings is going bankrupt after a divorce 

18. The police raid the drug gang operation, and they are all arrested, they say they didn’t commit the hijack  

19. The original group that committed the hijack set up the trap kidnap the lower down female officer to question her and they find a microphone inside of the mobile phone that they gave her 

20. It is discovered that the gang leader who originally stole the drugs is working undercover with the police 

21. The gang kill the lower down female officer 

What crimes are committed?  

Shooting a police officer (02:16), theft of a motor vehicle (02:48), Blackmail (throughout), Money laundering (24:37), Possession of drugs (throughout) 

Who are the villains and heroes? 

Johns group (the people who stole the lorry with the heroin inside) are clearly portrayed as villains from the start, Vihaan and his cousin are both seen as good police officers to start with but they definitely turn towards the end as it is revealed that he was leaking information and she tries to work with the gang. 

How good do you think it is? 

I think that this episode of Line of Duty is very good and is constructed very well, I would definitely say that I enjoyed this episode, the thing that I definitely didn’t enjoy the most was trying to remember who was meant to be good and bad as a few of the characters switched roles (eg Vihaan) who was originally a police officer but then got convicted because he leaked information, also the lower down female officer was the worst because she was seen helping the police from the start but then turned against them towards the end. 

Would you watch the rest of the series? And why? 

If I were to watch the series, I would watch it from series one episode one instead of starting at series five, the reason I analysed series five because it is the most modern and the older series from what I have read and heard online aren’t anywhere near as good or interesting as the most recent, also the video quality and the colours of the video are much better in the later series. I would watch the series from the start because from what I have seen from series five it is very engaging and interesting and is also packed with a lot of twists, yes, I think I would enjoy watching the rest of the series (from the start). 

4. Watch the title sequences of a range of Crime Dramas – make notes on these sequences – are they effective? Which techniques do they use? What sort of music? How much of the narrative (or story) do they give away in the titles? 

Qualitative research

• Line of Duty (S5E1) 

The title sequence starts with a main establishing shot of a police storage facility which is then promptly followed by another wide establishing shot showing armored police officers surrounding two undercover cars and a plain white box van. In the background of these two shots there is clear police ‘chatter’ on the radio and tense music in the background, this gives the viewer the impression that something dramatic will be happening in the next few minutes. The next sequence of shots is the vehicles leaving the storage facility in convoy, which is then followed by a black screen with two of the main actors’ full names, this helps to break the sequence up so it can lead on directly to a completely different shot in another location (still in the vehicles) without it seeming too forced. At around one minute and twenty seconds into the sequence we see a the convoy passing down a rural lane then a POV type shot from inside the rear police car, I say a ‘POV type shot’ because it isn’t from the view of the driver and nor is it from the front passenger but instead from the middle of the car showing the back of the lights suctioned on the windscreen, facing out of the front on the police car, it then cuts quickly to a shot facing inside of the car still centered and showing the front of the lighting system with the two officers sat either side with their faces positioned on the upper two intersections of a rule of thirds grid. 

Over the radio plays “RTC up ahead” to which the female officer replied, “Keep going”. The title sequence cuts to a shot of the all the vehicles passing the car which has collided into the hedge on the passenger side. In time it is revealed to the female passenger using a proper POV shot with her head turning to the left after the box truck passes and she can then see the collision to the full extent. The tense music is building. The main technique that is being used is showing what is happening from the female officer’s point of view, we don’t really know how the male officer feels and we never hear him talk throughout so it definitely seems as if the female is in control and that at this time, she is the ‘lead’ character. 

• The Capture (S1E1) 

The first image that we see on our screens is a pull up poster that seems to be promoting the use of CCTV .

This could be classed as an establishing shot because it does show the location of the control room as it pans around to the left showing multiple camera feeds on separate monitors, at first all of the actors are having a harmless conversation about one of their colleagues going to a different kebab shop while watching him on the CCTV monitor, instead of the one that they asked him to, then the female operator starts talking, reporting a possible fight on Wexley Road beginning with “Sutton south to control possible fight on Wexley road”, while simultaneously panning the camera around to the right from the kebab shop towards Wexley road. The male colleague returns with the takeaway and begins talking to the other male operator about his decision of which shop he chose to go to. We then see a close up of the female operators face as she turns to face a different monitor showing a different location which is closely followed up by an over-shoulder shot of the specific screen, she is looking at which slowly zooms in to a male and female character who are clearly attracted to each other, the camera flips back around to her face which then shows her let out a small but still visible smile, the CCTV images then show the two kissing and is also followed by the operators even bigger and again more visible smile. A bus drives past on the CCTV image and the camera then goes out of focus. 

The camera showing her face is originally a wide close up which then moves closer and closer to her face and slightly raises upwards to show the intimidation factor, she also starts to breathe a lot heavier than previously. She then repeats “Sutton south to control…” and the camera then cuts to titles with the writer, directors and actors names. 

5. Evaluation of the research that’s been completed (250 words) 

I think that the research I carried out has been especially useful, especially to understand crime drama as a genre. When researching what makes a successful crime drama, which was mostly secondary research because I was looking into information that is widely available rather than gathering it myself. It showed me how many people view different crime dramas and the wide view of opinion across the same show, by this I mean the amount of people that would watch the series/film and one person may rate the show a one out of ten and then somebody else may really enjoy it, and this wide spread of opinion varies between each show. For the audience response section and also primary research, I chose to do a vox pop which is a video questionnaire in the style of an interview where you ask the interviewee a series of questions about a specific subject, quantitative research showed me how many people liked crime dramas. To eventually achieve their opinion, in this case even though I stayed and interviewed people within my class I managed to get a wide range of opinions about crime dramas and their title sequences, which gave me some qualitative research. With each person knowing a different amount and showing a different level of interest. I then watched a full episode of a crime drama pausing it every so often to make nots and analyze what had happened, I wouldn’t say this was overly helpful for me specifically because I already knew crime drama as a genre beforehand before starting this unit, the section that I would say was definitely most helpful though was when I analyzed two different crime drama title sequences, as this is specifically what we are aiming to produce, and being able to analyze the two that I chose In-depth, I think will really help when producing my own. 

PART 2 – PRODUCTION

Title: KidKnap 

Log Line: A young boy is being tracked down by two strangers, they ask him to meet them in a car park, but he doesn’t turn up. 

Synopsis: A male receives a text saying that he is being followed and that he is being tracked via his phone, the text also says he needs to meet someone at the top story of a car park, but he doesn’t receive any meaning or reasoning as to why he must. The darkly clothed men who are following originally the male are constantly tracking him on their phones. The next morning, he goes into Exeter high street and places his phone into a handbag of a busy female shopper, she is wearing a similar back coat to him, she goes inside the car park to return home while the two hunters are closing in on her when she pulls her hood down and looks behind herself when they stop and stand there in shock. Throughout the episode there will be many twists and turns, with the main character Harrison wanting to leave the gang he has gotten roped into, however they are holding his personal information which he attempts to regain himself, soon after the leader finds out about his wrongdoings.

A shot of him crossing the road and passing behind her will be in the original cut but zoomed in premier pro so that it isn’t visible that it has been put in her bag. The final shot will be him putting it in her bag and then cuts to black. 

Throughout the sequences have title cards with white text on a black background.  

Scene1: 

He is at home in his bedroom and he receives a text which will be animated on screen, saying that he MUST meet them at a carpark which should also be named in the text, it should also say that he is being tracked via his mobile phone, a time should be specified, Fade to black. 

Scene2: 

He wakes up the next morning and does the normal morning routine things e.g. grabbing keys, locking door closing window etc… Cut to a shot of him walking through Exeter high street which pans down from the sky to him walking forwards to a moving camera. Close up tight shots of the two hunters walking in the high street too with earpieces and two-way radios so they can communicate between each other, this will also help to make it more obvious that they are the ‘hunters. He should be walking to the top floor of the carpark with only the final shot being of the female. Being approached and then turning around. 

Script:

Storyryboard:

Moodboard:

The above video is a rough cut with two different cameras side by side, the left one being the main Canon 700D which the whole title sequence was shot on and the one on the right is an action camera with a gopro style with a much wider field of view lens, I found this to be a very good comparison for numerous reasons with the main being that it shows a behind the scenes shot of how the production was actually filmed, I will not be using the action camera for the main video because the colours aren’t as good as the dslr which is very obvious from the video above, also the resolution of the action camera is limited to 720p which isn’t full HD, as it isn’t designed with a high resolution in mind.

As some establishing shots for me production me and my friend put our drones up in the sky and filmed some shots of Harrison cycling down a lane, this gives a lot of context for the next scene as to where his house is. My friends drone is the one in clip one and three and mine is the one in two and four. The cameras on the drone film in the same resolution which is 2.7k however the cameras were produced five years apart so the colour balance is very different between them, so in the final video I will attempt to match these as good as I possibly can. Also the clips from my friends drone need cropping in as there is a slight black border around the outside, this will not reduce the final quality of the video whatsoever because the final video will be exported in full HD or 1080p which is a lot less than 2.7k.

I made eight different cuts of the final video the one above being sample four. As the different ‘samples’ progress the changes get less and less noticeable, but the differences between four and eight are quite recognizable. The clip at exactly one minute has been rotated to match the ‘straightness’ of the rest of the frame, for example the beams of the car park. This was very hard to get straight all the time because I used a ‘fig-rig’ to film ninety percent of the final films clips and this makes it very easy to rotate the camera one way or another even if it is by one or two degrees. But the biggest difference between this and the final video is the sequence of shots and the duration of them (from forty-nine seconds onwards), I got feedback from my group that the shots were too fast and that you could not understand what was happening between them so I decided to makes some double length and by this I mean so that they crossover over two drum beats rather than just one which is what happened previously.

FINAL VIDEO

I think that throughout the project I worked to a high standard. I decided to work on my own as I believed for this project is would be more efficient, and I still believe this to be true, by working on my own it allowed me to depend on myself to get things done rather than other people around me, and the second main reason being that if I did produce a terrible film then it would reflect on me and no body else around me and show my strengths and weaknesses’.

Production Files/Documents: