Contextual Studies- Sitcom

Vodka Diary's -Pilot Episode 

Mise EN Scene 

How many Locations?
Real or Studio?
Reflect Characters

Camera and Sound
Single or Multi-camera
Audience laughter?
Diegetic or non-diegetic

Narrative and drama
Humour or physical?


Written by a 25 year old female which is visible in its style through humour and character trait's.
What is genre?
Group you would categorise. They are a type or class of texts that share common codes and conventions
Historical/social/political
How texts emerge as commercial products from an industry
Genre audience contract with text.

Codes and conventions dominant in deciding the
form of a film or TV Programme

Technical (SEEN)
Camera
Sound ]Editing 
=Narrative


Symbolic (UNSEEN)
Mise En scene  


Sit(nation) Com(edu)- sub-genre of comedy 

What defines a sitcom?
Traditional studio sitcoms 
Multi-camera 
Edited 'as live'
Audience laugh track
Often have Audience laughter
Edited as live
High key uniform lighting 

Location Sitcoms 
Often have canned laughter 
Single Camera
Post Edited
No 'live Laugh' track 
'rockumentary' style

Episodic Series Format
Typically 30minutes, closed narrative 

Repetition- Circular narrative to keep characters in comic situation at the story's resolution and feed into further episodes. 

Sitcom genre-Narrative Conventions 
The comic trap
The running joke 
one liners/sight gag
innuendo and double-endendre 
Irony and sarcasm
Farce and Slapstick
Parody and satire

The Comic Trap
The basic premise of a sitcom:Physical or emotional situation characters attempt to resolve or escape from. 
Repetition ensures furter traps will be encountered.
Repeating visual jokes/dialogue jokes. For exampleJoey says 'How you doin'?' 

Irony and Sarcasm
irony-To express something different from and often opposite to literal meaning
Sarcasm-When a person says one thing but means another or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. 

Parody/spoof
Parody mocks or pokes fun at original work, it's subject or author through humorous imitation.

Satire
Similar to parody but with a more angry or polemical intent. 
Often political and targets the elite or sophisticated 
Production design usually reflects something of the characters and their lives-Only Fools and horses had a complete mis-match of items and would have a new set of furniture every so often to show tat they are traders, so if someone walked in and said "I like that chair" then Del Boy would sell it them, which was common with traders; Sullivan's research really came into practice here.

Archetypes- A very typical example of a certain person or thing.
Often exaggerated for comic effect, through costume, makeup or performance.

Ideology and hegemony 
Hegemony is a dominant ideology within Society: In Sitcom traditionally reflected in the 'nuclear family' 
Psychoanalysis 
Jung on archetypes; Freud on humour (release of repressed energy) and personality types. 
Surrealism
Humor of the absurd/irrational scenarios' bizarre comic juxtapositions; dreams and nightmares 
Postmodernism/alienation 
Reflexivity; mockumentary 
Representation
Gender, race, class and sexuality stereotypes 

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