MY WIFE AND KIDS

Case study two – my wife and kids

 

 

Coverage of action:

The producers have covered the programme by having about 4 – 5 different cameras. They’ve covered the centre of the stage and the left and right side of it too. Every camera is showing a different range of camera shots, such as close ups, medium shots, long shots, wide shots. They show closes up to show expressions on the actor’s faces. They are able to show body language, show and cover the stage so you as the audience are able to see everything within the set. The reason they cover the stage is because it’s the main background for the show, the front room and the kitchen. For this case, the audience isn’t seen but they are able to be heard, well their laughter is.

 

Communicating meaning to the viewer:

The programme is pre-recorded with a live audience so they capture their laughter when the jokes are being told. But as it is a pre-recorded show they only show it at a certain time of the day and maybe even on certain days they will show it as well. They’re making the people at home feel relaxed and happy by the jokes and sarcasm that can be heard from the programme. They are showing you and the audience the action from changing camera to camera smoothly, they also edit the action such as cutting from the scene to ad breaks. They also show you the action by different camera shots, angles and movement; reason being is so you get to see everything that they’re trying to show you.

 

Visual style:

The look and feel of the programme is very homely and very family orientated. For the visuals of the programme they do have a title sequence and text is used to show who is starring in the programme at the beginning of the show and they also have credits at the end of the programme with all the people that have worked on the show. The look of the set is like a home, with the look of the front room, the kitchen and sometimes the bedrooms which are shown.  For this the stage is the set. For the set design, it’s like I said before it’s a homey look, as it’s based around a family. For the props, I would it’s the normal things that people would have in a home, but there are many, many props in it. For the lighting, they have to keep it looking bright in both looks (the front room and kitchen) to make it look like there may be lights on when they make out its night time when you look at the windows. For the logo of the show it’s a standard type face, nothing fancy, just keeping it simple for the show.  For the colours in the house, they are pretty standard colours that work well together, such as the yellow and green in the kitchen, with the front room they went with a different colour feel, with an orange theme to it. The reason they’ve probably chosen them colours is because they’re subtle colours so they don’t distract you when you as the audience is watching it. The costumes for the actors are very normal, as in they are what we would wear day to day in clothing choices, because they are trying to show and represent a normal family, not a rich sort of family look. For the visual style there are so many different shot types, angles and movement being shown, so that it keeps the viewers watching, instead of there being one sort of shot type, angle and
movement which would make it very boring for the viewers.

 

Maintaining viewer interest:

The producers keep the audience engaged in what they are seeing by having ad breaks which would make them eager to come back to see the part. There may be pre-recorded sections in the show, such as the different locations, they may have been recorded at a different time but then they get edited together. All together each episode is roughly around 20 minutes long but because of the ad breaks they make it seem longer than it actually is. As it’s a TV show, the whole thing is scripted. The format of the programme is a TV show and yes there is a common structure to each episode as it is a show.

Constraints of studio or location environment:

For this studio event the cameras are basically in front of the set, even if it’s to the left or right of it, it’s still right in front of it. For this none of the cameras are in shot, no matter what episode they are never to be seen because it makes it look messy and unprofessional. For this sort of programme there are limits because it is filmed in a studio and this is because of the size provided as it isn’t very big as they have to have the set, room for the cameras and the live audience in the back watching the show. In this type of situation there is health and safety issues as there are wires all over the floor because of the equipment about. For the live audience they have to be seated at all times so no one is in the way and so nothing can go wrong. For the set, the main one is part of the house which is pretty standard, it never changes but for the other sets might be issues for room as some are bigger and some are smaller.

Multi-camera simultaneous recording:

For this show I would say there are about 4 – 5 different that are recording because if one of them of them crashes there’s always others to still capture the moment. It’s also easier for them to get the different angles when they have few cameras in different places, like right in front, the left side and the right side. For this there is no covering the crowd/audiences as they aren’t seen but covering the stage is obviously the main thing as there are a lot of cameras that are rolling as I said before. For technical issues there are many that could happen in a production like this, as that there aren’t that many cameras on set but there is enough to cover up what failed. I would say that it is important to think about the fact that more than one thing is going on because they might want to record two scenes at a time but in a different part of the studio. And this would let the producers have more than one option is they wanted, so they don’t miss anything.