TV: His Dark Materials - Language and Representation
Costume - what is Lyra wearing in the photo below? What does this costume suggest she is doing / she is like as a character? In this picture Lyra is wearing overalls and pants this suggests shes a informal person.
Costume: Mrs Coulter is always very smart and formal with red lips and styled hair. What does this suggest about the type of villain she is / her character? This suggest she pays attention to other peoples opinions on her and takes time with how she appears.
Lighting- What do you notice about the setting for where Mrs Coulter is torturing the witch? Why has the director chosen this lighting? (Hint: High key lighting is bright and low key lighting is dark). He chooses low key light to show Mrs Coulter is evil it also builds up tension and suspense.
Actor’s position and movement- Look at the picture of Lyra (below). What does her facial expression tell us about the kind of character she is? What about her actions? Lyra's facial expression tells us she is in distress and she looks shes running a way from someone or something.
5. Makeup- Look at the make-up (and clothing and hair) of the tortured witch. What does the make-up tell us about the character of the witches? (Hint- think about how it makes her look unusual) The make up of the tortured witch makes her look horrifying unlike a conventional witch who usually has a top hat and broom.This shows she is auspicious and dark.
Props- Look at the props in these two screen shots (below). Why have the props been chosen? What do they connote to the audience? For bonus points, what is the shot type and why has this been used?
The stick held by a child connotes she is aggressive and not to be messed with despite the fact that she is a child.The props are chosen to show that she is a possible threat to Lyra.This is subversive as male adults are usually seen as the aggressive ones.
Lyra consults the alethiometer because she is unaware of Will's intentions and motives despite that they are both in one parallel universe.
Setting- Look at the three different settings below. Choose one or more. What do you notice about the setting? How are the settings connected to the characters? What shot has been chosen and why? One thing i noticed about the settings is that they all look fictional except the first one which looks slightly real because its is in a city compared to the last two which are in portals.
Representation
Females are subversive in this extract.
How is Lyra not a typical female character?
Conventional female characters are usually working and seen weak compared to Lyra who is apart of the adventure and is more involved.
However, Lyra looks like she is wearing comfortable clothes so she can run away from people who put her in danger.
Lyra’s behaviour and actions are subversive because she makes the decisions and controls Will.
Lyra: how she speaks is subversive because she is controlling.
Lyra: her relationship with other characters is not conventional for women because she stands up for herself.
The witches and Mrs Coulter are also seen as powerful women. How are they represented as powerful? Are they seen as good or evil or both? They are seen as evil and show more authority then men.
How is Will represented? Is he a typical male character or more unexpected? How?
(Hints: think of him cooking and preparing the food, giving Lyra the bed she wants and allowing her to make the decisions) Will is seen as a unconventional character because he does not take part in decision making compared to Lyra who shows authority over him.
Look at the casting (people acting in this series). Is the cast diverse? How? Think CAGE (Class / Age / Gender / Ethnicity - race) The cast is diverse as it applies on many different age groups and race as it shows black and white people rather then showing one race.
Challenge questions
How is youth represented? This is a coming-of-age drama as well as a fantasy because most of the main characters are young people. How does that make the audience think about young people? Are these representations typical (conventional) or not expected (subversive or unconventional)
What is the difference between fantasy and science fiction? How is the fantasy genre shown in the episode? Consider: The witches, the parallel universes, ‘Dust’, the presence of daemons.
Homework - make sure you have revised our media theories for narrative so that we can discuss how these relate to His Dark Materials in the next lesson.
Barthes- enigma and action codes
Todorov- equilibrium and disequilibrium
Propp’s character theory
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