Enigmas

Who is this man?
What is in the rapping?
Why is he throwing it in the lake?
Why is he in a foreign country?
Who is this man?
Why is he holding them hostage?
What is it time for?
Why are they running?
Why is he playing chess?
Why is he staring at him?
Why are they hugging?
Who is on the phone and why does he have 3 phones?
How can he talk english?

Sherlock, CSI, Luther Comparison Diagram

Institutions

To fully understand television crime drama, you should understand that industry behind the programmes. Producing and broadcasting a television crime drama is a highly technical process that requires a vast array of resources and equipment. Programmes have to be written, filmed, edited and involve hundreds of people in the production process.
For this reason, broadcasting has tended to be done by large media corporations who have those resources. Let's look at some of the major television institutions and their contribution to crime drama.

Dirk Gently - Series 1 - Episode 1

Villain: The villain was not seen until the end of the episode although the villain was not justified and was not imprisoned by the police. The criminal was found as he threatened Dirk Gently (the investigator) as he became paranoid of him accidentally following him using Zen navigation. He then threatened to kill the investigators and confessed to them about two murders by telling them the way he saw the story although he judged it wrong.

Hero:  The hero in this crime drama is definitely an anti hero as once he finds the dead body at the scene he takes money from the victim’s wallet and then doesn’t call the police. This also tells us about his company he works for which is a detective agency, so like Sherlock he also doesn’t work for the police. During the investigation he obtained a valuable piece of software which put him at risk during the episode and ended up with it being stolen by a secret agent. He also accidentally found the killer at the end of the episode by following a car in a idea he calls Zen navigation where you follow someone who looks like they know where they are going, during this trip he followed without realising the murderer of the crime.

Victim:  There were two victims in the end who were both killed by the same person. The first victim was killed also due to paranoia of the victim hiring the detective agency for another completely unrelated job that the killer did not know about.

Set Pieces:

Multiple suspects: There were multiple suspects in the investigation and there was also multiple investigations going on at the same times, which were strangely all linked in together.

Crime scene investigation: At the crime scene the investigators looked at things about the victims in order to learn more about the victim as a person to help lead them to who their killer was, rather than look for murder weapons and clues from the crime scene.

Eponymous: The show is eponymous as it is named after the main character.

Restrictive narrative: The villain was not revealed until the end of the episode and we only knew as much as the police did at the time.

Exam Tips

Pre-release materials - 14th May
Exam - 14th June
TAKE INTO EXAM:
- Coloured  Pencils
- Fine Liners
- Ruler
Practical tasks you could get in the exam:
- make a DVD COVER,
- a FRONT COVER 
- LISTING MAG
- MAGAZINE COVER
- WEBSITE HOMEPAGE (keep in mind)
- STORYBOARD
etc, etc.. It will not JUST require you to write huge essays.

* TIP: Make sure to also add sketches and diagrams - spider diagrams/ bullet points
YOU WILL NEED:
- Depth Knowledge of 3 crime dramas
- You need to mention 3 at least in the exam, e.g. Luther, CSI, Sherlock 
- Use own independent dramas that you have researched/watched yourself

Make sure to use a variety of each show
American - Heraitio - Perfect cop
Fantasy - Sherlock
Gritty - Luther - anti hero
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- A-A* NEED WILL NEED AT LEAST TWO THEORIES.
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Uses and Grafitications 

Reasons why we like media
- information
- for escapist environment
- entertainment
- personal identity
- personal relationships

Propps Character Theory -
The theory of each different kind of role a character is:
Hero, Villian, Princess, Donar. 
Barthes -
The theory that every narrative has an enigma = something to be solved, a puzzle. An enigma is very clever and important for a crime drama.

Tudorov Narrative Theory -
The theory that all narratives follow 3 different parts:
1- equilibrium - normality
2- disruption - problems
3- resolution
Levi Straus -
The theory that all narratives revolve around opposites that conflict one another. 
Good vs Evil
Law vs Criminal
Lies vs truth
Good vs bad

Hypodermic needle theory -An early theory that suggests we are injected
with ideas that we believe to be true.
BINARY OPPOSITES
...OR involve crime dramas you have personally watched e.g 'technology of CSI: Miami vs stupidity of the criminal', or 'Luther is on both sides of Levi Straus' argument as he is both Good and Bad.'
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-Detailed knowledge of characters.
3 Characters with a lot of information about each
e.g Luther - complicated character, thinks he's above the law. He has a warped view of the law and is a high risk-taker who wears his heart on his sleeve and is very emotional and aggressive. He is passionate and determined about his work and usually takes it outside of business and home with him.
- Good understandings of settings
Vegas - gambling, casino, american, desert.
Miami - glamarous, multi cultural, edge of the country.
London - rich, nice apartments, gritty
- Set pieces and iconography
e.g.
- Sirens
- Police tape
- crime scene investigation
- water on desk
Jargon - types of words the detectives use associated with crime drama e.g 'detective'
Modus Operandi (MO)
- the detective's manner of working e.g 'he uses the same pattern of stabbing the criminal 5 times' etc
Write in ROLE.
- You are writing to SELL, so you need to stay in that role and use flashy words and be enthusiastic about your drama
- You need to use REASONS for everything and support your ideas/opinions etc

NCIS

Villain: The villain was questioned multiple times before the revealing at the end of the episode. During these meetings she acted very normal and calm and acted innocent in order to hide her offense. The villain killed the victim due to jealousy of brains and plans/ blueprints worth a lot of money. The villain was a coworker of the victim and betrayed the victim by pretending to be friends with her and killed her off by poisoning the water supply. In the end the villain did end up confessing after giving up hiding as there was too much evidence against her.

Hero:  The hero in this crime drama was a perfect hero and did not bend the rules/ law throughout the episode. He was in almost every investigation scene and took part in interrogating suspects of the murder as well as investigating the crime scene, he was also the one to arrest the criminal at the end of the episode.

Victim:  Had no children, no partner or boyfriends ever, the only relative she had was her mother. The victim's was killed by getting hit by a bus at around 15mph. Late at night. When the body was found it had writing all over her body, on her skin, it was some sort of code as it was tonnes of formulas. She was recently fired from her job in which she was indulged in and recently was fired from.

Set Pieces:

-Multiple suspects: There were multiple suspects during the episode of NCIS although most of the suspects did not turn up until the end of the episode and they all had relatively reasonable motives so they did not make it too obvious who the criminal was.

-Crime scene investigation: This scene contained the typical events that occur during the crime scene investigation such as: They used cones to mark out clues and evidence, and they used police tape to clear out the area. Also they took photos of the body and clues on the body, in this case was the writing all over the body which was also looked into further in the autopsy later on in the episode.

Post watershed: The programme was broadcasted after 9 o’clock although it contained no scenes that were extremely inappropriate for children

Restrictive narrative: The villain was not revealed until the end of the episode and we only knew as much as the police did at the time.

-Nerdy Crime Investigation Squad

Settings

Settings are an important key feature for all crime dramas as without certain settings, a lot of events wouldn’t make any sense at all, for example: Luther is set in the urban area of London so it is more gritty compared to something like Sherlock which is set in the expensive part of London with amazing flats which are really expensive