Comparing Holby City & Coronation Street Openings.

Comparing the Holby City & Coronation Street Openings is quite simple, below you will find both linked below to youtube for reference.

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To compare Holby City and Coronation Street let's first look at Coronation Street in detail and then compare it to Holby City. Coronation Street, or Corrie, has quite a few unique features in it's opening however all connote a slow and steady storyline. The music is a slow beat traditional sounding music similar to the surroundings you are shown within the opening, an old city urban area where it's clear all the action is going to happen. The traditional, or old, feeling is further enforced by the condition of the area, it is clearly old as shown by the cobbled street and brick work looking very worn for wear.

There are very few camera angles used throughout the opening of Corrie due to how no characters are even displayed! You gain an Ariel shot of the area as well as some medium shots of the buildings with some zooming in however you never see a close up of a person or figure. The editing techniques are also rather bland with very little used apat from some fading affects between different shots. All of this points to a slow and steady drama, not faced pasted or adventurous.

Holby City on the other hand is another bottle of fish entirely! Where as the music in Coronation Street is slow beat Holby City is filled with a heart monitor beeping, connoting a Medical Drama along with tension filled music slowly getting faster throughout the opening. The music is further enforced by the adding of different instruments throughout the opening, far different to Coronation Street. This may point to the difference audiences envolved, and the different age groups due to the different pace of music, Corrie clearly is more interested in the steady drama lover where as Holby City would like the more active viewers.

The shot types and editing techniques further enforce this view, on how the picture is always busy with sometimes up to 2 different scenes in the same shot. This connotes a fast paced drama where you will be on the edge of your seat throughout! The editing techniques themselves are very impressive by the way the picture is layered multiple times, with the blue tinge of a background, a heart monitor display and finally the scene! Compared to Corrie this is a vast improvement.

The camera angles are far more numerous and shown throughout Holby City's opening with extreme close ups of the medical equipment and, what we can only assume, characters running quickly across the video. All of these close ups of medical equipment and running people add to the Mise En Scene of an image of a real medical institute! It's believable that it is actually a surgery.

Overall the differences between Holby City and Coronation Street is large, however this could be quickly explained by the different audiences that each drama which to engage. Coronation Street is obviously interested in the long time watcher, drawing the story out. Where as Holby City obviously wishes to engage those that want fast paced action where life or death are in the balance.

Analysis of Max's Death

Below you will find the clip showing the death scene of Max, before we go onto the analysis let's first define the characters to better describe and understand what / who I will be describing throughout - This is a note for myself as well as anyone who has not watched Hollyoaks before.

• Max - One being hit by the car
• OB - Max's best friend (Hold's him)
• Nile - The one in the car hitting Max
• Steph - The female in the wedding dress
• Tom - The child

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The beginning of the clip starts with Tom chasing after his Action Man toy with a mixture of diagetic sound of a car engine, a warning of what's to come, along with a common medical drama noise from the likes of ER of a heart monitor, as well as non-diagetic sound of an action scene from a movie such as James Bond which is to build up suspense. All of the sound points towards a larger issue about to appear.

With the quick succession of shots between all of the male characters, one Nile breathing heavily connoting anxiety and aggression along with OB and Max being seen behind bars as though entrapped with no way out within view of the shot all points towards a regrettable and unchangeable event. Furthermore when Max runs out in fear of the what is going to happen you hear at the same time as he shouts Tom the revving of the car engine all pointing towards a collision. At the same time this is when the non-diagetic music reaches it's climax of action just when Max pushes Tom out of the road. It then switches into a more slow and saddening song as soon as Max is hit by the car, portraying an extremely sad moment.


The tragedy of the event is further enforced by having a close up of Tom's action man figure landing on the ground with a large cracking noise as though breaking a bone face first and is in a similar position to Max lying next to the curb. Once again there is a quick succesion of shots including a slow motion medium shot of OB running to Max, a zooming in close up of Max which all point towards the seriousness of the situation hooking the audience in.

We then switch back to Nile with a birds eye view, which slowly rotates as his sight of vision does while also floating upwards with a medium shot of him crouch running towards Max in OB's arms, this all happens at a slower than normal speed furthermore digging in the extent of damage and seriousness of the situation.

However OB quickly takes hold of the situation in a male dominant way and tells Nile to call for an ambulance, you can tell he is talking to Nile due to the 180 degree rule between them. Nile is running towards the left of the screen where as Nile is looking towards the right. OB furthermore takes control by soothing Max telling him it's going to be "Fine" there is nothing wrong, and trying to completely ignore, if not joke off, the seriousness of the situation.


Max realises the seriousness of his injuries and like a true gentlemen would in all fairy tales does not complain and tries to convey his final words to his best friend about his feelings for his was-to-be-wife and OB. When finally Max states "Cold" we switch to a close up shot of Tom crying, adding a twist to the dagger already in your heart, due to the child being so upset by what he's seeing you can help but be tugged at your heart strings. OB's joking nature is shown more so by when Max states "I love you mate" OB trys to simply say "What? Listen don't be gay." and tries to keep Max alive by telling him don't leave me, and he finally states "What can I do without my best mate hey?" where you finally see the male gender facade of strenght crack, when it sinks in Max is dead.


We then have Nile simply say "Sorry" and run a slight distance away where he collapses and holds he head in his hands. A clear division between Nile and the 2 other adult males is the fact he is wearing a black leather jacket which when referencing to other dramas is normally linked to violence such as seen in East Enders. At this point we have Steph, the wife-to-be come onto the scene in her perfect feminine look, a white wedding dress, perfect hail nothing out of place of dirty.

This is where we see the stereotypical female who runs to the scene crying out "Max!!", at this point the non-diagetic changes into a church choir sort of noise, connoting Max rising up to heaven. After a few more statements of disbelief from Steph the voices are cut out completely and we only see the characters crying and mouthing their pain, we can all picture what they're saying and this also pulls at the audiences heart strings seeing all 3 characters, OB, Tom and Steph crying together around Max's dead body.


As you can see by the stillshot of the video Stephs wedding dress is laid out in a perfect semi-circle further pushing the thoughts of her being truly feminine, both genders have been shown as typically expected with the Male trying to cover it up in a joke where as the female has gone melodramatic. Max is also shown as innocent in this image with his head lying on Stephs lap, her white dress connotes his innocence. Also with the birds eye view slowly zooming out and slowly tilting towards the green tree and then fading out towards white it adds a feeling of rising up towards the sky, or heaven making the audience make a mental link of him going up to heaven.


Finally after the white fade out we come to a home made video shot of OB asking Max "What is love" which Max replies "Right now mate, the best thing in the world" which adds another pull towards the audiences heart strings due to us not knowing if that was 10minutes before his death or an hour. The scene then finally fades out to black showing us the end.

The clip takes advantage of a few stereotypical beliefs such as how genders act portraying OB, the male, as a strong character who doesn't crack until his friend is finally dead while also portraying the female as weak and vulnerable, even melodramatic, by shrieking about Max. However it also takes advantage of things that touch as all such as the true vulnerability of the child Tom which pulls at our heartstrings.

Overall the clip is an affect one which most likely does the desired affect of shocking and touching the audience at the same time.

Micro & Macro. What are they?

The simplest explanation is one that we used in class.


To put it simply Mirco is the snowflakes, those little things which make the picture where as Macro is the whole picture, it's how all the micro adds up and represents itself to the audience. We then normally apply the information we have gained by analysing both micro and macro to consider how the audience may react differently to these representations.

Micro
Micro includes such things as:

• Camera angles
• Shot types
• Composition
• Camera movement
• Editing Techniques
  
• Transition
• Sound
• Mise-en-scene
• Lighting

As you can see these are all the individual parts of a scene which add up to the entire picture, the macro.

Macro
Macro as previously mentioned is the entire picture, how the lighting represents someone. For instance if someone is shown from a low angle shot this makes the character look bigger thereby making the character look threatening, the way the camera is applied is the micro where as how it represents the character is the macro!

Simple Micro is the individual aspects of the product and the Macro is the implications of the Micro.