Textual analysis of TV Drama sequence
The TV drama title sequence, I will be analyzing is ‘Dexter’. The point of the title sequence is to start the programmer and lets us know information. The Title sequence shows a lot about death which gives the audience an idea of the genre of the TV Drama. ‘Dexter’ is written in blood and comes after he takes the mosquito’s life. The title sequence is showed in his home, which shows the main Character Dexter living there. The sequence shows crime.
The Camera work has shots that have close-ups and extreme close-ups, which make the scene really good sequence used to show blades, knives, coffee grinder to point out that the TV drama is about crime. The Camera has been put at angles to show ways of murder. When Dexter wakes up in the morning a mosquito is on his arm and he hurts the insect, the camera focuses on the mosquito at a close-up. Then when he smiles the camera puts it directly at him. When he is shaving the camera shows him at extreme close-up only showing his chin. When he cuts himself shaving, the blood drops in the sink and he cleans his chin, this is also at an extreme close-up. This tells people that when he kills somebody he doesn’t want to show evidence because they will catch him.
When Dexter is putting on his t-shirt it is very tight and looks like its suffocating him. This is when the camera is close-up. The title sequence shows ‘Dexter’ preparing breakfast and the things he needs to prepare it. He has steak, he cuts it up and puts it in a frying pan, and this makes the audience scared because he looks like a murderer. The camera goes in to extreme shot to look at the food his cutting. When he cuts the orange, it looks like his cutting someone up and it looks like horrible things that com from inside people’s body coming out of the orange.
The mies-en-scene shows in the sequence that it’s about what is inside the picture that made the sequence looks very good. The lighting in the sequence is shown dark like after he put on his t-shirt the lighting showed he had a sweet face where the light was and where, there was no light he looked evil ,. ‘Dexter’ shaves his neck like he's cutting someone's throat. He made a facial expression that look like his evil, but when he walked out of his house, he smiled and walked as if everything was fine. He has scary face like a psycho, but is different when he goes out of his house. The clothes he was wearing was white to show that he is happy and kind. If he wears white colour in the day time, he looks innocent. I think he wears dark clothes in the night because he doesn’t want people to know what he does.
The sound in the Title sequence sounds horrible and scary because it makes the sequence look horrible. The theme tune is deep to make the sequence sound and look scary. The theme tune is strange; it is an up-beat tune that makes the sequence. ‘Dexter’ shaves you can hear a loud sounds as he drags the razor up his throat. This is to show tense. The non-digetic sound that is heard outside the sequence, but ‘Dexter’ can’t. The digetic sound ‘Dexter can hear the sound because it’s inside the sequence like when he shave and cut the food he can hear it.
The edited shots, have fast jump cuts like when the Blood fall from Dexter’s chin ,it goes to tying shoe lace then flossing and then food very quickly. When they edit the sequence it makes the scene look very good and make you wan to watch. The audience want to know what happen next.
I think that the title sequence is really good and shows people a lot about the sequence and make people excited and want to watch all of it. I think that ‘Dexter’ is a murder because in the title sequence, he looks like he wants to kill somebody. The way they show the sequence makes it look like a crime scene.
Yonlada Jittakham
