Contextual studies essay: Doctor Who Critical review

Critical Review of Doctor Who (Journey's end Series 4) 2008

Doctor Who is a British TV Sci-FI/Drama originally created in 1963 by Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert with William Hartnell as the Doctor, it was revived in 2005 by Russell T.Davis with Christopher Eccleston as the new incarnation of the Doctor. In 'Journey's End' the Doctor and previous companions from earlier seasons prepare to fight off the antagonist (Davros and the Daleks). In this episode the audience catches up with the past companions and sees the sudden development of Donna's character that is accelerated through events in the episode.

In the episode 'Journey's End' the Doctor's companions are consistently referred to as the children of time, one of the visual denotations of this link between characters is the consistent use of the colour blue in their costumes.

Within the Sci-fi genre blues (connotations of the colour blue include tranquility and calmness all things the character of the Doctor is written to stand for), purples and greens often signify space, in Doctor Who the colour blue is a direct link to both the T.A.R.D.I.S and the Doctor's sonic screwdriver further connecting the characters to the Doctor. 

However Martha Jones' costume is completely black, through out the episode we as the audience see Martha going against what the Doctor believes in a follows by choosing a violent route to action. Therefore her costume cuts her off from any connections of the Doctor and what he stands for, in the western world particularly the colour black signifies death and morning which is what Martha's character was intended to bring. [website: FilmDirectingTips "12 colours and their meaning"]

Costumes have also been used as foreshadowing and to link two characters together. 

Rose's character and the meta-crisis Doctor (MD), are both in similar styled clothes in the same colour. This foreshadows their similarities in terms of both of them being human and needing someone to be with, it pairs them together because their costumes are more aesthetically pleasing for the audience together and makes the Doctor seem an outcast towards them. Donna's costume although not identical to the Doctor's still has some likenesses such as the long brown trench coat and the fitted boot cut jeans. This costume however can be seen as implying the sudden development in Donna's character of becoming the 'Doctor-Donna'.

As well as this there are other costumes that denote ages of characters such as Jack Harkness' military coat which in itself signifies he has a military history however the style of it, in addition to the reveal that Jack can't die leaves the audience to question how old Jack Harkness actually is.

The mise en scene in terms of costume doesn't follow generic Sci-Fi conventions, there are no space suits or excessive uses of tech aside from the sonic screw driver however the settings do conform to Sci-Fi conventions in terms of having space ships and aliens in extraterrestrial worlds.

Body language and action within this episode alone subvert stereotypes of women (something classic in the Sci-Fi genre), aside from having an archetypal male lead there are 3 other women who show an equal amount of leadership. Martha's character denotes confrontation in her body language, she stands with good posture and an open body language.

High angle shots are used multiple times through out this episode as a connotation of impending danger. 

One of the first times this occurs is when the T.A.R.D.I.S. is captured, the high angle (h/a)crane shot allows an establishing shot of the now dead T.A.R.D.I.S. as well as doubling up as a shot connoting the danger outside. It's an ever so slightly angled shot (apart of expressionism) that later becomes exaggerated to emphasise the landing of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and reestablishing the sense of danger for the Doctor and the companions. 

(This is mirrored later by a shot of all the companions and the Doctor flying the T.A.R.D.I.S. together and has brought the narration full circle. And is finally used again at the end of the episode when the Doctor is alone, this repetitive use of camera angles denotes the Doctor's journey of moving from companion to companion however the final shot on his own is a visual representation of how alone he truly is.)

Another use of this shot is later in the episode where the T.A.R.D.I.S is being destroyed, this h/a of the Doctor connotes his vulnerability and helplessness, this is reinforcing what's being denoted by David Tennant visually. 

One of the most iconic shots in the episode is the mid shot (ms) of Rose, the Doctor and the meta-crisis Doctor, each character is framed as part of the rule of third, this is not only visually pleasing for the audience but also connotes how torn Rose is between both of them.

Doctor Who follows classical Hollywood continuity editing,

 the most common transition edit in this episode are jump cuts, they help to keep the pace of the episode steady and regular. Because of this when the Doctor wipes Donna's mind, it goes against traditional montage conventions and actually slows down this does two things; brings more attention to it as it stands out more and builds empathy from the audience to the character. 

Because of the jump cuts it's easy to see other elements such as the 180 degree rule being followed (something particularly important in an episode where one actor is playing 2 characters and there is a higher chance of confusion for the audience, generally the Doctor stays on screen left and the meta-crisis Doctor stays on screen right). Shot reverse shots are also common with the episode and allow for full reaction shots of characters, something that is important in scenes such as the T.A.R.D.I.S. being dystroyed or Martha Jones revealing she has the osterhagen key.

One of the trademarks of Doctor Who is it has been renowned for having a very low budget and having to be 'creative' in how they make their effects, because of this a lot of their explosions and fires are done manually. They will do things such as have small explosions in a shot, fill the camera shot with it and that will then give the effect that a huge/devastating explosion has just occurred. [website: Doctor Who confidential] This lack of post production that is needed for things such as fires means that the budget can be put in other places.

Something that is renowned for Doctor Who is the 'regeneration' scenes this episode has a smaller version of the event and the effects don't need to go as extreme for this one, however this and other effects such as the Dalek's guns all follow genre conventions of Sci-Fi.

Sound within Doctor Who is one of the most iconic parts of the show. One of the shows most recognisable parts of sound it the T.A.R.D.I.S. taking off and landing. 

The sound is originally done with a key on a broken piano string for take off, and is just played backwards with a lot more feedback on it for the landing. 

The soundtrack with who especially in Tennant's era is a recorded orchestra, the music helps to guide the visual narrative and in cases such as Donna's mind wipe. In this case the use of silence between this track and the next adds emphasise and importance to what the Doctor is saying. This is also used later when the Doctor replies to Donna's mother with "Maybe you should tell her that once in a while" not only does it add importance but also signifies how important Donna is to him.

In terms of sound effects, the episode follows classic genre conventions of having space ships and guns etc. However one that stands out for the narrative is the heart beat effect from the Meta-Crisis Doctor, from previous episodes the heart beat comes in a beat of four which links to a Timelords heart beat as well as previous story plots. 

Overall 'Joureny's end' is an episode of Doctor Who that will have preferred readings of having strong and independet female characters that are equal to the male lead/leads (Hall 1980), it has very little opportunity for an opposisitonal reading except possibly that the lead character is a male (a debate that is still ongoing as to whether the Doctor should be male or female). 

Critical evaluation

Critical evaluation

Pre-production: I found the process of script writing relatively easy, I found what worked for me was writing loads of random ideas I find interesting down and seeing which I could expand and develop into my script. 

I had slight issues with casting towards the filming date, the actress who was scheduled to play Lucy dropped out the day before and I had to recast. Because I choose a subject that had happened to me in real life, I knew Trans-gender people who would be able to play the role of Matt/Mave. Overall my actors both preformed well and followed the directions well even though they weren't comfortable with each other.

I found I was slightly unorganised in getting permission for my locations, because I used my own house I only had to ask my landlady if I could film there. However I left it slightly to the last minuet to get the permission to film on the path out side of my house, next time I will be sure to do this earlier.

Production: On the day of my shoot my sound person dropped out, I managed to get a replacement just in time which meant I didn't have to reschedule my shoot. In fact because my crew worked so well together we were able to get the shoot done in one day. Thanks to my camera operator (Trine) we were able to collaborate together about which shots would work better, even though this sometimes meant that we went against the shot list I was able to get a lot more coverage then I originally planned for.

One thing that would've meant the story could've worked better is if I had made time to buy the fake blood for Mave's costume, this would've help denote what was intended which was Mave/Matt had been beaten up.

Post: During editing I found that I had encountered issues with the sound being too quiet, a course mate helped me fix this issue and the audio is more audible. Otherwise the editing worked well and I am overall happy with my final edit.


Overall all from this I learnt that I should:
Be more organised with my shoot times
Have back ups for crew and understudies for my actors 
However I did enjoy this unit a lot and learnt a lot about my self in what I am good at and what I am struggle with.

Story Telling Unit: Script Development

Script development

After my meeting with Steve he made it clear that he thought the idea for my screen play was good, it had a clear beginning, middle and end, however the the structure and story-telling needs to be bolder and more surprising. He pointed out that the set up for the meeting between Lucy and Matt is rushed and that the thought that Lucy wants a date is an after thought.
As some pointers for improvement he suggested I add more visuals to Mave's introduction (such as shots of blood dripping on the floor), and to reveal Mave's face as the final shot. Steve also pointed out how unrealistic it would be to have a sudden news report about hate crimes against the LGBTQ community. Finally he recommended that Matt's parents either get seen on screen or I get rid of them all together.

When doing the rewriting of my script I added bits for each character individually:
Gary: I gave Gary more time on screen which allowed me to help added to his character's personality. Through adding Matt's father in script it meant I could set up Gary's way of talking more, I made him blunt and to the point my thinking behind this was that he would be at the end of his tether with Matt's fathers behaviour. In my character profiles I had mentioned that Gary and Matt have a very close relationship (almost as father and child), because of this I wanted to attempt to demonstrate that he was defending his own child.
Mark: I added Mark's character to the script in the rewrite to have a visual representation of Matt's family environment. I made him crass and rude towards his own son in an effort to show Matt's homophobic family environment.
Lucy: Lucy's character didn't change much between the script and the re-write, I actually found it harder then I thought to write an underlying love interest between the two characters and so kept her the same.
Matt/Mave: The main change for Matt's character in terms of the script is the pronouns I used, after my research into pro-nouns I decided that if Matt were a real person they would prefer to have "They", "Them" and "Their" pro-nouns as apposed to traditional male pronouns.