The Office (US) (2005-13) – Season 4, Episode 9 – ‘Dinner Party’ analysis https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B00ET0P7WI/ref=atv_dp
The Office is a ‘mockumentary’ style drama based inside the offices of ‘Dunder Mifflin’ where the characters are Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Pam Halpert ( Jenna Fischer) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) as well as many other characters.
In this fan favorite episode Michael tricks the workers into working late in a way to get Jim and Pam to come round and have dinner with Michael and his boss/girlfriend Jan ( Melora Hardin), He has a fake call with corporate telling them ‘where they can stuff working late’ this was only after Michael asks Jim if he had any plans for this evening in which Jim replies by telling Michael that he doesn’t because hes there working late Michael (after calling corporate) tells Jim that they should celebrate by having dinner in which Jim struggles to come up with an excuse out of it, realizing that him and his wife / co-worker Pam have to go round. Michael then gets hassled by Dwight who sucks up to Michael asking what time he should be arriving, Michael dissapoints Dwight by saying its couples only which is where he also invites Andy and Angela (Angela Kinsey) who are also dating. The rest of the episode takes place at Michael and Jan’s Condo where we witness the weird almost cringe and uncomfortable relationship as we the viewer see the events of the episode through Jim’s eyes as he is our key to the show in what the fans call ‘The Jim Look’ (more on that later) We see through the guests facial expressions how they feel towards this Dinner Party and we see Michael and Jan’s relationship fall apart as they fight.
The Title Sequence – The office has an iconic title sequence the theme tune is iconic so you only have to hum the opening notes for people to know what it is you’re singing, the opening few shots are videos John Krasinski (Jim) recorded whilst checking out the location for the show before filming for the first season began, we see clear shots of the characters with the cast names as each character appears on screen, we see the likes off Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J Novak and Ed Helms This is followed by more shots from the series and then a shot of Michael adjusting his dundie on his desk which finally leads us to the title card which looks like an office logo you’ll see on real office doors, Later in the series the sequence changes to import shots from current series’ but when Steve Carell leaves the show after Season 7 the sequence changes to see Andy (who becomes manager) adjust things on his desk and Steve Carell’s name taken out of the opening shots.
The office is like i said a mockumentary so the whole point is you know there are people there watching and filming, it is believed that there are 3 cameramen and a boom mic operator, this means we don’t get many cuts of shots and we get more zooms across the room from the same camera which will move and change position to benefit the episode. and the storytelling. The shots are pretty much all medium shots except when we need to see a characters facial expression then we’ll have a close up on their face, this benefits the scene because we get to know exactly how the character is feeling about a specific thing that’s happened or sometimes their face says it all, for example Jim, Jim is famous for looking at the camera, this is his link to the audience watching as if he’s asking if they’ve just acknowledged what just happened or heard what was just said.
This video here shows all the times Jim looks to the camera – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmJudQW0GwM
All the times Jim famously looks at the camera just from ‘Dinner Party’ alone
When we see Michael and Jan give their guests a tour Jim points out Michael’s ‘Dundies’ (his custom awards he gives out to his employees) Michael points out that he has also purchased a ‘plasma TV’ this tv is nowhere near a plasma which is the funny bit but we see Michael say its his favorite thing ever and that he just stands there and watches it for hours, The TV or the Dundies aren’t mentioned for ages until Michael and Jan have an argument and Jan throws one of Michael’s Dundies at the TV, this is the breaking point for Michael as we hear him shout ‘That is a 200 dollar plasma TV that you just killed!’ we are meant to find this a serious scene but no matter what it is just hilarious and the camera work adds to this with the handheld mode we see.
The Office went out pre-recorded with 9 seasons of 20-28 episodes, this lasted from 2005-13 and won over 45 Emmy’s for its unique comedy, acting and fan favorite episodes. The Office is truly one of a kind in terms of television.
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Doctor Who (1963- ) – Series 9, Episode 11 – ‘Heaven Sent’ analysis
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06rhv99/doctor-who-series-9-11-heaven-sent
One of the fundamental elements of Doctor Who, a show about a time-travelling alien that has lasted over 50 years — give or take a couple decades of hiatus — is that the Doctor does not travel alone. The Doctor’s companions serve as audience surrogates, asking for explanations about the sci-fi world of the show. As outlets for friendship, romance, and, sometimes, mourning, they help humanize him. “Heaven Sent,” the penultimate episode of Doctor Who’s ninth season since the show’s 2005 continuation, is a contradiction of that premise, a story of the Doctor on his own, mourning a recently dead companion and talking to his memory of her, trying to solve his way through a horror puzzle box.
Rachel Talalay directs “Heaven Sent” and it is one of the best episodes the show has seen since 2005. According to Talalay, Steven Moffat — Doctor Who’s then showrunner and the writer for “Heaven Sent” — said to her, “Make it beautiful, make it scary,” after handing over the script to what he thought would be an unfilmable episode. It’s amazing how she’s able to work the ideas out. Talalay films Peter Capaldi as the Doctor alone (for the most part), his ongoing commentary layered in tragedy, boastfulness, and dramatic irony. “Heaven Sent” deepens upon subsequent rewatches
Peter Capaldi plays the Doctor in this episode that finally has the doctor find his home planet Gallifrey a long standing plot thread in the show for a number of years. An interesting factor in this episode is that Peter Capaldi is the only actor in this episode, he spends the entire 50 minutes of the episode running round a castle trying to find a way out, you may think this is the most boring 50 minutes ever, but actually it’s the complete opposite. Capaldi’s mind blowing performance and Rachel Talalay’s phenomenal directing makes for one of the best episodes of the show. Both will be gone into more detail.
Title Sequence- Is there a more famous title sequence and theme tune then this? If so i haven’t found it yet. Composed in 1963 by Ron Grainer and organised by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the Doctor Who theme is the most iconic british theme and has been reinvented many times over the years for new interpretations for future Doctors by composers such as James Bond composer David Arnold (who composed my favourite variant of the theme!), Mark Ayres, Keff McCullock and Peter Howell to name a few. But this current version from this episode is from series veteran composer Murray Gold who had been composing the music for the show since its relaunch in 2005. Murray has composed 5 variants of the theme tune for the show and his last one for Peter Capaldi’s Doctor is a fan favourite. The titles themselves had also been reinvented to incorporate Capaldi’s Doctor, they now feature a ‘Clock’ motif and were inspired by fan made titles which can be seen here –
The official ones take a slightly different approach while they keep the clock motif they do not have the fob watch which was expected not to be there as it had not appeared since the series 3 finale. The clock swirl is one of the best shots as the render of the TARDIS looks amazing bouncing out of it and swirling around the vortex before the names of our protagonists’ are shows, We then see The Doctor’s face, something that has remained fairly constant since the second doctor back in 1966. We then get a bold shot of the logo before the title sequence ends. Below is two ‘GIF’s’ of the BBC version seen in Capaldi’s tenure from 2013-17
We see a lot of different shot types in this episode, mainly medium close ups of the Doctor but there are also a lot of amazing looking long shots from down the corridor as the Doctor is punching the diamond wall. the audio used is brand new music composed by series composer Murray Gold his new tracks for the episode which include fan favorite ‘The Shepherd’s Boy’ There is a distinct orange hue to most of the shots that come from the windows of the castles. this teases the return of Gallifrey, the Doctor’s home planet at the end of the episode as the hue gets stronger and stronger
The tone of the Doctor changes depending on the mood, at the start the audience detects the anger in his voice but as the episode progresses his voice becomes more calm before getting sad when the Doctor realizes he really has lost Clara. ( a plot thread from the last episode) This is also backed up by Murray Gold’s brilliant score for the episode
The set is beautiful, its an old nordic castle that the episode is shot in and the episode takes advantage of its looks. The only other set is the TARDIS Console room which was built in BBC Wales, in 2013 and remained all the way to Peter Capaldi’s final episode in 2017. These are the two main sets that we see featured
I can see there being about 5 cameras and microphones being used in this episode, these help give us the dynamic shots that we see in this episode, When the Doctor punches the diamond wall the camera flicks back and forth between the different cameras to show the doctor punching the wall and the pain on his face and his fist punching the wall. This is a very quick switch which works very well to add suspense to the shot and makes the episode look amazing with the 4k cameras they used for this.
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‘The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson’ – (aired 17th & 21st November 2011) – analysis
Robin Williams, a film legend, oscar winning, multi talented actor i could go on. On this hilarious interview with his friend Craig Ferguson from 2011, Robin appears to promote his new film ‘Happy Feet 2’ He states that he’s doing a world tour for the film and loves doing the films.
Title Sequence – The title sequence is your typical ‘Late night’ style of title sequence it features a pretty upbeat song sung by Ferguson as you see shots of New York and Ferguson himself singing, driving in his car and playing in a water fountain while singing this song, the sequence lasts for about 33 seconds altogether and seamlessly cuts nicely into the opening shot of the episode where we see Craig get introduced and come out to talk to the cameras and chat about whos on. Ferguson is very upbeat in this opening sequence he’s seen on top of buildings with a microphone, in the back of a car, playing the drums and many places around New York singing. He finishes the song with the words ‘Tomorrow is just your future yesterday’ before falling back into the fountain and the screen turning black before the show’s logo appears
Craig also had many variants of his title sequence imitating songs and music videos, for example this one to the song ‘Bang your Drum’
The first shot in the episode is a slow zoom in on Craig’s face from a sky camera that comes to form a mid shot, the rest of the shots are mid-medium shots and the odd long shot. The medium shots are mainly of Craig and Robin and the long shots are of the both of them. The shots of Craig talking are mid shots, these are when he is presenting at the start and talking to the audience or to the camera. This is easily the shot that gets used the most.
Craig is very upbeat as he presents the show and is very welcoming making you feel like you can trust him and gives him a very warm personality this is assisted by his jumpy personality and dancing at the beginning of the show to show how chilled he is and how happy he is. He raves about Robin Williams before introducing him to the show, this helps the audience watching to know that he and Robin are genuinely friends and have known each other for a long time before filming this interview, Craig is very informal with the audience as well, this helps to show how laid back the show is in his presenting.
The Late Late Show goes out pre-recorded, but not by long, it seems it is filmed hours – days before it goes out. This is done because the show goes out at 12:35 and it would be very hard to get the guests on at that time of the night. It is also so that the show ensures it gets a full audience and time to edit the show this helps to blur out swearing by using Craig’s pre-recorded Spanish words to cover the swearing for comedic effects like ‘Aye-carumba’ being said over someone swearing. This is used quite often for comedic timing and works really well.
The set has everything you could expect from your average talk show, a big curtain and door for the guest / host to walk through, a space for a band, space for Craig to do his monologue and most importantly, a desk with chairs to do the interviews with guests.
There are about 3 cameras used, one focusing on Craig Ferguson, one on Robin Williams the third on the two of them which helps to show their reactions to stuff, this one is used the most with the Robin Williams camera being used the second most to see Robin answer the questions, there is also a fourth camera which is used to film Robin come in and talk to Craig before they both sit down to be interviewed. this camera is only used for bits like this.
Let’s talk about Craig’s interaction with Robin Williams, like ive said before Craig and Robin have been friends for years before this interview and it shows as i and many other people feel like Craig isnt interviewing Robin, they’re having a catch up. You forget that he’s there to promote a film and feel like you’re watching two friends have a chat, Craig chats to Robin about his recent marriage and makes jokes about them both being married 3 times and saying ‘Three strikes you’re out’ only for Robin to reply with ‘Any more you have to give up a body part’ their comedy bouncing off each other is hilarious and the way they interact with the audience for example Craig coughing and saying he ‘caught a cough from the gent in the second row’ only for Robin to hit back with ‘Only a cough? i caught more’ that is hilarious, the way the two bounce off each other also shows how good Craig’s presenting is after hosting The Late Late Show for about 10 years prior to this. Craig and Robin play games with the audience which Robin is more then happy to take part in and Craig even has Robin back to film more to be aired in a later show joking that he’s been off to London for the tour of his film when really they had filmed that bit about half an hour after the last segment. Robin jokes that he didn’t like London so he came back, the two can’t contain themselves as they burst into laughter for about the 100th time which is why i think that is the best interview in history, ever need a laugh? watch Craig Ferguson interview Robin Williams and you will be cured!
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