Research into Sitcoms (secondary product)

Research into Sitcoms

Defining a sitcom:

“Audiences make sense of texts by comparison to genre expectations”. This is a quote from Brett Mills; I felt this was a very important quote, as when we create our own Sitcom we must keep this in mind, making sure the storyline fits with the genre of an original sitcom.

After doing some research into Sitcoms, I have found out a little history into Sitcoms, as well as the narrative, the stereotypes, and the ideologies used in Sitcom.

Sitcoms are usually studio produced in front of a studio audience, whose laughter is heard, although they are never seen. By doing this it breaks the strict realism of the programme, adding to the ‘light heartedness’ of a sitcom. According to Patricia Holland “Classic British Sitcoms have pushed unacceptably close to the bone, with racist Alf Garnett in ‘Till death do us part’ and the lovable hustler Del boy in ‘Only fools and horses” Therefore Sitcoms do tackle serious issues but in a safe, fun way.

The pleasures of a Sitcom are to release the tension from the audience through laughter. These is why Sitcoms have been so popular in the past and still are today, so when creating our own Sitcom we must keep this in mind.

“Over a longer period of time, at least for the past 3 decades, they have been a consistent part of the flow of the evening television entertainment, a necessary and vital ingredient in television controller’s strategy for keeping the audience tuned in” (S.Thornham) Sitcoms play a big part in television, taking massive amounts of viewing figures, such as friends, and the inbetweeners. Sitcoms are a way in which for people to relax and laugh at other people, making them feel better or less stressed with their own lives. However they also show clear messages mainly about serious problems. “Despite the very large range of targets and joking and humour in situation comedies, the programmes do confront to relatively strict conventions”

Sitcoms tend to only be weekly half-hour slots, therefore limiting the number of characters and cheap set. Producers use studios with one or at the most two sets, which could be written and produced by an in-house team of screen writers and production staff.

After researching through a number of books: The Television Handbook by Patrica Holland (2000), The Television Genre Book by Glen Creeber (2001)

Media Studies: A reader By Sue Thornham , Caroline Bassett,  and  Paul Marris (1999),Television Sitcom by Brett Mills (2005). I found the two main basic ‘situations’ of Sitcoms are those of home and work. Something we need to encounter into our Sitcom.

  Family Sitcoms:

Such as ‘The vicar of Dibey’ which is about a neighbourhood, although it can also fall under the ‘Workplace’ Sitcom as well. One of the pleasures of watching a family Sitcom is to observe how bizarre some of the family set ups are such as ‘My three sons’ and ‘The Brady bunch’. These types of Sitcoms draw attention to the mayhem of family life and more gritty issues.

Work Place Sitcoms:

More about relationships in the workplace then actually the work place its self, such as the I.T crowd, which focuses on the relationships build in the office. “Often developed characterisations and actions”

The characteristics of a Sitcom:

• Narrative Structure
• Shooting style
• Performance style
• Types of actors
• Programme length
• Scheduling of programme

When creating our own Sitcom we must take these aspects into consideration.

Narrative of a Sitcom:

All forms of popular fiction involve a narrative of Tzetan Todorov, which includes a disruption, a disturbance, which is then resolved. Each 30 minute episode should include equilibrium, a disruption, recognition, an attempt to repair and a new/return to equilibrium. According to Tzventan Todorov rule of structure.  “The narrative offers the reader or viewer a transformation of the initial equilibrium through a disruption and then a reordering its components” The narrative creates a story in which the audience can relate to. Situation comedies also use the narrative to create closure after each episode so that when each new episode begins, it has a new sequence. This allows the audience to watch any episode and understand the narrative without any previous knowledge of the sitcom. 

Stereotypes in Sitcoms:

      

In the case of situation comedies stereotypes are used to identify the ideological forms. Stereotypes are forms of characterisation, which are simple, widely recognised and easy to remember, which are frequently repeated e.g. a dumb blonde.

A quote I found from the media studies book written by S.Thorham, C.Bassett and P.Morris. Which I found relevant to my research was “Forms of stereotyping in the media have been identified as part of the way in which the media define and reinforce the deviant status of part of particular groups”. I felt this fit well with the use of stereotypes in ‘The Inbetweeners’ as they are four characters known as geeky outcasts , which find it hard to fit in , hence the title of the Sitcom.

Therefore in our Sitcom we must take these into consideration, when choosing stereotypes to portray. However we mustn’t get mixed in with stereotypes and social types. “ stereotypes refer to things outside ones world” such as an overall person e.g. geek: glasses, spots, smartly dressed and clever.“ social types refer to things which one is familiar with” for example most social types turn out to be white, middle class , heterosexual and male.

Vladimir Propp came up with a theory, coming up with 8 stock characters:

1. The Hero
2. The Villain
3. The Princess
4. The Helper
5. The Donor
6. The Dispatcher
7. The False Hero
8. The Princesses Father

Not all of the characters are included in a Sitcom; there may also be more then one stock character. The Hero is the main character of the programme e.g. Will from ‘The inbetweeners’ or JD from ‘Scrubs’.   

“Stereotypes play a particular role in establishing elements of the ideologies of dominant groups” Therefore stereotypes are used to establish between social class or individuals, as well as political points.

Ideology in a Sitcom:

A quote I found from the ‘Television Genre book by Glen Creeber’ was:  “One could say that it has been the ideological flexibility of the Sitcom that has accounted for its longevity. The Sitcom has been the perfect format for illustration current ideological conflict while entertaining an audience” Over the past years Sitcoms have been used to tackle serious issues, in a light hearted way. Including political reversals to accommodate changing social and political norms.

Summary

Therefore after researching more into Sitcoms and its narrative , stereotypes and ideological meanings, I feel I have a better understanding on how Sitcoms are made and the importance of what goes into a Sitcom for it to fit under its ‘genre’ of a Sitcom. Such as including stereotypes into our programme. Also it is important in adding Vladimir Propp theory into our programme, about including stock characters such as a villain for the audience to hate, maybe this could be a boss at work, or a teacher at school . We also need to add in a Hero in which the audience can enjoy watching and maybe relate the character to them. We then need to decide if our sitcom will include laughter like original sitcoms do, or if we are not to make our sitcom stand out from others. As well as this we need to decide if our sitcom is going to be a ‘work sitcom’ or a ‘Home sitcom’ and if so why would this effect our audience , as it is more likely for families to watch a home sitcom , and our target audience is 15-35 so would a family fit best into this. We also need to include the code and conventions of a sitcom , such as the code of the narrative therefore the problem gets resolved at the end of the episode. Also include the conventions of how it relates to the genre , such as a work or home sitcom , and the characters included. Making sure the patterns portray a sitcom so that the audience can identify the genre as a sitcom.   

Bibliography:

Books:

• The Television Handbook By Patrica Holland (2000)
• The Television Genre Book By Glen Creeber (2001)
• Media Studies: A reader By Sue Thornham , Caroline Bassett,  and  Paul Marris (1999)
•  Television Sitcom By Brett Mills (2005)

Focus Group Questions

These will be the pages/layout which we had out to the people taking part in our focus group.
The questions are not very clear from this image , so the following questions are:

Question one: Why do you watch Sit-coms?

Question two: What attracts you to watch a Sit-com?

Question three: What is your favorite Sit-com and why?

Question four: What part of Sit-com appeals to you and why?

We will then show them an episode of the inbetweener's

And ask these questions:

Question one: What did you enjoy about the clip you just watched?

Question two: What didn't you enjoy about the clip you just watched?

Question three: What was your reaction to the clip? E.g. laughed, cried etc?

Question four: If you were to create your own Sit-com, what story line would you use and why?

Question five: What do you think makes a good Sit-com?

Question 6: What characters do you enjoy to watch when watching a sic-com?

Question 7: Finally, if you were to create your own Sit-com what characters would you create and why?

I hope from these questions we can really get an understanding of what the audience want and don't want , which will help us when creating our own Sit-com.

Personal Checklist

Audience

Primary :
Focus Group- Create questions and arrange a focus group , inviting a large group of people, to watch a variety of british , pre-watershed sit-coms. (done)

Secondary
Research viewing figures - Research viewing figures for the 4 programs in which our group analysised. Inbetweeners, I.T crowd, Mighty Boosh, Hollyoaks, and create graphs to display information found. (done)

Product

Primary:

Narritives- Analysis the narritives of the 4 chosen programs, and summary of the overall narritive, to help when creating a narritive for our own sit-com.

Secondary:

Codes and conventions of sit-coms- research through books about the codes and conventions found in sit-coms. (done)

Deadline: 4th novemeber 2012.

The Scenario

We are working for silver lining productions , a multimedia company that has had recent television success with fly on the wall documentaries , structured reality programming and fiction productions.

We have been given the opportunity to prepare a pitch for development funding so will need to present sample production work. The target audience of our program will have a similar target audience to E4's demographic (15-35) and will be suitable for pre-watershed broadcasting. WE are to create the first couple of opening scenes of our tv program, establishing narrative themes, character and location. Including a title sequence. WE are also to create a 3 page fan webpage aswell to encourage as much audience interaction and communuication as possible. Our choice genre is Fiction production.

Audience viewing figures (secondary audience)

Inbetweener’s: Series 3

The First Episode shown on 13 th September had 2.2 Million viewers, from channel 4.

10% of that was on E4 at 10 o’clock till half 10.

2.9% was from viewers watching on E4+.

Therefore having more platforms of channels to show the programme on , increased the viewing figures by a lot.

The final episode of series 3 got the highest amount of viewing figures the programme had ever got before, getting a massive 2.62 million views from channel 4.

12.9 % from 10 o’clock till half 10 on E4.

3.3% (342,000 views) on E4+.

Prior to its launch, the slot average for that year had been 347,000 views (1.7%).

Managing to beat all other multichannel competition in the slot, beating BBC2, Channel4, and Channel5 which were all in the million mark at this point.

Reference : www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/14/inbetweeners-e4-tv-ratings

Fresh meat

The opening episode of Fresh meat series 2 aired on the 28^th September 2012 got 1.69 million viewers.

However the second episode on the 5^th on October, the viewing figures dropped to 1.2 million , but when being shown on E4+ the figures raised to 1.37 million. Which shows by showing your programme on one then one channel boosts the viewing figure. Here are a couple more viewing figures I found on BARB from Fresh meats series 2.

14^th October – 1.49 million viewings

21st October- 1.43 million viewings

28^th October – 1.24 million viewings figures

For the first series of Fresh meat the average viewing figures were 2.7 million. Therefore through my research it shows that the viewing figures have fallen massively over the series, showing the audience are losing interest in the sitcom.

Mighty Boosh;

Mighty boosh had an average of 1 million viewings for the 3^rd series.

I.T crowd:

IT crowd had an average of 2.5 million viewers for there 4^th series.

Therefore I have created a graph displaying all 4 Programmes average viewing figures:  

Summary

This shows that the most popular programmes are the inbetweener’s and IT crowd. I Believe this is to do with the target audience as inbetweeners is shown on E4 , their target audience being 15-35, and this programme is about teenagers , and the target audience watching is many teenagers , therefore its important what channel you show your programme on and the target audience who watch then channel , having a big impact on your viewing figures.This is something to think about when creating our own programme, and also this that it must fit with the E4 target audience age. As all for these concepts affects the viewing figures. 

Research plan

Narrative

Inbetweeners- Episode 1 series 3:

Tzvetan Todorov

Equilibrium: 

The program starts with an introduction to the character will , and his everyday life as he walks through school, and then goes to a clip of the 4 characters in a car on the way to sixth form , resembling every day life.

Disruption:

There is a fashion show being held for charity , however there is not enough models for the show. Will does not agree with the concept of a fashion show.

Recognition:

Will is asked by the head master Mr Gilbert's to take part in the fashion show , will refuses to , therefore creating a conflict as the head master makes will take part. Will and the other characters are also asked to take part in modeling in the show , simon is asked , however jay is not, even though he would like too. He is then asked to model with charlotte. simon models however has a wardrobe malfunction.  

Attempt to repair:

Will agrees to take part in the fashion show by collecting money , to resolve the conflict. He also  models with charlotte he does this to impress the character of charlotte in which he loves.

New/Return Equilibrium:
goes back to everyday life , as the four boys go home together, with a voice over of will suming up the days events.

Vladimir Propp

Will: Hero

Jay: The helper

Simon: The helper

Neal: The helper

Mr Gilbert: The Villain

Carly: The helper

Alistair : False Hero

Charlotte: Princess 

Roland Barthes

Action:

The narrative flow of the episode flows like any other sic-com , where a problem arises , and is resolved by the end of the episode. The fact it is set in a school represents the target audience watching , teenagers around the same age. The fact it is set in a school also gives it a light-hearted feel the the program.

Enigma:
The enigma is the mystery be hide the story , in see case its how will the fashion show event unfold , leavning the audienece waiting. Also you could say , will the protgonist "will" ever get the girl "charlotte". which links to every episode leaving the audience waiting to see if they ever actually get together.

Semic:
The code refers to connation within the story , the connation and denotation of the characters to be seen through their costume , such as the use of stereotypes to portray the characters e.g. the character of will , through the use of costume and voice. They have used the stereotypes to connote to the audience the character of will , as he is a geek , by using his costume his allows anyone to notice that , involving all types of audience.

Symbolic:  This is similar to the semic code , however on a deeper meaning scale, such as ...

 Cultural: The culture code is the sterotypes of the genre , e.g. will in a sic-com there is also a character who comes up with ideas to get out of trouble or is the more geeky character. Also sic-com alwy follow the same narrative flow , which allows the audience to know that it is a sic-com, also to give them an indication to what the programme storyline may be , and how it will resovle. As the audience have a knowledge of this as it is part of most sic-coms or programes.