Reflections on Practical: TV Drama Still

We were tasked with creating a variety of stills to reflect a certain TV drama subgenre. We thought about subgenres we would be able to simply recreate in our school grounds with the props we had; therefore discounting sub genres such as sci-fi. We then got to work on storyboarding our various shots; deciding on shot types, actors, locations and props.

My shot was a mid long shot of a criminal character half in and half out of a window, looking out whilst holding a pistol. I feel like i connoted the crime subgenre through use of the weapon, the urban setting and the casual, modern clothes worn by the character in shot.

I wanted to allow the audience to try and have to decode the still, by having her only half in the window I wanted to present the idea that she may be breaking into somewhere or running away from something. We also don't get a straight on angle which means we cannot see into the room, creating enigma, we wonder what is in the room and what kind of place she's going into with a gun. This would interest the audience and make us curious as to the character and the motives for the person in the shot, as well as also building on cultural assumption that someone with a gun in without a police uniform is typically a criminal.