Lost Essay

Lost: Episode 1

The history, what narrative structure is evident in the first episode of lost? What effect does is have on the audience?

In media the narrative structure is organizations given to a series of events which happens in the drama. The events are then connected and interpretations are made based on those events. Narrative is defined as “a chain of events in a cause effect relationship occurring in time”.

In “Lost” the basic narrative and storyline is about a shipwreck. Many different types of people were normally getting onto a plane and the plane unfortunately had an accident and crashed into the middle of nowhere. This is how they get stranded on the deserted island and for the rest of the time there and series they are trying to get rescued and looking for ways to come off the island. 

There are many different types of narrative theory’s or structures which many types of Dramas follow. The character roles theory is were there is always a hero, villain, donor, dispatcher, false hero, helper, princess and the princess’s father. There is also the equilibrium theory were everything starts off balanced, then something comes along to change the balance and disrupt the equilibrium and in the end the problem is resolved and the equilibrium is restored. The binary opposite theory is one the very basics theories where basically there is an opposite for everything e.g. Black the opposite is white, good the opposite is bad, male the opposite is female etc. There is also the enigma code where narratives work with 5 different codes.

In “Lost” I believe they follow Tzevetan Todorov, Equilibrium Theory. This is because the equilibrium would be the fact that everyone got on the plane happily believing they were traveling to there wanted destination however the equilibrium was disrupted by the plane crashing and ending up on the deserted island where some of the passengers survived and others did not. Although in the first episode we do not see how it ends, I believe that by following this theory, the equilibrium will be restored and the people on the deserted island will either find a way of getting off and back to civilization or will be find a way of getting help and getting off the island. Either way in the end I believe that they will find a way of getting rescued and this is because that’s how the equilibrium theory works.

This effects the audience because they know what’s happened and some may have a rough idea of how its going to end, however they do not know what comes in between which makes them sort in suspense to watch what happens, see who survives and what problems occur while the characters are trying to find there way off the island.

Discuss the sound techniques used in the first episode of lost, what effect does it have on the audience?

No TV Drama can be successful without sound. Sound is important because not only does it help exaggerate the plot of the TV drama but is also manages to build suspense within a TV drama. Even with no dialogue, sound just by itself manages to say a lot. Sound can plays with audience’s feelings and emotions. For example if there was a love scene it would be much more effective if a love song was played to help show the love.

There are many sound techniques used in the first episode of “Lost”. A t the beginning of the program in the title sequence, the music played in the background to introduce the show is very dramatic and thrilling. This gives the audience the interpretation that the drama is going to be quite dramatic its self and that lots of shocking things will happen that will have them on the edge of there seats rather than something that will keep them quite amused but not really thrilled.

In “Lost” there is lots of digetic sounds used. The rustling of leaves gave the audience an awareness that the man was in a forest of some sort, the sound of footsteps and the panicking breath gave us the impression he was either running or struggling. The splash of the water made it obvious he was going through water. We also heard the sound of a dog which made it aware that a dog was in the scene. As “Lost” is a about of group o0f strangers who have been shipwrecked on an island together , there is lots of dialogue from all the characters as they are getting to know each other whilst trying to find a way of getting off the island and as the audience we see this.

The non-digetic sounds of the music playing in the background helped build the intensity of the scene so we knew that something was not right. Lots of orchestra music is used which is almost quite haunting itself, as the violins and quite soft sound of it gives the effect that everything’s calm for now but not for long. The sudden sounds of other instruments coming in whilst the orchestra music is playing almost makes u jump out of your seat as a viewer because majority of the time it is very much unexpected.

How does lost fit the convention of a TV drama?

A drama is a story that is portrayed through action and dialogue. When you think about the word drama you automatically think that something bad is going to happen and usually it involves showing something through conflict and emotions. But sometimes drama can be happy because it can show happy emotions. A TV drama does exactly this, however a TV drama is something a person is more likely to relate and compare to there life as it is meant to be realistic. For this reason TV dramas are usually very popular as the audience can connect to it which gets them almost addicted to watching their favorite programmes every night.

A TV drama can be split into several sub categories like a Thriller ( The Killing, Channel 4), Teen drama (Skins, E4), Sci-fi ( Dr.Who, BBC), Hospital drama ( Holby City, BBC), Comedy drama (Friends, E4), Teacher drama ( Waterloo road, BBC), Crime drama ( NCIS , 5). However one thing that all the different categories have in common is the fact that they are very realistic where the audience watching will almost believe that that is or could happen.

A convention of TV drama is basically a set of rules repeatedly used in all TV dramas. The main rules of these conventions of TV drama’s is to have the same characters each week, to have conventional camerawork such as using conventional camera angles like shot reverse shots so you can see conversation between two characters at the same time, a title sequence, a narrative based storyline which usually would continue through each episode the audience can follow, aiming to represent reality, the same or similar locations each week and something which appeals to everyone.

“Lost” fits the conventions of a TV drama because it firstly has the same characters each week. The way the narrative is, makes it quite impossible to take out the characters as they are part of the shipwreck and unless they died it would look weird if one week they did not exist. Also “Lost” uses the same location every single week; again this comes into the storyline/narrative because the characters are shipwrecked on an island and so it not exactly like one week they can just be in a house. However the only time locations in the episode can be changed is when they are having flash backs of the past, such as when they were on the plane or their lives before they got shipwrecked, this is when the audience gets to see a change of location in the program. “Lost” also represents reality really well, as although it is very unlikely a plane would crash into the middle of nowhere and no one would find or save the people on it for a long time, it still could happen and the way the characters portray their emotions to this event is very realistic and the way someone would act. Conventional camera angles are also used in lost, lots of shot reverse shots are used so we can see the conversation between two characters, a lot of extreme close up’s are also used so we can see the emotion whether is anger or sadness in the characters face. Also panning is used in lost, which enables the audience to see the whole view of the island and how tragic it looks after the plane crashed on it and how bad it is or how stranded the characters are. 

How is realism constructed in this episode of lost?

Realism is important in a TV drama because one of the rules of the conventions of TV drama is for it to be realistic. A TV drama is program which is usually played regularly and is one the most popular types of television to watch. This could be down to the fact that majority of TV dramas are played in the evening when people are coming hoe from school, work or anything else they’ve been doing during the day and want to relax. In order to relax many people get pleasure out of watching TV drama’s because in a way it takes them away from there lives and anything good or bad that is going on and lets them watch and see that maybe their lives are not as bad they thought it was down to the fact of what is happening the programmes which they are watching.

Realism is constructed in the first episode of “Lost” mainly because of the characters. First of all there different types of characters in “Lost”, by this I mean there are different age groups, different types of people from different religions and ethnicities and different characters portraying people with different background stories. In lost we see a pregnant a Caucasian pregnant women and an African-American little boy. The diversity of the characters in this episode are very realistic because if you are traveling on a plane from somewhere like America it is likely that you are going to have so many different types of people on that plane as America is one of the most diverse places in the world with many different cultures living in that country. A doctor is present in that episode, as well as a pilot. This represents the world that the audience lives in, because people are all in the same society doing many different things and jobs. The way the characters act to the different situations and there reactions are all very realistic as you get some people who are very rational and civil and calm in certain situations, some people who go crazy and become panicked and other who don’t want to face the fact of what happening and become in denial.

When looking at realism in a TV drama, mise-en-scene is a good place to start. Mise-en-scene literally basically means everything that appears before the camera and that is literally means put into the scene. This includes the lighting, characters performances, location and setting, props and costume. Since they are shipwrecked on an island the lighting needs to be quite bright most of the time in order to be a realistic interpretation of what a tropical island is like and this is the case, however in this episode of lost we all saw a darker, dim side to the lighting because there was a rain storm which is also realistic. The characters are wearing normal daily clothes which you would see people walking down the street were and perform probably how they would act if they really was in that situation.