Over this past week, Corrie has been directed by Dr. Who director, Graeme Harper. He's no stranger to the show as he directed episodes in 2005 too. A director is the creative powerhouse who decides what scenes should look like and where characters should be stood and how characters react. All these things are pretty important to how the drama and tension can unfold.
Over the past few years, the show has tended to play it safe on set in respects to how scenes should look; the camera was always in the same position, showing only small sections of the set, it was like looking through a small window into Weatherfield. Now, in 2010, we are being given a bigger window into Weatherfield, we can see more of that little world. For me this is a great thing as I have always wanted to see more and more of the show.
Though here is the thing I really like - Longer scenes. In the past, scenes tended to end as soon as two characters stopped talking. Now, for example - as soon as we see two characters finishing off their conversation, the attention focuses on two more characters in the same location.
It might be just me, but I really appreciate things like this, it makes the show feel more alive, this new outlook of Corrie makes me realise just what Phil Collinson was attempting to show with the new titles. I hope to see more of the same in the years to come!
8 comments:
i like the new theme tune
I think the switch to HD has engineered a difference in how the direction goes too. All part of the new look. I like the slightly longer scenes too. Quite often, the CBC here in Canada would take the opportunity to slice out the really short ones to fit in the commercials and it's more difficult for them to do it with longer scenes.
Yeah, HD has definately changed things, in the first few months the crew didn't seem to know what to do with it - so they carried on like they did before for a little while, but in the past month they have changed the show a bit, at times it seems like a TV drama and not just a soap, it adds a bit more quality to the show :D
I love longer scenes too, it adds a bit more realism to the show to not keep switching every two seconds, there has been a lot more filming on the exterior set too.
One thing I noticed this week is they sometimes skip a few seconds in a scene - Like Steve is in the backyard, Liz says "Your bike's gone", Steve looks over and says "eh" then instead of seeing Steve run over it switches right into a shot of Steve pulling off the canvas covering the camera :D
I also liked that scene of Steve and Liz from under the bike cover. There was also a great slapstick scene with Becky (tho I'm not a big fan of her) and Steve at the hostel hitting up the guy for Kylie's address -- a bit of good-cop bad-cop with Becky throttling the guy while Steve negotiates how much to give him, then has to tell Becky that's enough.
Graeme Harper was one of Who's best directors - he directed two of the season finales, plus The Waters of Mars, which has just won a Hugo award. He's a very dynamic director, with a lot of tracking shots and so on. I loved the way he directed the train taking off at Roy & Hayley's wedding - a lot of short shots of people and laughter, and then just Mary sat on the platform on her own.
Graeme Harper is a superb director... very cinematic in his instincts... and also a really lovely chap!!!
I hope the new director sees fit to keep background music ie in the Rovers and radio's playing 'in the background' just that - in the background. Half the time I can't hear what characters are saying because music just drowns them out.
The scenes at Roy and Hayley's wedding filmed at the East Lancs Railway were exceptionally good! And am I the only one who thought they saw Bet on that "push me pull you" thingy? It was Hayley, but from a distance is looked like Bet... and she lives near the railway! Spooky!
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