Baking Bread

What makes the programme a single camera show?

How is it produced? What technical elements  are used such as lights, camera and sound?

How are episodes structured?

How are scenes structured?

Is the show written on an episode basis or the entire season? How do you know?

What genre is it? Why does it fit into the genre?

Conclude your thoughts.

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is a single camera show because only one camera is used to shoot at a time. The set and actors return to their starting points for a scene before every take, only the camera moves around to get more shots from every angle. This gives the director more freedom with where they can place the camera because there are no restrictions, like another camera being in the shot. I think that shooting it as a single camera show places the audience within the scene because the freedom of the camera makes it seem more real.

Breaking Bad is shot with many locations, Walter's house, many different labs, Jesse's house, Hank's house and many more places outside in New Mexico. Because a lot of it is outside, its mostly natural light and its low light in Jesse's house and a normal level of light in Walt's house. Almost all of the sound is dialogue the rest is cars.

Breaking Bad is a serial show because every episode follows a long narrative with each episode telling a segment of the narrative. The narrative over all of the series is set over 2 years, sometimes there are flash forwards and flashbacks that go to before the narrative to give the audience extra information. The narrative is about the progression of one man through the 2 year and all of the people that he encounters in this time. This gives the audience a reason to keep watching. I believe that watching a serial show is more entertaining because of its character development and longer narrative.

The main character is Walter, he has to hide his dark side from his family. To do this he must tell a lot of lies, the audience knows when he is lying because they saw what he has really done. The scene is strutted around Walters’s lies and how he avoids telling his family. The scenes build tension by Walters’s family finding clues to his secretes but when they confront him about it he creates another lie. The camera captures Walters’s reaction when they confront him and the audience can see the reaction and the character thinking quickly.

Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer. To make money for his family when he's gone, he decides to cook crystal meth with a former student. Together they create a lot of meth and sell it to drug dealers. Throughout the series they encounter many dealers that create problems for them, and the only way to get out of it is to kill them. Meanwhile Walter’s brother in law, a DEA agent, is hunting down a meth cook, who is actually Walter. All of these points picked out from the series makes the genre of Breaking Bad a crime, drama, thriller.

Narrative Structure

Liner narrative is a narrative that is in chronological order. The story goes from the beginning to middle to the end. Liner narrative is normally easy for the audience to follow. An example of a liner narrative film is, Finding Nemo, the film starts with showing the equilibrium, Nemo gets taken away and the dad searches after him, Nemo's dad finds him and it returns to equilibrium. I would use a liner narrative in my own work by writing the story in chronological order.

Non-Liner narrative is a story that is out of order. The story can show the beginning, middle and end in any order. The narrative can start after the return to equilibrium, then show the pervious equilibrium and then what caused it to change. An example of a non-liner narrative film is Inception, the beginning shows him washing up on a beach, then the audience is shown how he got to there and it carries on through what was seen at the beginning. Inceptions narrative is, end>beginning>middle>end. I would use a non-liner narrative in my own work by writing a story backwards. Pulp Fictions narrative is non-liner it start at the end and finishes at the end, but between the end it constantly changes.

Flashbacks are returns to previous points in the narrative or prior to the narrative. Flashbacks can make a film non-liner. Flashbacks are used to give the audience more information that will be necessary. An example of flashbacks in TV is How I Met Your Mother, it uses flashbacks frequently and sometimes has flashbacks within flashbacks. I would use flashbacks within my work to provide the audience with key parts of information.

Realist narrative is a mirror of the real world within the film. Everything that is in the film is real in real life, if there are no aliens in the film then it is realist. An example of a realist film is Kidulthood, it is set in a non-ficonal location, London, with characters who you possibly could meet and has a narrative that is believable.

Anti-Realist is the opposite to realist but can resemble realist. Not everything in the film has to be impossible, but there are some features that are non existent. For example the film Transformers is set in a real locations but there are giant robots, which makes it an anti-realist narrative.