HIS DARK MATERIALS: AUDIENCE AND INDUSTRIES

 Audience

1) Read this audience rating guide for His Dark Materials. Based on the screening and this article, who do you think the target audience is for His Dark Materials and why? What about psychographic groups? You can revise Pyschographics here.

-The target audience of His Dark Materials are a family audience. Targeted at fans who like fantasy genre and supernatural (witches/spectres). The demogrpahics could be teenagers as the main characters are teenagers. The psyhcographics are explorer - journey through the world.

2) What audience pleasures are offered by His Dark Materials - The City of Magpies? Apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory to the episode. Make sure you provide specific examples from the episode to support your ideas.

Personal Identity: 

• Teenagers - protagonist (Lyra and Will)
•  Loss / isolation / peril (danger)
• Friendship

Personal Relationships: 

• Will represents 'everyman' character (normal) unused to magic.
• Hero: Lyra + Pan (struggle)
• Children: need protecting 

Diversion (Escapism): 

• Supernatural
• Different worlds
• Talking animals 

3) Thinking of the 3 Vs audience pleasures (Visceral, Vicarious and Voyeuristic pleasures), which of these can be applied to His Dark Materials? Refer to specific scenes or moments in the episode to explain your answer. 

• Visceral Pleasure: Torture of the witch by Mrs. Coulter (villain) - graphic

-Witch (Rita) comes to submarine - stabs cardinal.

• Vicarious Pleasure: Will and Lyra dixocer new world - through their eyes.
• Voyeuristic Pleasure: Different, mulitple narrative strands 

4) How did fans react to Season 2 of His Dark Materials? What about critic reviews? You can find some possible answers for this in this BBC website article on the critical reception for His Dark Materials and watch the fan reaction video above.

-The fans react to Season 2 of His Dark Materials by making fan-fictions, fan art and YouTube channels. The second series of His Dark Materials has been welcomed by critics, but many have said it is weaker than the first.

5) What might be some of the preferred and oppositional readings for His Dark Materials? Why did some fans love it? Why have other people criticised it? 

-The preferred reading for HDM are the use of fantasy genre and how each characters are from a different world. Some fans loved it as it shows fantasy, enigma and adventure genre. The oppositional reading for HDM is that there a lot of different characters which adds to the multiple characters. Which makes it confusing.

Industries

1) Which companies produced this His Dark Materials series?

-The companies that produced HDM are BBC and American television network HBO.

2) What were the UK viewing figures for A City of Magpies? How did this compare to season 1 of His Dark Materials?

-The first episode of the first series of His Dark Materials in the UK had 7.2 million views. While, the City of Magpies had 4.4 million views on BBC1.

3) What was American network HBO's role in making His Dark Materials and why is this important? Look at the notes above for more on this.

-American network HBO's role in making HDM was to distribute HDM on a number of platforms. It is important as it was co-commissioned for an international audience by the BBC and HBO.

4) What famous stars are in His Dark Materials and why do you think they were selected for the show? Watch the Comic Con panel video in the notes above to see the stars talking about the show.

-The famous stars in HDM are Brits Ruth Wilson, James McAvoy and American Lin-Manuel Miranda who wrote the smash hit musical Hamilton. They were selected for the show to produce a different technique as the characters are very diverse to gain more mainstream audience.

5) Who are Bad Wolf and what do they produce?

-Bad Wolf are a TV drama production company. They were found in 2015 to create ambitious, imaginative and relevant drama for the global TV marketplace.

Comparison: Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child and His Dark Materials - The City of Magpies

1) How are the technical conventions different between 1963 Doctor Who and 2020 His Dark Materials (e.g. camerawork, editing, sound and mise-en-scene)?

-The technical conventions of Doctor Who are: The camera shots are less on one setting. The camerawork only stays on one position which only allows the director to zoom in and zoom out of the characters. They also used a handheld camerawork. The quality of the screen is not very clear and it's on black and white. Their costume and hairstyle shows that they are in the 1960's. The technical conventions of HDM are: The editing is a high quality. They have a lot of camerawork such as, opening shot, establishing shot and close up shot. This shots also shows how they have different settings. They used a high quality of the schism. They also have a high picture quality. Their costume are all different: Will's costume shows that he's from the modern world. Lyra's costume shows that she's adventurous.

2) What similarities and differences are there between Doctor Who and His Dark Materials in terms of genre and narrative?

-The similarities of Doctor Who and HDM in terms of narrative and genre is that they can travel through different areas of the world and time travelling. The differences of Doctor Who and HDM is that in Doctor Who it doesn't shows a lot of different perspectives of each characters. However in HDM they have multi strand narrative which shows different story lines of stories.

3) How are representations of people, places and groups similar or different in the two shows?

-The representations of people, places and groups are different as in HDM they used a very diverse community, different characters have different race and ethnicity. They also have different settings. However, in Doctor Who all of the characters are all white. They have less settings than HDM. In HDM they subvert the idea of gender stereotypes where Lyra is shown as independent and adventurous than Will. However,  in Doctor Who they reinforce the idea of gender stereotypes where female characters are shown as more vulnerable and male characters are the ones who have more power.