His Dark Materials: Audience and Industries blog tasks

 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.

I think the target audience is 14+ and aimed for adults and teenagers because of the violence and content could be frightening for a small child. Psychographics are aimed towards diverse people and lower class because their cast has a lot of diversity and the children are living in deserted houses.

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: Some people may relate to the children where they don't need to follow rules from their parents anymore, some can relate to feeling trapped before. only that now they can see what happens if they were just gone.

Personal Relationships: People tend to watch videos certain celebrities had acted in as a fan. Example, the main character Lyra Belacqua was played by Dafne Keen who is a celebrity.

Diversion (Escapism): Many people may want to escape into fantasies. The genre of the series is sci-fi, fantasy and steampunk, the audience gets to watch a world that has a possibility of having legends existing, which isn't real.

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 is used when the series often show many establishing shots of fantasy landscapes, the sheer size of certain things that make people feel amazed and at awe.

Vicarious pleasure can be used when the main character was shown to be travelling alone, some could empathise with her as they might feel the same, like the feeling of being lost.

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 fan reacted to Season 2 of His Dark Materials as shocked, interested and often Question on what is happening, showing clearly how she wanted to know what happens and why certain things are shown.

Their critic review was about how they did put quite a ton of information in the trailer and would rather be surprised during watching the video than the trailer.

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? 

They might have preferred people to read the series that there is a conflict between the worlds and that children are in charge of saving said worlds to stop the conflict.

The oppositional reading is that the children are pretty much useless and weak, so that's why they try to get rid of adults but later on show that children can be powerful. I think some people loved the story and the book it was based on that explore the idea of conflict between worlds and species. I do believe some may have not enjoyed it as it was a bit confusing, some things weren't made clear, like what is the motive and why there is a conflict in the first place.

Industries

1) Which companies produced this His Dark Materials series?

The His Dark Materials series was produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema in association with the BBC and 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 "A City of Magpies," the second season of His Dark Materials, was watched by an average of 4.4 million viewers in the UK on BBC One. Season 1, episode 1, of His Dark Materials, saw 7.2 million viewers on BBC One.

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.

It is significant because it was co-commissioned for an international audience by the BBC and the
American television network HBO, and was always intended to be distributed on a number of
platforms.

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.

Daffe Keen was selected in the show, She has discussed how her character changed from trusting to now distrust as she loses the two people who were keeping her stable in the first show. I think she was chosen because she was able to clearly not only show how she was not from the world she was currently in but also show the juxtaposition between her in the first show and the second show.

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

Bad Wolf is a UK-based television production company founded by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner. They are known for producing high-end drama series, including "His Dark Materials" and "Doctor Who". Bad Wolf is also the only UK production company with a dedicated outreach, training, and education facility. 

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)?

Doctor Who in 1963 had only slow panning and is blurry as well as being black and white while His Dark Materials had very detailed CGI, many different camera shots and panning as well as having colours. The mise-en-scene in Doctor Who has their locations in a dark Junkyard, the school, and inside the TARDIS, there were not many different areas while in HDM they had the Hot air baloon, the submarine, the abandoned town, cave, ocean, etc. This shows how much technology has improved as these places eg. The hot air balloon and the establishing shot of the ocean and mountains which was created by CGI.

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

The simularities of Doctor Who and His Dark Materials is that they both follow the sci-fi genre, the difference being that Doctor Who is more science based and HDM is more Fantasy based. Doctor Who's narrative is that the teachers wanted to make sure the girl was okay, but the Doctor kidnapped them because they may snitch on him, while for HDM is about the war with witches, how children are in power as all the adults have been taken away.

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

In Doctor Who, they did not have much representation as they only casted white people, while for His Dark Materials, they had a much more diverse cast. They did have similar way of representing teenagers, they both had shown them in causal clothing, as well as make the older people be seen as the villain of the series.