Research

Childrens TV Dramas
Looking at examples of TV dramas, we've came to understand that they are all quite similar. They use bright colours, fast cuts and interesting layouts to keep the audiences' attention.



Tracey Beaker is a good example of this.

The title sequence allows the audience to identify the genre of the text and creates appropriate audience expectations, you can clearly see this through the mise-en-scene, and the way the introduce characters and settings, you know its going to be about young kids, and it shows cartoon versions of them being in a house. This sets the scene of what the drama is about. It represents the social group of children as fun and enjoying life, we can see this through the way they act in the titles. By using stop motion on the characters it creates an impression of them moving, this also involves "props" like mobiles and stereos which have been made digitally. Children can relate to this as it may be things that they like doing, for instance listening to music and talking to friends on their mobile. They are represented as typical kids, this is how they engage their audience by making it seem like every day life.


Title sequences are also there to engage the audience and persuade them to keep watching, maybe provide some sort of narrative exposition, 'brand' the show, using music, fonts and images and credit the main actors and other production personnel. Tracey Beaker has made a clear brand for itself using the same fonts and music, their audience are now aware that if they see the fonts and little cartoon images, which are illustrated by Nick Sharrat, its going to be Tracey Beaker as they've also carried this through onto their magazines and DVD covers.






Tracy Beaker has been made for the BBC, this is their mission statement : 'To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.'

Tracey Beaker therefore has to inform, educate and entertain...they do this by setting it in a children's home, this challenges a dominant ideology of children being with their own family. This then gives across the messages and values that everybody is different, and that children should understand this and learn that although backgrounds may be different, children are still children. This cant really be shown through a title sequence, however it still gives of the representations of typical young children, playing games and having fun.

ICarly




Icarly is and American childrens TV drama, therefore it's likely to be different to English TV dramas.
The title sequence for ICarly attracts its target audience by using characters that are of similar age, this will help audience relate to the show and become more interested. Also the use of transitions like the wipe and cuts make it very fast paced and interesting to watch.
Right from the start of the title you are aware its going to be about a website, as you see it being typed in on a web page, this creates appropriate audience expectations and persuades audience to keep watching.
This also repres