Skins, E4. Texual Analysis

‘Skins’ is a popular British drama, set in Bristol, aimed at teens following the lives of a group of teenagers though their time at sixth form. The first 6-7 minutes of the first episode shows the main character’s daily routine of getting up in the morning. The first shot shows a close up of his face zooming out to a long shot to show him lying in bed. While this is happening non-diegetic music is being played over the top, the music is a hip-hop/rap sort of song which gives the feel of the age at which the character is. After this the main character causes a distraction for his sister to sneak back home after been out all night, the music he plays is diegetic as it is in the world of the programme, the music is loud so the character’s dad has to shout over the music which shows the audience his sense of anger. While the main character and his dad are arguing the camera switches between the two in a shot-reverse-shot which makes the convocation clear and makes it flow without you realising the cuts are happening. In mise-en-scene of the scene the whole thing is set in the main character’s room, the room is messy which gives off the sense of realism about the setting of the boy’s room; the characters are both wearing minimum cloths (no tops on and in pyjama bottoms) this shows the time of the scene that it is morning.

The next scene shows the main character downstairs at the breakfast table, the performance of the character is sort of a pretty boy, everybody loves you, boy next door kind of act. When the camera is close up on the characters face the lighting is quite high key to represent his angelic personality whereas, when the camera is close up on the fathers face the lighting is more low key but creates shadows in the background to give off a sense of dominance. The main character plays sort of a prank at the dinner table, making the characters father believe that he is still in the bathroom when he is actually down stairs eating breakfast, an overhead shot of the main character films his dads reaction to the prank however, also captures the characters reaction to playing this prank. The dialogue in the scene is very realistic, the character dad is made out to be a ruff sort of character and this is shown by the language, the dad uses a lot of swear words to portray across his angry which is what you would expect for that character.

The next scene shows the main character leaving his house walking down the street while being on the phone to his friends. The shot is a medium shot, showing his body from the waist up. The camera follows him down the road with a tracking shot. While on the phone to his friends the shots are cut between him walking and to his friends to show who he is talking to at that time, this makes it clear who is talking to so the audience doesn’t get confused. As set in Bristol the setting is built up to be a very cliché Britain with poor dull weather being shown in some wide shots of the character as he is walking down the road. When he phones up one friend ‘Jal’ the shot cuts to her picking up her phone, in her room the lighting is very low key however, the only light shown on her gives a chiaroscuro effect creating a contract of light and dark across her face adding mystery to that character. When the main character phones up his other friends, most of them are in bed, to show this the first shot of them is a bird’s eye view (long shot) of them lying in their beds, the lighting in their room also reflects their moods as the characters seem to be fairly happy so the lighting is high key.    

(sources: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/skins/4od#2921869, first 5-7 minutes of the episode)