Extract: Primeval Series 2 Episode 3

At the very start of the Primeval clip, the audience are shown a man and woman, the man is dressed
casually in a buttoned shirt and jeans, the woman is dressed in outdoors style clothing with a body-warmer on.
She shows anger towards something and the man doesn’t stop her, she gets in the car and drives away which
shows the man has no power over her actions or words. The man in the buttoned shirt then receives instructions
from a male colleague to leave her, this man comes across as the boss, he’s wearing similar clothing to his
colleague but with an outer coat on as well; he is sat with a female colleague at a bench near a forest, this
suggests their work takes place outside most of the time.
The girl previously sat at the bench, Abi, is dressed similar to be female at the start of the clip, in
outdoors clothing with a strong leather jacket over the top, her white-blonde hair is in a short cropped style
suggesting that in her job, he femininity in the way she looks is not top priority. The next shot the audience see of
her is driving a digger vehicle, this compares to the role of another male who is kneeling in the mud putting out
bate for something which is a risky job, this could be why it is taken on by a man and not a woman. However the
camera looks up to the woman as she’s in the digger but downwards to the man kneeling on the floor, this could
show that Abi is of a higher status to the male worker on the floor. The male boss of the workforce instructs Abi
to stop the digger; she does as she is told suggesting that the role of the man’s character is definitely the leader
of the team.
The music playing from the start of the digger scene is loud and outlines a build-up to the main event of
the scene; it is dominated by drums which sets a similar tension to a heartbeat style sound. The music stops as
the digger does, but then builds up to become louder when the action begins involving the boss man. A
computerised wild saber toothed tiger is the disruption of the equilibrium within the clip, the creature attacks the
male boss, but Abi fights it off of him with the digger claw, showing her position as being highly recognised by the
boss. He is completely unarmed and lets the tiger chase him showing his male dominance; referring to Propp’s
fairytale character labelling it is suggested at this point that he is the hero and will save the lives of the other
characters, also Abi would play the role of the helper, aiding the hero when he needs back-up.
Abi has a gun which compares with the boss having no weapon showing that she has power over him
and the creature as he tries to save them both, this is an unusual position for women as they are typically shown
as the damsel in distress within media, it is rare for them to be dominant. With Abi being the only girl working in
that area in this extract among four male characters, it is even harder to show the woman as being equal to the
men but the way the character is dressed and her attitude towards outdoors work makes it successful.
There is a camera shot just before the disruption begins, showing Abi digging through the forest and the
boss being in the hole she has dug and finding a human arm, there is a close up from the arm to his face as he
shouts her to stop the digger, this is the first sign of the equilibrium changing and the disruption beginning. The
camerawork when the tiger is chasing the boss is very fast paced, this fits the tension and action of the sound so
the scene becomes lively and the audience would notice the change in tempo. There are frequent close ups of
the digger claw with the tiger attached onto it showing the detail of the computerised facial features of the
creature. The music gets louder and faster as the chase escalates, there is a zip-wire involved, as the boss tries
to escape it this way, showing bravery within his male character the camera cross-cuts to many different angles,
including close ups, long shots, mid shots and a panning shot of the zip-wire enhancing the height, length and
speed of it.
Facial expressions are focused on in the editing a lot, from the beginning to the end the close ups of
faces are always clear and the background is slightly out of focus to aim the audiences’ viewpoint on their faces.
For example as the male boss notices the human arm among the mud the camera jumps to his face to show
shock and panic as he makes the digger stop; this type of editing is shown again in the next scene when a man
holds a gun up to a woman and he facial expression is shown clearly as frightened and on edge.
In the last scene of the extract, a woman is addressing a man in an orderly way, she is telling him what
to do and at first the audience are shown him obeying what she says and listening to her; but the dominance of
the woman over the man swaps as soon as he picks up a gun. The woman is dressed in a short, silk black dress
with dark hair tied up and red lip stick on, with a smart cream coat and black high-heeled shoes; this is the typical
description of a business woman in a television programme, she then becomes the damsel in distress. The man
throws her to the ground after firing a shot at the floor, showing how much power he has over her by her being
unarmed and afraid, music plays in the background in a fast-paced manner to build tension and worry among the
audience. This is paired with a slow motion edited camera shot, showing the dogs tied up next to the man and
woman barking as if to stop him shooting her; the sound is slightly dubbed as the diagetic music is played over
the top. This sound effect is interrupted by another hero role, as one of the men from the workforce in the forest
takes the gun off of the man and lets the woman go; as she stands up she comments on how what she is
wearing is “my best coat” and that is all she is bothered about, which suggests her femininity is a lot more
important to her than it is to Abi.
There is one shot in particular at the end of the forest scene, showing four characters walking towards
the male boss to talk to him; the four are Abi and three male characters so Abi is outnumbered by gender.
However she still speaks over the males and adds her input into the discussion, this suggests that her role is
highly thought of and her gender is irrelevant in her workplace.

Out of a total: 50 marks

EAA: Explanation, analysis, argument-20 marks

EG: Use of example-20 marks
T: Terminology-10 marks