The two genres have many differences e.g costumes, props, set designs, the period and mainly budgets. All these affect the outcome. Camerawork, mise-en-scene e.g lighting, composition, setting, colour and tone vary with the type of drama.
The scene from Holby City that i looked at is a short scene which starts of with an establishing shot to identify the setting, a graveyard in this case. the non-diegetic music is soft and quiet to reflect the atmosphere and the situation while the shot is taken on a crane and arc down to a mid close up of the people. as the scene unfolds the camera tracks with the child-size light blue coffin, then it dollies in the a middle female who by her facial expressions could be a close relative or friend of the deceased.
Then the scene cuts to a close up of a man attempting to write a card regarding the tragedy this is understood by the close up of the card which reads "please know that sincere thoughts of sympathy are with you". the close up flicks from the card to his face. A birds-eye view then brings us back to the burial scene. meanwhile the music continues as characters are dissolved to indicate that time has passed and the blonde women still remains.
Throughout the first two minutes there has been no speech. even without the speech you are able to understand that this women is closely related to the dead child.
We then go back to the man with the card. from his costume and from his office we are given the idea that he is an important person, maybe a doctor or consultant.
His hostility towards the card and that he doesn't know what to write gesture that he has some sort of relationship with the dead child or the women.
In Holby City a lot of close ups are used because many important and vital moments occur, the closed framing adds and an aspect of non realism as you have a perfect shot in all situations this varies to other medical drama such as Casualty which uses open framing to make the audience feel that they are in the situation.
The man is called to an emergency where a conventional narrative is reinforced a life threatening situation is happening. when the nurse calls this man match on action is used to create urgency. we are then taken back to the graveyard and a two shot is used to focus on the dialogue between to people with a great depth of field to show who they are talking about, the grieving woman. shot reverse shot is used to emphasize that a conversation is happening.
The scene I looked at from Emma Ep.4 starts with a shallow focus shot reverse shot of a dialogue between two women discussing what seems to be about a relationship. throughout the dialogue flashbacks of her memories are shown. the colour and tone of Emma is completely different to Holby City. They use duller tones and the colour are not as rich. the close ups use help show intensity in the discussion. Dull and dim lighting help emphasize the period and authenticity of the drama.
While the women talk a wide shot is used to show a man ease dropping on them. the one women realises they are being watched. in this simple scene there were no complicated camera techniques but that doesn't mean they are not used in other scenes.
Holby City uses much more simpler camerawork in comparison the Emma. One reason is that they have different budgets, period dramas conventionally are filmed on professional film giving the picture a more film like feel. they have a high profile cast to reanact the classic novels which attract bigger audiences. compared to medical dramas period dramas are historically accurate and have more extravagant settings making mise-en-scene an important part.
Holby City Series 12 - The Professionals:
Emma Ep.4 from the scene i looked at:
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