Television Set Texts

Humans: Key Scene (First 2 Episodes of the Episode (buying Anita)

Identifiable Sci-fi music
News readings edited in
Establishing shot of the area they live in.
Shows the opening of her to help signify the sci-fi genre.
The slow pan up to the extreme close up of her face reinforces that she is pretty.
Sound as you turn them on - ,showing that she is a machine.
Lab settings in the opening sequence.
Eye iconography - you can tell the machines from the humans by their eye colour - green for robots. Eyes for humans is ow you can determine emotion.
Referencing previous sci-fi texts such as blade runner with the eye iconography.
Shot of the robots in the factory all lined up together shows they are not treated as humans.
Low angle pf the moon from the factory - sci-fi - shows lack of freedom because she wants to leave. Moon represents space - space is open and free. Binary oppositions between space and the factory.
Stereotypical British family. Warm colours in the home opposed to cold colours in factory.

Todorov's theory of equilibrium in the first episode:

Two narratives: Family, and the group of people finding Anita.
Narrative constantly disrupting: Anti initially getting stolen and when the family get Anita.

Levi Strauss: Structuralism:
Binary oppositions/diametrically oppositions in the first episode.

Channel 4 Fact File

Ideological Perspectives

Channel 4 was set up with a unique model as a ‘publisher-broadcaster’, meaning that we do not have any in-house production, but instead commission content from production companies throughout the UK.

We are a self-sufficient business that reinvests all profits back into programmes, at zero cost to the taxpayer. A ‘Robin Hood’ model of cross-funding means programmes that make money pay for others that are key to delivering our remit but that are loss-making e.g. News and Current Affairs.

Our twin goals as a content provider and business are to fulfil our remit and to be commercially self-sufficient.

"The public service remit for Channel 4 is the provision of a broad range of high quality and diverse programming which, in particular:

• demonstrates innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes;
• appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society;
• makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; and
• exhibits a distinctive character."^[11][27]

Funding
During the station's formative years, funding came from the ITV companies in return for their right to sell advertisements in their region on the fourth channel.

Nowadays it pays for itself in much the same way as most privately run commercial stations, i.e. through the sale of on-air advertising, programme sponsorship, and the sale of any programme content and merchandising rights it owns, such as overseas sales and video sales. For example, as of 2012 its total revenues were £925 million with 91% derived from sale of advertising.^[36] It also has the ability to subsidise the main network through any profits made on the corporation's other endeavours, which have in the past included subscription fees from stations such as E4 and Film4 (now no longer subscription services) and its "video-on-demand" sales. In practice, however, these other activities are loss-making, and are subsidised by the main network. According to Channel 4's last published accounts, for 2005, the extent of this cross-subsidy was some £30 million.^[37]

The change in funding came about under the Broadcasting Act 1990 when the new corporation was afforded the ability to fund itself. Originally this arrangement left a "safety net" guaranteed minimum income should the revenue fall too low, funded by large insurance payments made to the ITV companies. Such a subsidy was never required, however, and these premiums were phased out by the government in 1998. After the link with ITV was cut, the cross-promotion which had existed between ITV and Channel 4 also ended.

In 2007, owing to severe funding difficulties, the channel sought government help and was granted a payment of £14 million over a six-year period. The money was to have come from the television licence fee, and would have been the first time that money from the licence fee had been given to any broadcaster other than the BBC.^[38] However, the plan was scrapped by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Andy Burnham, ahead of "broader decisions about the future framework of public service broadcasting".^[39] The broadcasting regulator Ofcom released its review in January 2009 in which it suggested that Channel 4 would preferably be funded by "partnerships, joint ventures or mergers".^[40]

Additionally, the scene in Humans when Leo enters the brothel to meet with Niska demonstrates that media language encodes how male and female characters act in media products because Leo is wearing what can be perceived as scruffy, dirty clothes that could be typical of a man going into a brothel. Furthermore, the lighting inside the brothel is very conventionally sexual because it is quite dim but lit with neon pink lights. This encodes how the woman including Niska is perceived in the media product because the lighting accompanied with their clothes (extremely revealing clothes of a sexual nature) makes it obvious that they are their to provide a sex service to whomever comes in. Most audiences would completely accept this representation and would therefore have a dominant reading of the scene because the fact that woman are constantly referred to in media products as sexual figures (according to Liesbit Van-Zoonen woman's bodies are used in media products as a spectacle for heterosexual male audiences) people are used to women being represented this way and would accept it. Additionally, the clothing and lighting effects how the characters act because Niska is dancing provocatively in the scene. It is clear that the media language is enforcing how she acts because as soon as Niska is alone with Leo she reverts to being how she would usually be. 

Les Revenants:

• Released 26th November 2012 on Canal+ in France
• 9th June 2013 on Channel 4 in the UK
• 2 series, 8 episodes each
• Based on the French film 'They Come Back'
• (Les Revenants) (dir. Robin Campillo 2004)
• Created by Fabrice Gobert

Genre Hybridity:

• Horror
• Supernatural
• Drama
• Avant-garde (unconventional/atypical)
• Zombie (could be a subgenre of horror)
• Could be a 'French' genre because it relatable to French audiences and French industries are stereotypically quite experimental and atypical with what they create.

Cult TV

A cult is a small group of fans who are extremely passionate about the text. Cult fanbases are usually emotionally attached fans identifying themselves as members of a community. Less mainstream but has a small but dedicated fanbase.

- Links to Henry Jenkins theory of Fandoms

'Les Revenants' is a Cult TV program which is not that popular but the small audience that it does reach is very passionate.

Zombie Genre conventions with Les Revenants
Creepy kid - follows woman home and doesn't talk
Dead people coming back
Gore - stabbing in an underpass
Horror movie posters
Lots of lowkey lighting, flickering lights - electricity keeps going of
Lots of screaming and crying
Secluded community
Hunger when they come back
Mass movement - all come back at the same time
Jump scares
Fragmented narrative (flashbacks)

French 'Poetic Realist' Tradition

Poetic Realism was a film movement in France in the 1930s. Led by individuals creating a specific style. Poetic realism films are recreated realism. They usually include characters living on the margins of society as either unemployed, members of the working class or as criminals. The characters leave a life of disappointment and have a last chance at love but are disappointed again. The films usually end in disillusionment or death. Deals with realistic and relatable drama conventions set in a poetic, lyrical world.