His Dark Materials: Audience and Industries blog tasks

  Audience

1) What audience do you think His Dark Materials is aimed at and why? Think about demographic and psychographic groups. You can revise Pyschographics here.

 

12-40 years old, middle class, both genders and all ethnicities

2) What audience pleasures are offered by His Dark Materials - The City of Magpies? Apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory to the episode. Make sure you provide specific examples from the episode to support your ideas.

Personal Identity: audiences might want to identify with Lyras adventurous nature or Wills peacefulness and kindness

Personal Relationships: audiences might like to follow Will and Lyras friendship and dynamics

Diversion (Escapism): supernatural and magic which are fictional are a way to escape from reality

3) Thinking of the 3 Vs audience pleasures (Visceral, Vicarious and Voyeuristic pleasures), which of these can be applied to His Dark Materials? Refer to specific scenes or moments in the episode to explain your answer. 

 

Visceral pleasure: Physical thrill during the chase

 

Vicarious pleasure: You may want to have a daemon like pan

 

Voyeuristic pleasure: enjoyment of watching Will and Lyra and their dynamic

4) How did fans react to Season 2 of His Dark Materials? What about critic reviews? You can find some possible answers for this in this BBC website article on the critical reception for His Dark Materials and watch the fan reaction video above.

The Independent's Ed Cumming said, external: "It looks great, it's robustly made, and there are great actors everywhere, occupying well-built universes."
"But it doesn't inspire as much wonder as it ought to."
In a three-star review, he added: "Viewers who've invested in the series won't stop now. For a series about magical worlds, aimed at younger viewers, however, there's not quite enough magic."
Cumming said that some elements of the books had been lost while being adapted for the BBC One drama.
"The daemons never quite replicate the humour and self-doubt they convey in the books. It's a missed opportunity: what better device could there be for representing the novelistic inner voice on screen?"

 

5) What might be some of the preferred and oppositional readings for His Dark Materials? Why did some fans love it? Why have other people criticised it?  

 

preferred: diverse and magical enjoyable for all the family

Oppositional: religion based topics (Christianity) may be controversial

 

Industries

1) Which companies produced this His Dark Materials series?

 

HBO and bad wolf and BBC

 

2) What were the UK viewing figures for A City of Magpies? How did this compare to season 1 of His Dark Materials?

 

The launch episode of His Dark Materials season two, titled "The City of Magpies", was watched by an average of 4.4 million viewers in the UK. This was a significant decrease from the first season's premiere, which drew 7.2 million viewers.

 

3) What was American network HBO's role in making His Dark Materials and why is this important? Look at the notes above for more on this.

 

Co-commissioned for an international audience

Included an American actor

 

4) What famous stars are in His Dark Materials and why do you think they were selected for the show? Watch the Comic Con panel video in the notes above to see the stars talking about the show.

 

James McAvoy - to bring in his fans

Bella Ramsey - To bring in fans of the fantasy genre

Lin-Manuel Miranda - he has been in and created

5) Who are Bad Wolf and what do they produce?

Bad wolfs production intends to produce high quality television for the BBC

Comparison: Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child and His Dark Materials - The City of Magpies

1) How are the technical conventions different between 1963 Doctor Who and 2020 His Dark Materials (e.g. camerawork, editing, sound and mise-en-scene)?

because of technology in 1960 in doctor who they had slow and clunky camera movements however in his dark materials they could use a smooth movements and a variety of angles and shots

His dark materials was able to do voiceovers for the daemons whereas doctor who was unable to do this as the technology not as advance

 

2) What similarities and differences are there between Doctor Who and His Dark Materials in terms of genre and narrative?

doctor who is sci-fi whereas his dark materials is fantasy

They have different types of characters and storylines

3) How are representations of people, places and groups similar or different in the two shows?

In Doctor Who they are racist and therefore represent white people as superior, whereas in his dark materials some of the main characters are people of colour

The main character is a brave girl in his dark materials and in Doctor Who the lead female character is presented as smart