Extended Research

Whitechapel 

Over the last couple of years, the ITV series 'Whitechapel" has aired with much success and and interest. The series itself is a crime/mystery drama in which a group of detectives in London's Whitechapel district are given the task of dealing with murders which are replications of historic crimes which with modern policing and forensics they try to solve to catch the culprit. It has taken various classic myths and crimes and given them a new lease of life through a modern setting and a new layer of characters.

Most of the crimes featured in the show are well known, for example the first season where the murders echo the work of the infamous "Jack the Ripper" murders and in the second season "The Kray twins'' - both stories were ingeniously done so the audience would go along with the characters and see the crime scenes or events taking place that were shot in such a way that they were incredibly similar to the original crimes, even down to location in some places. The audience is also given an in-depth insight into the original crime through the help of the detectives, though mainly through Edward Buchan, a Ripperologist from the first season who, through the course of the next two seasons, has provided everyone with detailed documents and research into each murder that takes place with the help of his archives of information, he often provides the protagonist DI Chandler with original documents on the cases which they then use to track the modern murderer.

The show is brilliant for engaging its audience and keeps us in suspense until the very end, it treats the audience to a multitude of interesting and often scary shots such as POVs from the murderer and jerky editing that startles the viewer and confuses or misleads them.

The show has a very distinct ambiance to it and over the last three seasons that have perfected this even more so, at times it can be very dark and thrilling and the cinematography, framing and lighting is key. The mis en scene for many of the episodes in season three are works of art themselves, as you can see from some of the screenshots from episodes 5 and 6 (the episodes were split so that each case had two episodes to show the process of deducing and convicting the murders): 

These two screenshots  from episode 5 show two completely different forms of mis en scene -
the first is incredibly expressive, dark and almost sinister with a small light source and the main figure only
faintly covered in light, defining his features; the second is a much wider composition
with very artificial lighting and strong angular shadows, also where the figure is framed suggests a sense of vulnerability.

These two screenshots from episode 6 show two very different angles of the characters Kent and Mansell,

the first uses very distorted lighting on their faces but you can still clearly see the uneasy expressions, portraying a sense of fear for the audience as we see that the characters are uneasy and this usually means something bad is about to happen.

The second is only a few seconds after and you can see a slight difference in the ambiance of the scene, the lighting is a little more calmer and the characters don't look as uneasy, instead a more stoic and pensive mood is given from the two main figures whereas the audience can still see the threat in the background in the form of the suspect shrouded in shadow and very limited light.

This series was interesting to watch and analyse as it subtlety gets the viewer interested in the crimes so that they then go and research into it to see if they can predict what will happen in the next episode. It engages the audience and coincidentally in the third season used three obscure stories as influence for crimes: The Ratcliff Highway murders, The mysterious Thames Torso mysteries that dominated illustrated newspapers only weeks before the Ripper Murders and the notorious Berkeley Square and Bloody Bones/Bogeyman tales that shocked and frightened the Victorian public.

What I liked about this series is that even though I already had previous knowledge on the cases and was able to discuss the show and subject matter to others and although prior to the show airing many weren't that interested, as the show progressed people began to really engage with the characters and the show and I saw that Whitechapel and the stories have become talking points for some people, leading to research on what information there is on the various cases explored - this is a similar objective that I would like to have for my project.

Ripper Street

  

A television series that explores crime and social problems in 19th Century Century, the first seasoh of the programme aired 2012-3 and gave us an insight into the social and political aspects of Victorian London, Centering around the Whitechapel's H division about six months after the Jack the Ripper murders where local residents still lived in fear of the villain returning, their nightmares come true as Whitechapel becomes the centre of more murders of young women, and it is left up to Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake and US Army surgeon and former Pinkerton Captain Homer Jackson to investigate the killings.

The first episode serves as an introduction to the characters and history of the area, but not overwhelming the audience with information, and we are given the important and well known facts and we then watch as Reid and his comrades solve the case - it's a separate crime to the Ripper Murders but it is unclear as to the murderer is or if the Ripper has returned. Reid applies new methods to try to catch the killer, he worked on the ripper case and now intends to amend the mistakes the police made previously. The episode challenges the way the real police force investigating the ripper case tackled the problems - one of these is photography of the crime scenes and tampering of evidence, Reid makes sure that steps are taken to preserve the crime scenes as much as possible and when writing is found on a nearby wall he makes sure that photos are taken. I think this is very clever way of showing the audience how if these steps were taken in the original case there might have been a different outcome or a way for modern policing to solve the still unsolved crime.

Each episode is a stand alone crime in the series which serves to test the characters' personal and working lives and this way we really begin to familiarise ourselves with the characters.

Each crime explored involves just some of Victorian social problems and crimes that would have dominated its culture, such as gangs, terrorist attacks, kidnappings, the treatment of the mentally ill , disease and murder.

The series brings a new twist to the contemporary setting with the help of Jackson's turn of the century forensics knowledge and the way the audience gets to see the methods of deduction and investigation as they enter the characters' minds. 

It does seem to play homage to some of the newer adaptations of Victorian films such as Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes adaptations where we get a lot of action sequences and most of the information is pieced together at the end or the Mr. Whitcher series  where we go through the process from the first time at the crime scene to the court room or police station/ jail and the audience is given the information as the narrative progresses, but it is the first series of its kind to blend the two in this kind of setting - we go on a journey with the characters as they solve the crimes and also are present for some excellently shot scenes of extreme action and thrills as well as quieter and more deep scenes of emotional turmoil, and this helps the audience bond with the characters as we are given quite a bit of detail on Reid, Bennett and partially Jackson's backgrounds to understand how they tick and why they act the way they do . 

This show serves as good research into the period as we get some sense of what it would have been like to live back then and also is worthy of researching into its character development and narrative flow as well as weaving the facts into the narrative, by exploring a new crime every week the audience keeps engaging to see something new and to see how the characters react and press forward into the investigations.

The Opening credits for this series are really interesting, they have a vintage look to them with the typography and music used, also paying homage to one of my favourite credit sequences from Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes Film which is probably why it appeals to me.

Penny Dreadfuls and speculative and detective fiction from the period 

Well known authors, such as Wilde, Stoker, Dickens and Verne did very well during this period and it seems like fiction was a really popular genre during the Victorian period, to me this seems like it might have been a form of escapism for people and also a good way of capturing the imagination during a time of great creativity and innovation. The Victorian public seemed to be really interested in the supernatural and this was the period when some of the best horror and what we now call science fiction novels were published. 

Detective Fiction became increasingly popular around this period also with Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thrilling audiences with tales or murder and mystery , Characters such Sherlock Holmes would investigate sensational fictional crimes and transport the reader into a fictional version of the 19th century, to the extent that people went into mourning and attacked Doyle in the street after the supposed death of Holmes in "The Valley of Fear", leading people to write to Holmes the character and expect a reply, showing how if done right, narrative and characterisation can actually bring a character to live from the pages of their novels.

On the other end of the spectrum of popular fiction was serial fiction. This became really popular too and one of the best documentations of this is probably in the form of fiction publications and story papers, such as Penny Dreadfuls, which were aimed at the working class youth and would evolve into the British Comic Magazines. The Dreadfuls would include speculative fiction, surreal stories and narratives featuring highwaymen like Dick Turpin and other fictional entities such as Varney the Vampire as well as new stories about criminals such as Sweeney Todd in the string of pearls serialisation.