The drama explores issues through the representation of the main characters, a married couple. The woman is depicted as understanding, brave, and independent as she discusses her medical condition with her husband and visits her consultant alone. The man is shown as caring and vulnerable, holding his wife's hand for comfort as he worries about her. The setting of a taxi isolates the couple for an intimate conversation about their difficult situation. The clip builds drama through slow motion when the woman is fatally hit by a car after receiving apparently good news, drawing out the emotional impact on the characters and audience.

1. Issue-based Drama- Cutting It
How the main characters are represented?
How are the setting and background represented?
What genre is it and why?
What editing features do you notice
The genre of the drama, Cutting It, is issue-based. In the clip, we see a man and woman (married)
having a conversation about the woman’s condition. She then goes to see her consultant. When she
returns and sees her husband waiting, she implies that it is good news by shouting ‘Guess what?!’
with a smile on her face. However just after this, she is ironically hit by a car and dies.
The main characters are represented as opposites even though they are a couple. The woman is
represented as understanding as she says ‘I know about Melissa’ and then holds his hand to show
that she has forgotten about it and has forgiven him for his mistakes. She is also represented as
brave and independent as she tells her husband to ‘wait for me here’ while she goes to see her
consultant about whether she has Cancer or not.
However, the man is represented as caring and vulnerable towards her as he needs to be
comforted by her. For example, we see a close-up of her holding is hand and stroking it in the taxi.
He is worried about her while she goes in to see her consultant and waits exactly where she tells him
to showing he is committed and cares.
In this clip, the main characters are shown in the back of the taxi showing that neither of them can
escape the in-depth and uneasy conversation they are having. Although the conversation is
uncomfortable, the taxi allows them to be close to each other and talk properly without any
distractions.
The clip uses slow motion when the woman gets hit by the car to exaggerate the drama. This builds
an emotional impact on both the characters involved as the audience are anxious and worried for
the woman. The slow motion is then stopped as the man runs across the road and returns to normal
pace to add realism.
Questions to ask about Editing:
What is the pace? What effect does this have?
What style of editing is used? Why?