Wallander - a T.V. production

Wallander is a new T.V. series involving a detective aptly name Wallander, whose job it is to investigate homicides. This plot and theme of this series is very similar to thriller conventions in film so to analyse and compare this to thriller films should be quite interesting. I have only seen the first episode as it is a new series however this was an extra long episode of one and a half hours so there is plenty material to look at.
The opening credits consisted of the face of the actor playing Wallander (Kenneth Branagh) in black and blue block colour framed by yellow which were the words of the title using the letters a, a, d and e as they are the letter with holes in them. once all the letters were exhausted it was just a yellow screen with Wallander in black unobtrusive letters. The yellow mirrors the colour of the Rape Seed plantation in which the opening sequence took place with a young girl committing suicide. The large use of yellow may also intimate cowardliness or jealousy that is to come, after watching the whole episode i find that the yellow would be a good representation of Wallander's troubled mind which is close to cracking and could be interpreted as cowardly. Whilst watching these credits the yellow gave me the picture of lines on a road, this signifies the journey of twisting and turning plot that the series contains. The blue/black face also shows sadness 'he was feeling blue'. And also provides an image of a storm that is to come.

The Thriller conventions shown by the first episode shows the style of this series as it has a flawed hero, many male protagonists, mystery into who the murderer is, slanted blinds and fast tension building music. I could not see many differences between this T.V. thriller and that of the big screen productions except that this is a series and obviously the story is carried on throughout the space of time the series lasts. There was one subtle difference that i did notice however, which was the repetition of some of the shot types used, as well as having a variety of shot compositions the variety was not as wide as that of a film and the shot that was often used was extremely strange and the audience saw the main male protagonists reflections in windows, vases, mirrors etc. This indicates that there is a hidden person inside everyone or that there is always someone watching which adds to the sense of tension/worry, although these types of shots would be used in films the frequency in which they would be used is definitely not as much as was used in 'Wallander'.