Visual Media Literacy Project
The phenomenon known as LOST started on ABC in the Fall of 2004. Since the day it aired the audience has been hooked, some might even say obsessed, but why? The appeal to the extremely successful show is the mystery and the reality of the situation the survivors have been thrown into. Anyone who flies on a plane is risking the unfortunate accident of crashing. Whose to say a plane crash would not lead to a mysterious island? Okay, maybe a little far fetched but that is what makes good television and an audience that can not get enough. Here is a little clip that introduces the audience to the first season of LOST.
The music and the personal danger really draw the audience in for a whirlwind experience. It was not always that simple. The idea of a television show about plane crash survivors had been thrown around at ABC for a few months. No one seemed to get the idea right. Thom Sherman, head of drama division for the president of entertainment at ABC, had made a couple of rough scripts for a show that resembled “castaway the series” (Lost season 1 disk 7). He was not pleased with any of these but knew the idea would be great if in the right hands. The first person that came to mind was JJ Abrams. At the time Abrams was working on Alias and did not have much time but read over the idea to see if he liked it. Not only did he like it, he could not say no to such a great idea. He expanded the idea to be more than just about the plane crash survivors; he wanted the island to be a character in itself. Abrams could not do this alone and ABC recruited some of their most creative minds to be put to work. In a short period of time they had a rough draft of an outline for LOST that ABC could not resist. The show was appealing to all audiences because of the mystery and exploration story line. It also included the bond of friendships forming and the evident romance that could not be avoided. Even from the very first episode, the show felt like a film.
Throughout the seasons most of the survivors have discovered they are related in some way. The audience gets visions of the survivors past through flashbacks of what life was like before crashing on the island. Some of these flashbacks include how many of the survivors bumped into each other or have done favors for another survivor without knowing it. The producers put in the flashbacks so the audience is not in the dark about the survivors past. Without this element the audience is not very invested in the well being of the survivors. This way the audience gets to see what kind of person each character was before crashing on the island. In the present, on the island, each of them are starting a new life and erasing their past. In the past couple of seasons LOST has moved past the flashbacks and started using flash forwards to show what life is like for the survivors after they return to their normal life. With all of the time shifting it becomes obvious that the island can make different time periods come to life. With this, the target audience is narrowed to science fiction and mystery. Though there is still romance, it is now on the back burner. The unusualness of the island and the situation that the survivors are in becomes very apparent with the growing images of disturbing instances on the island. Many times people see or hear people or things that were thought to have died or that are completely unbelievable. For instance, a polar bear is seen in the middle of the jungle, Jack’s dead father is walking around giving Jack advice, there is even a character that does not age. All these ideas come together through the island. The time travel aspect of the island really gets out of hand when the people left on the island are being forced to jump through time because that is what the island is doing.
At the beginning of every Lost episode the producers do their best to recap what has happened in past episodes. Without the noise at the beginning of each flash, the audience would be puzzled as to what is happening. Because of great sound effects along with the visual images, the audience is keyed in to what the people on the island are really going through.
Without the visual images of flashbacks, flash forwards, and the reality of present time, the audience would not be emotionally attached to any of the characters in LOST. As noticed in the clips above, the plot is thicken by the audio orchestrated in each episode. The tenseness of the story line would be obsolete without the great mixture of visual images and interjecting audio.
MLA citations:
“Lost – 5×05 ‘This Place is Death’ – What Happened”. March 2009. YouTube.com. Video. 9 July 2009. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=HUJY6A443Ck>.
“Lost: Series Trailer”. July 2008. YouTube.com. Video. 9 July 2009. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=qQ1Ur4w21m8>.
“Lost Trailer Season 1″. September 2008. YouTube.com. Video. 9 July 2009. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=OHQLeAnhGYU>.
“LOST: The Complete First Season (Disk Seven)”. Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc and Touchstone Television. 2005 DVD release.
“ABC.com”. 2009. ABC Lost website. 7 July 2009. <http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=index>.
