Rachel works for a designer brand called Ralph Lauren and she has a child with Ross. She married Ross in Vegas but they got divorced because they got married when they were drunk. She loves Joey but she only tells him out when they are in Barbados.
David went out with Phoebe but they broke up because he had to go to Minsk to do work. Then he came back after going bankrupt to find Phoebe with a boyfriend. When they broke up he went back out with her but he thought she still loved Mike so he asked Chandler for advice. Chandler told David about how Phoebe and Mike broke up because Mike said he never wanted to get married. So David thought if he proposed to Phoebe it would all work out but Mike proposed first but she said no and told Mike that she doesn’t want to get married straight away but wants to know that the relationship can go somewhere.
Mike has been married but since having a divorce has been put off of the idea of marriage. He is in love with Phoebe but he told her he would never get married again and this upset Phoebe so they broke up but he done everything he could to get her back and he even flies out to Barbados to propose to her. He is good at table tennis and had a four hour match with Monica in the games room in Barbados but ends up losing when Monica gets injured and Chandler takes over and wins the point.
Setting
The setting for friends is an urban milieu as it is set in an urban environment located in New York. The main locations used in Friends are Central Perk, a coffee shop located in New York near Central Park, and they also use a block of apartments, also located in New York. The two locations have very realistic props for example in Central Perk there is a place for a musician, who is normally Phoebe, and tables that fill up the rest of the coffee shop. The apartments are realistic as they are average size and have what you would expect and apartment to have e.g. a kitchen, bathroom, two or three bedrooms and a living room.
Dress Code
The dress codes of the characters in Friends are realistic as are the use of objects in the background or that are used in the episodes e.g. in Central Perk there are a lot of cups and coffee machines as it is a coffee shop. These are known as props. If you watch the show you would notice that the three female characters normally wear dresses and high heal shoes; whereas the male characters normally wear casual clothes like Jeans and T-shirt with shoes. As you can see in the picture to the right. These are realistic as these clothes are what most people would wear out if they were how old the characters are.
Sound
In most episodes of Friends the sounds used are mainly non-diegetic as they are in the scene and not added for affect. There is hardly any background music used as it is normally music being played by a character or sound from a television. In some episodes music and sound is added for tension like in “the one in Barbados” Joey goes to enter Rachel’s hotel room music is added to give tension to what happens next.
Lighting and colour
The lighting used in Friends is all natural and as you can see from the picture to the right it all comes from a realistic place in this case it is from the window of the coffee shop and lights up the coffee house also the lighting from the lights of the coffee shop are used as well to help keep it realistic. The colour used in Friends is all realistic and as it has not been modified or changed by computers it is natural.
Composition
The picture to the right of the section about lighting shows the composition of some of the characters in the coffee shop. As you can see Chandler and Monica are sitting together this may be as they are married and Phoebe sitting on her own as in the current episode she is with a man called Mike but was caught cheating on him with another man called David. This is also the case when they are in the apartments.
Camera Angles, movement and editing
The view in the picture on the right shows an extreme long shot showing the viewers the location that the majority of the episode is going to be set in. The camera then pans around the area. The editing in Friends is mainly cuts as it jumps from one character to another or from one scene to the next this is usually done after the recording.
Focus
Almost all the focus in Friends episodes is deep as everything is at the same deep focus but sometimes when a close shot or mid-close shot is used to show emotions a selective focus is used and it is only the character they want you to notice is in focus.
Audience
Friends has a wide audience range it is for ages up to 34 years old. The majority of Friends viewers are people that watch it as it is humourous. At the same time Friends has a high class to it making it appropriate to more business class people, therefore expanding the range of audience. This is good for advertising as there will be a large range of viewers that will see the product being advertised increasing sales. This is why companies advertise their products between episodes of Friends.
Humour
Humour is varied in Friends. Most of it is from Joey’s dumbness. An example from “The one in Barbados” is when Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, David and Rachel arrive and he says:
“Joey: Everything is upside-down here! It rains all day long, nobody watches TV, and Ross is famous!”
This is a good example of Joey’s dumbness making humour as he is used to being recognized and not Ross. He is also used to hot weather and he doesn’t think that it’s possible to live without a T.V. The rest of the humour is from Chandler who makes jokes all the time an example of this is:
“Monica: Pheebs, it's going great. Look at Chandler with little baby-girl Chandler.
Chandler: "Little baby-girl Chandler," where I have heard that before? Oh right, Coach Ruben.”
This is the sort of humour viewers expect from Chandler. He turns everything into a joke. In this case he uses past experiences to make a joke. The other characters of Friends all use humour but the main two are Joey and Chandler.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think Friends is an ensemble sitcom, which has a varied humour, and uses a deep focus. It also uses varied camera angles and camera movement. It has a lot of editing but is still quiet realistic.