The proliferation of global television formats since the 1950s, particularly those of scripted fictional narratives and their local adaptations, raise important questions about the nature and content of global culture and discourses, and the local contributions to those discourses. Each iteration is the result of cultural, historical, political, technical, and economic conditions specific to each country, and help determine how culturally, aesthetically, and discursively proxemic local narratives are created. German producers have long participated in the global format trade, both officially and “inofficially.” The German adaptation of the US crime series Dragnet in the 1950s, known as Stahlnetz, became paradigmatic for a long tradition of German crime shows currently still popular, such as the West German Tatort (ARD from 1971), and the East German Polizeiruf 110, and the plethora of similar shows currently on both public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF, as well as their private broadcasting counterparts. Some of the more successful and popular ones, such as Ein Herz und eine Seele (1973-1976), a loose adaptation of the British series Till Death Us Do Part (BBC1 1965-1975), may not be immediately recognizable as an adaptation, and some of them, such as Lindenstrasse (ARD 1985-2020) or Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten RTL 1992-) may have long surpassed the broadcast period of the original and therefore have become shows in their own right.

Some of the more recent prominent adaptations in German television like Verliebt in Berlin (ZDF 2006-2008), adapted from the Colombian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea (RCN 1999-2001), or Stromberg (ProSieben 2004-2012), adapted from the Ricky Gervais/Steve Merchant UK mockumentary comedy The Office (BBC2 2001-2003), are more or less recognizable adaptations of the originals. With the popularity and expansion of particular genres such as doctor and hospital dramas and comedies, it is sometimes difficult to determine if a series such as In aller Freundschaft-Die jungen Ärzte (ARD 2015-) is an adaptation of the US Grey’s Anatomy (ABC 2005) as is the clearly identifiable Turkish series Doktorlar (Show TV 2006-2011) of the Colombian El Corazon Abierto (RCN 2010-2011).

Less successful adaptations have also been attempted on German television. The UK doctor series Doc Martin (ITV 2004 -), adapted for German television as Doktor Martin (ZDF 2006-2009) starring Axel Milberg, was cancelled after two seasons, while the US sitcom Married with Children (Fox 1987-1997), known in its German adaptation Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt (1993), was less successful and unable to achieve the success of adaptations or the original in other markets such as the Russian, Argentinian, Chilean, or Colombian. Among the less successfully adapted series on German television was the adaptation of the Quebec series Un Gars, Une Fille (Radio Canada 1997-2002). Since the series went on to be successfully adapted in a wide variety of other markets up to the present, I believe it warrants a comparative investigation into factors which may or may not have contributed to its lack of success. The series started out in Quebec as a 6-10 minute stopgap sketch comedy show between primary half-hour or hour-long shows. Later, it was transformed into a half-hour sitcom-like comedy incorporating the separate sketch segments. While the French, Italian, and Spanish adaptations retain the same or similar sketch comedy length, most of the other adaptations, including the German, incorporate three such sketches to create a half-hour sitcom-like structure. In the twenty-year history of adapting the format (see Table 1 for the official versions), it has undergone some changes, but still retains its basic structure and sequencing.

The current study will investigate adaptations from the standpoint of creating the content and structure of the adaptation as a hybrid narrative subject to analytical deconstruction and reconstruction by means of computer annotation software. For the purposes of the analysis in this study, Chalaby’s definition of a television format will be used, which, even though he applies it to reality and other non-scripted series, can also be applied to scripted dramas and comedies such as Un Gars, Une Fille. Chalaby (2011) defines a format as “a show that can generate a distinctive narrative and is licensed outside its country of origin in order to be adapted to local audiences” [Chalaby 2011, 296]. Chalaby’s definition includes also a narrative component and he refers to the concept used by the Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA) that includes “a distinctive narrative progression” [Chalaby 2011, 294], “dramatic arcs,” “storylines,” and “trigger moments” [Chalaby 2011, 295]. Chalaby cites Michel Rodrigue, one of the driving forces behind the international distribution of Un Gars, Une Fille, who Chalaby also calls “one of the industry’s founding fathers” to highlight the inherently transnational nature of formats. According to Rodrigue, a series becomes a format “only once it is adopted outside its country of origin” [Chalaby 2011, 295]. A format entails “a transfer of expertise” (Page 3 Top) contained in a set of rules of international and local knowledge passed down to the producers in a “bible.” Therefore, formats are hybrid and function as bridges to “take viewers through a succession of emotional states.”

There are digital instruments available for measuring shot length (www.cinemetrics.lv) recognizing facial characteristics such that male and female characters may be distinguished and their screen times measured (http://neurotechnology.com). There are also digital instruments, both commercial (Atlas.ti and MMA Video) and open source (ELAN, Anvil), which assist in the measurement of different kinds of segments to reveal specific localization strategies underlying success or lack thereof. The current project uses Adobe Premiere and Final Cut to multimodally compare the German Du und ich with the Quebecois original and counterpart Un Gars, Une Fille. The bar graph for Part 1 and Part 2 of the mother-in-law scene were developed using the annotation function of Adobe Premiere Pro, the results of which were tables of segment lengths after exporting to Microsoft Excel. In Excel, the tables were transformed into bar graphs that are displayed here.

A multimodal investigation is appropriate since the entire range of modes of communication may be deployed in culturally salient ways in order to achieve what I am calling, with Uribe-Jongbloed and Medina (2014), discursive proximity. Multimodal scholar Kay O’Halloran was a leading figure in the development of the video annotation software MMA-Image and MMA-Video. The software was developed at the Multimodal Analysis Lab in the Interactive and Digital Media Institute at the National University of Singapore and was designed to use a “multimodal digital semiotics approach involving the development of interactive software with functionalities for systematic multimodal analysis of text, images, and videos” [O'Halloran et al. 2016, 387]. In asserting that transcription is transduction, Flewitt et al (2013: 52), point to the challenge of balancing “the accurate notation of events,” the “clear description for the research ‘reader,’ and the transcription format adequate for the research purpose while doing justice to the type of data collected” [Flewitt et al. 2013, 50]. According to them, the use of annotation software results in “reduced versions of observed reality, where some details are prioritized and others are left out” [Flewitt et al. 2013, 50]. Television scholar Jeremy Butler, whose book employs a narratological approach to the study of televisual texts, investigated the use of digitally generated statistical data to study the editing style of the sitcom Happy Days (1974-1984) with the online Shot Logger software www.shotlogger.org to measure and compare cutting rates of season 1 and season 2 to determine a statistically significant difference between them due to the switch from a single to a multiple camera production [Butler 2014].

Relevant approaches to cross-cultural and critical study of multimodality in my own work use concepts of Jewitt (2016) for understanding general principles of multimodality in their interaction with each other in multimodal ensembles which are intentionally selected and configured for particular — and in our case cross-culturally salient — types of meaning making [Jewitt 2016, 15], especially the interaction of image and writing [Jewitt 2016, 13]. Bateman and Schmidt (2011) are pertinent for cross- cultural film and television studies, since — derived from Metz, Bordwell, and others — they explicate the importance of and expound upon the notions of shots, scenes, spatiality, temporality and sequentiality underlying cross-cultural film and television analyses which include qualitative and quantitative data. Finally, Machin (2013) assists in developing a methodology for cross-cultural multimodal critical discourse analysis. For him, critical discourse studies represent not only “a kind of knowledge about what goes on in a particular social practice, ideas about why it is the way it is and what is to be done,” but also reveal “models of the world and why these are legitimate and reasonable ways of acting in the world” [Machin 2013, 352]. I am therefore multimodally extending the notion of cultural proximity proposed by Straubhaar and La Pastina (2005) which is “at work at multiple levels due to peoples’ complex identities beyond linguistic, religious, geographic or other group cultures based on dress, ethnicity, gestures, humor etc.” [Machin 2013, 274], whereby audiences will prefer television programs that are “most proximate or most directly relevant to them in cultural and linguistic terms” [Machin 2013, 273]. Van Keulen (2016) introduces the notion of aesthetic proximity to address the fact that certain technologically- based aesthetic components of audiovisual texts go beyond the linguistic and cultural systematic patterns to encompass the entire range of modes of communication in the adaptation process.

The confluence of cross-culturality, multimodality and narratology is evident in Jeremy Butler’s characterization of the televisual text as polysemic, but he states the televisual text “does not present all meanings equally positively” and explains that meanings are adjusted differently “through dialogue, acting styles, music, and other attributes of the text” [Butler 2007, 10]. Butler also points out that the televisual text is implicitly structured in a pattern to be polysemic but reflects and supports those in a position of political power while allowing space for alternative or contested meanings [Butler 2007, 11]. Multimodal research aims for systematic interpretative analysis of televisual and filmic texts by “finding systems of contrasts that organize and pre-structure filmic devices” [Bateman and Schmidt 2011]. The assumption underlying the research comparing the German Du und ich with Un Gars, Une Fille is that different modes and complexes of modes of communication are interculturally salient and are the component of a multimodal cross-cultural critical analysis.

My own previous cross-cultural comparative research has identified different types of adaptation based on similarities and differences in narrative structure, content, and sequencing [Larkey et al. 2016] of various adaptations, including Verliebt in Berlin (2009a) and Stromberg (2009b), and other versions of Un Gars, Une Fille. This research created a typology of adaptations which measured proximity to, or distancing from, the narrative structure, content, and sequencing of the original or many other adaptations.

In a study entitled “Narrative as a Mode of Communication: Comparing TV Format Adaptations with Multimodal and Narratological Approaches,” (2019) in a volume edited by Wildfeuer, Pflaeging, Bateman, Tseng and Seizov (Eds.) entitled Multimodality. Towards a New Discipline, I argue for incorporating quantitative and qualitative narratological data on the content, structure and sequencing into multimodal analyses of television format adaptations, using the example of the mother-in-law scenes in Un Gars, Une Fille, in order to supplement multimodal hermeneutic interpretative analyses as an extra dimension. For this current study, I completed bar graphs (see Figures 2 and 3) of 10 different versions which illustrated the relative lengths and durations of shots in percentages of total length of episodes to register culturally specific additions, deletions, and modifications made to the different versions to accommodate cultural proximity.

One of the unsolved challenges I encountered when presenting knowledge gained from this methodology was the inability of current computer visualizations based on graphics, tables, and charts derived from Microsoft Excel to adequately display the complex relationships of multimodal knowledge at the heart of audiovisual texts in general, and different television format adaptations in particular.

In recent multimodal research on the same mother-in-law scenes [Larkey 2019a], I compared different versions of Un Gars, Une Fille and the role of music to guide the empathy of the viewer toward or away from different characters in culturally specific ways by slightly adjusting length and position of a particular segment of sad music in the audiovisual text to that particular character. These findings were placed within the context of gender role depictions and applied the dual-concern model of family conflict management strategies in the mother-in-law scenes of the different versions. It was thus possible to determine whether, in the different versions, different family members deployed yielding, problem-solving, contending, or inaction strategies toward the other members of the family in culturally specific ways, whether it be the mother-in-law, the daughter, or the male protagonist. This is illustrated in the video clip in which the same music segment is deployed in different positions of the shot to guide sympathy or empathy with a different character.

The “story” of Un Gars, Une Fille revolves around the relationship and domestic lives of a heterosexual, non-married and childless 30-something couple, who has been together for at least 15 years. Because of its sketch comedy heritage, most adaptation contain three scenes of approximately 7-8 minutes during which the couple is engaged in activities and conversations about themselves, friends, and relatives in a variety of spaces, including domestic spaces at home (kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room) and public spaces (shopping centers, restaurants, bars, art exhibits, in a car, at a police station, etc.). The scene at the heart of the current investigation occurs at the apartment of the female’s mother, the mother-in-law of the male partner. The scene is divided into two parts in most of the versions except the German, and each shot or topic of conversation is divided by a distinctive transition which is comprised of music and graphics. The scene is usually monospatial, i.e., it takes place in the dining room of the mother-in-law only, with a stationary and largely point-of-view camera in which the mother is, to varying extents, outside of the frame. The visit to the mother-in-law is instigated by a sex scene during which the daughter has to convince the partner to go with her to her mother’s, and the scene ends when the couple leaves the apartment of the mother-in-law with leftovers.