In order to gain a better understanding of what is included in a soap opera episode, we each took a soap opera and noted the number of scenes, characters, locations and storylines of each episode. By comparing them, it should give us a better idea of what the generic conventiuons are of soap operas and what we should encorporate into our own.
Characters
In order to create verisimilitude for the audiences of these British soap operas, the ethnicities of the characters are predominantly white with a few characters from other racial backgrounds for tokenism and to create realism for the audience, enabling them to identify with the characters more. They're of a variety of ages depending on the soap opera's target audience but generally have an even male to female ratio. Stereotypes are also apparent in each soap opera with several "Single Mums", "Troublesome Teenagers", "Jack the Lads" and "The Wise Old Man/Woman". Since these appeared so often in the soap opera episodes, we will ensure that our soap opera includes at least one of each of these characters. This will help the trailer to look more professional and like a real soap opera, with verisimilitude and a range of characters in order to reach a wider target audience.
Settings and Locations
As seen with the characters, there are also settings that appeared throughout the episodes, such as the interior and exterior of homes, pubs and cafes. As soap operas are generally aimed at demographic groups B to E and set in urban locations (or rural ones with easy access to these locations), producers stick to these settings as they are commonly seen throughout the daily lives of the audience, therefore creating more verisimilitude and allowing the audience to identify more with the characters. When creating our own soap opera, we will ensure that we use these locations as they are a key signifiers of soap operas.
Themes and Story Lines
Throughout the soap opera episodes, relationships, family feuds and love are repetitive story lines. The more dramatic episodes or those in the middle of a major story line, such as EastEnders, also include topics like murder. The story lines follow the relationships and daily lives of the characters and, just like the real world, these are unpredictable allowing elaborate story lines to be produced and a continuous, open narrative. Multiple story lines at the same time creates a variety for the audience and keeps them engaged throughout the episode. It is important that we follow the same open and linear narrative, as well as several different separate story lines to help introduce our charcaters and keep the audience engaged with our soap opera trailer.
Scene Count
As we are creating a soap opera trailer, we will not need to create as many scenes as a full length episode. The number of scenes vary between 9 and 24 depending on the amount of characters involved in the main story line and the number of side-plots added to keep the audience interested. However, as we are only introducing them, we will only need around 3 to 5 scenes, along with a fractured narrative, to create an effective and engaging trailer.
Charlotte Morrison
