5192 - Scott Collins
5195 - Devon Dalton
5272 - Charlotte Morrison
5330 - Emily Wallace
We have ordered these post in chronological order however the dates of the posts are not relevant. We have done this to make it easier for viewers to read and easier for ourselves to check our work.
Monday 5 March 2012
Sunday 4 March 2012
Saturday 3 March 2012
Target Audience Questionnaire and Results
Devon Dalton
These are the results of our audience questionnaire regarding soap operas. We spread the questionnaire to all ages. However, mainly 16-24 year olds volunteered to answer the questions, already suggesting perhaps soaps are for the younger generation.
The target audience questionnaires were designed so we could research into audience expectations and desires for a soap opera. We did this so we could deliver the best possible desired soap to our potential market.
We asked fourteen candidates nine questions to be filled out for our questionnaire created by Devon Dalton. Only four out of fourteen were male, suggesting that soap operas' stereotypical view of applying to females is correct.
The women outnumber the men.
First we asked all ten females what was their favourite soap? Five said EastEnders was their favourite soap. Their ages varied from 15 – 64, supporting the idea that EastEnders applies to all ages. Four females between the ages of 15 ans 34 answered, which reinforces the idea that Hollyoaks targets younger generations. The last female aged between 15-24 prefers Coronation Street.
All four males had different answers. The eldest, aged between 45-54 preferred EastEnders. The second male aged between 25-34 preferred Neighbours, an unpopular choice. The last two males were teenagers/young adults, between the ages 15-24. One prefers Coronation Street; the second had no favourite soap and therefore ignored the question.
The results suggest the most popular Soap is the most local to our destination, EastEnders, which is set in London. However, I find myself questioning if we had asked this in the location of Emmerdale, would that be the most popular choice? Do we prefer our local urban soap because it creates a sense of verisimilitude, and is more truthful than perhaps a rural one we rarely encounter?
We then asked our audience do they watch soaps by themselves, with family or with friends. Nine out of the fourteen candidates watch soaps with their families, once again showing soap operas can appeal to all audiences. The rest watch the soaps by themselves, showing that watching soaps with friends is a hassle to arrange daily.
Work hours don't seem to affect watching a soap; this is probably due to channels such as BBC 4 re-showing shows hours later or the new record function which features on most digital television services. This data was apparent from a wide spectrum of work hours recorded from our candidates.
When asked if soap operas represent real life, the candidates all had varied views. Three said yes. Nine said no. The last said they weren’t sure. However, no candidates believe Hollyoaks represents real life, connoting that the ‘teens’ shows are less serious than most and therefore don’t create true verisimilitude but instead forms a bubble of illusions which keeps the viewer calm and entertained.
When asked to explain their answers for the question ‘Do you think soaps represent real life?’ the responses were amusing yet very accurate. They varied from ‘Someone dies every Christmas without fail!’, ‘because who really lives, kills and sleeps with everyone’, ‘so much drama can’t possibly happen to one person.’ However one yes stated a valid point that now days soaps ‘deal with real issues.’ This is true but is often taken offensively such as baby snatching storylines or child abuse.
When asked ‘why is Hollyoaks your favourite soap?’, all four candidates mentioned that Hollyoaks is for their age range. This clearly shows that certain soaps can target specific audiences such as the younger audiences. When asked ‘Why is Eastenders your favourite soap?’ one candidate mentioned it was close to where they live, strengthening my statement earlier ‘I find myself questioning if we had asked this in the location of Emmerdale, would that be the most popular choice? Do we prefer our local urban soap because it creates a sense of verisimilitude, and is more truthful than perhaps a rural one we rarely encounter?’ This information tells Armadillo productions that when making our soap opera trailer, we must make it clear that we are set in a well-populated location and that our soap can appeal to a mass audience.
Results by Scott Collins
Conventions of Soap Opera Trailers
The Narrative: Open and fractured narrative, sometimes with forking paths to show different perspectives of a situation or event. In Todorov's Theory, a disturbance is always recognised but there is not always equilibrium before this. Usually, only a victim or villain is recognised from Propp's Theory in a soap opera trailer.
Titles: The channel is sometimes displayed at the bottom of the shot throughout the trailer but the final titles include the channel, time and day that the soap opera is broadcasted. If titles appear during the trailer, there are few.
Mise-en-Scene: The locations are predominantly interior as seen in soap opera episodes, except for special events or episodes where more exterior locations may be used. Locations usually include homes (interior and exterior), pubs and cafes. Costumes are darker, specifically with those characters involved in the disturbance and props used by characters are minimal and used to set the atmosphere or highlight the disturbance. A non-diegetic soundtrack is used throughout the trailer and a voice-over will be heard at the end of the trailer. If the soap opera has a jingle, this will also be used as a sound bridge at the end of the trailer. Lighting is lower in the shots where the disturbance is recognised and higher where it is not, except for when juxtaposition is used.
Camera Angles: Close ups, mid-shots and two-shots. Over-the shoulder shots may also be used as these also appear in soap opera episodes. Angles are not necessarily used to keep the audience feeling engaged in the scenes but may be used to signify inferiority and superiority.
Editing Style: Short shots, generally lasting between 1 and 5 seconds maximum so not much is given away. Razor cuts, fades and fade-to-blacks are used throughout following the typical trailer style.
When we come to storyboard and create our own soap opera trailer, we will ensure that all of these elements are incorporated into our piece so that we produce the most realistic and effective trailer.
Charlotte Morrison
Titles: The channel is sometimes displayed at the bottom of the shot throughout the trailer but the final titles include the channel, time and day that the soap opera is broadcasted. If titles appear during the trailer, there are few.
Mise-en-Scene: The locations are predominantly interior as seen in soap opera episodes, except for special events or episodes where more exterior locations may be used. Locations usually include homes (interior and exterior), pubs and cafes. Costumes are darker, specifically with those characters involved in the disturbance and props used by characters are minimal and used to set the atmosphere or highlight the disturbance. A non-diegetic soundtrack is used throughout the trailer and a voice-over will be heard at the end of the trailer. If the soap opera has a jingle, this will also be used as a sound bridge at the end of the trailer. Lighting is lower in the shots where the disturbance is recognised and higher where it is not, except for when juxtaposition is used.
Camera Angles: Close ups, mid-shots and two-shots. Over-the shoulder shots may also be used as these also appear in soap opera episodes. Angles are not necessarily used to keep the audience feeling engaged in the scenes but may be used to signify inferiority and superiority.
Editing Style: Short shots, generally lasting between 1 and 5 seconds maximum so not much is given away. Razor cuts, fades and fade-to-blacks are used throughout following the typical trailer style.
When we come to storyboard and create our own soap opera trailer, we will ensure that all of these elements are incorporated into our piece so that we produce the most realistic and effective trailer.
Charlotte Morrison
Thursday 1 March 2012
Comparing Soap Operas
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
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
Wednesday 29 February 2012
Soap Opera Trailer Audience Questionnaire
We created this questionnaire and handed it to a wide range of audiences so that we could collect their views on exitising soap operas and knowledge of trailers. This would help us as we will then know what we have to include in our trailer so that it informs the audience of what they need. The questionnaire also enables us to learn what we shouldn't include in the trailer.
Emily Wallace, Scott Collins and Charlotte Morrison
Tuesday 28 February 2012
Soap Opera Trailer Brief
About Our Soap
After mapping our thoughts and ideas for the theme and content of our soap opera, we decided as a group that we wanted to take something old and out-of-date, and turn it into something new and modern. For this reason, we chose to base our soap in a small, rural village that stretches along a road called 'Mill Lane'.
This idea was inspired by the soap opera Emmerdale, as it started as a small farm-based soap with a very small selection of characters. As it became more popular, it expanded to a village setting and gained more residents and storylines.
The difference between our soap and existing soaps like Emmerdale is that the location of the soap, and the characters and storylines of the soap are conventional opposites. In our case, the location is rural, isolated and very small. But the characters spread over several generations and the storylines are exciting, extreme and shocking. The location is the old fashioned theme, while the characters who live in the location and the dramatic relationships between them introduce a fresh twist to the traditional soap.
The Location and Lifestyle
The name of the soap is called Mill Lane, as it informs the audience of the location of the soap. Mill Lane is divided into 3 main locations: The road 'Mill Lane' itself, 'Broomfield Mill' and 'The Kings Arms' pub.
'Mill Lane' is the residential area of all the characters in the soap. It only consists of housing and some greenery. 'Broomfield Mill' is located at the end of 'Mill Lane' and is sometimes referred to as 'The Mill'. The area is mainly public footpaths, large fields and farm housing. 'The Kings Arms' pub is the hot spot of Mill Lane, and tends to be the only location that residents of 'Mill Lane' gather for social events and celebrations.
Storylines and Characters
The most exciting part of Mill Lane is the characters and how they interact with each other to create storylines. The characters range from a young, essex female to an elderly farm owner. The conflict between characters, due to age, ethnicity, beliefs and interests, means that we can cook up a huge variety of interesting and engaging storylines that will captivate our audience members, no matter who they might be.
A quick and easy way to describe what our soap opera contains is to call it a hybrid between Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.
The Trailer
The trailer for Mill Lane will introduce several storylines. The main storyline will be the introduction of a new resident called Rachel Mannings. We created this storyline as Rachel's appearance on 'Mill Lane' disturbs the predictable, peaceful lifestyle of the existing residents and characters.
The less important storyline involves a series of secrets shared between the characters Jennifer Ward, Charlie Collins and Barry Brooker. The dilemma is centred around Jennifer, as she has had an affair with both men and is now pregnant with a child. The cliff-hanger is not knowing which of the two best friends is the father of Jennifer's baby, and entices the audience to want to find out who the father is and how the characters will react when the news breaks out.
The First Episode
The purpose of our particular trailer is to advertise the storylines and events that take place in the first episode of Mill Lane. The same storylines, involving Rachel Mannings and Jennifer Ward, will take up the majority of the first episode. The rest of the episode will be focused on getting to know the personalities and lifestyles of as many characters in the soap as possible.
After mapping our thoughts and ideas for the theme and content of our soap opera, we decided as a group that we wanted to take something old and out-of-date, and turn it into something new and modern. For this reason, we chose to base our soap in a small, rural village that stretches along a road called 'Mill Lane'.
This idea was inspired by the soap opera Emmerdale, as it started as a small farm-based soap with a very small selection of characters. As it became more popular, it expanded to a village setting and gained more residents and storylines.
The difference between our soap and existing soaps like Emmerdale is that the location of the soap, and the characters and storylines of the soap are conventional opposites. In our case, the location is rural, isolated and very small. But the characters spread over several generations and the storylines are exciting, extreme and shocking. The location is the old fashioned theme, while the characters who live in the location and the dramatic relationships between them introduce a fresh twist to the traditional soap.
The Location and Lifestyle
The name of the soap is called Mill Lane, as it informs the audience of the location of the soap. Mill Lane is divided into 3 main locations: The road 'Mill Lane' itself, 'Broomfield Mill' and 'The Kings Arms' pub.
'Mill Lane' is the residential area of all the characters in the soap. It only consists of housing and some greenery. 'Broomfield Mill' is located at the end of 'Mill Lane' and is sometimes referred to as 'The Mill'. The area is mainly public footpaths, large fields and farm housing. 'The Kings Arms' pub is the hot spot of Mill Lane, and tends to be the only location that residents of 'Mill Lane' gather for social events and celebrations.
Storylines and Characters
The most exciting part of Mill Lane is the characters and how they interact with each other to create storylines. The characters range from a young, essex female to an elderly farm owner. The conflict between characters, due to age, ethnicity, beliefs and interests, means that we can cook up a huge variety of interesting and engaging storylines that will captivate our audience members, no matter who they might be.
A quick and easy way to describe what our soap opera contains is to call it a hybrid between Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.
The Trailer
The trailer for Mill Lane will introduce several storylines. The main storyline will be the introduction of a new resident called Rachel Mannings. We created this storyline as Rachel's appearance on 'Mill Lane' disturbs the predictable, peaceful lifestyle of the existing residents and characters.
The less important storyline involves a series of secrets shared between the characters Jennifer Ward, Charlie Collins and Barry Brooker. The dilemma is centred around Jennifer, as she has had an affair with both men and is now pregnant with a child. The cliff-hanger is not knowing which of the two best friends is the father of Jennifer's baby, and entices the audience to want to find out who the father is and how the characters will react when the news breaks out.
The First Episode
The purpose of our particular trailer is to advertise the storylines and events that take place in the first episode of Mill Lane. The same storylines, involving Rachel Mannings and Jennifer Ward, will take up the majority of the first episode. The rest of the episode will be focused on getting to know the personalities and lifestyles of as many characters in the soap as possible.
Devon Dalton
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