Friday 30 October 2009

Character Profiles

The Boss - She can be very dominant in the working environment and has tendencies to be a complete control freak. She wears a headscarf as it shows she's spiritual; we chose Islam as the religion of this character because of the current prejudices of western societies and the headscarf is a distinctive symbol of this religion. She is a representation of a strong dominant female. She also has a few sneaky cigarettes when she gets too stressed. She's money greedy and is motivated by proving everyone wrong. She has very small moments in the soap where she lets her guard down and shows her vulnerable side (this is only ever done to her PA). She is also a hypochondriac. She is intimidating towards the employees just as any other boss would be.


Boss’s PAa ‘normal’ man who has a wife and children at home. He’s an ambiguous character who may appear shady at times but this is due to recent gay feelings which he keeps very secretive from everyone. Although at times he lets on to the Boss as they have a very complex and trustworthy relationship. He acts as an ‘agony aunt’ to the boss when she gets too stressed. He appears bossy and arrogant towards other staff lower down the hierarchy to him, he’s known as a misfit to other workers and often gets teased by other employees (he’s made solitary). He’s a very good listener, well educated and is known as a health freak as he constantly reminds the others of their unhealthy lifestyles.


New girl – She’s been given a recent work placement in the office for 3 months as she’s studying fashion/business at university. She’s young, flirtatious and attractive. She’s gay and single and gets a lot of attention from the male staff. She gets very bored and attention seeking when there’s not much going on in the offices. She appears very helpful at first to make a good impression. She mirrors the audience as she too is new to the scene.


Production manager/sexy man – Tall and handsome. He’s a regular man with an eccentric laugh. He also has a mental disorder known as ADHD/ADD which summarises a lot of his characteristics. He gets prescribed medication for this.


Caretaker – He’s a very intelligent man who is not highly rank in the organisation but is very well respected by most. He helps with the accounts as he’s a very good mathematician. He’s very humble, genuinely happy and smokes marijuana. He was previously prescribed marijuana as he suffered from anxiety issues therefore not being able to be employed by a professional organisation but as the boss as a sensitive side she was charmed by him.


Homeless man in the car parkvery quiet man who spends his days outside the building as he’s very found of the workers. He recently lost everything due to the recession. He was already lower class but the council refused him a home and is bound to the streets for several months. He’s able to use the shower in the warehouse and occasionally gets jobs unloading stock. He’s very wise and keeps the smokers company either with his guitar or general wisdom.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Storyboarding/Planning

Today we viewed our filming location to gain ideas on how to shoot the trailer. We agreed to see the setting because it was difficult to start having ideas on the storyboard without seeing what we can work with.

Serhan playing Peter can have chipped nail polish on his nails, only very slightly to convey an enigmatic narrative to viewers. It could mean his young daughter wanted to paint one or it could be his cheeky secret that he may like to paint his own nails as apart of his secret (he's gay and hiding).- To link all the characters together and symbolic show that they all have an important role within the business we've thought to have a folder/documents passed round to all characters. We may begin a shot with a close up of Peter/serhans hands flicking through a filing cabinet to look for these important documents for their weekly board meeting. This will establish the setting for the audience.- Another opening idea was that the new girl can arrive through the doors at reception, this will reflect the audience stepping into this new territory. The reception is one of the more glamorous areas and this can give a contradicting message, although the audience would only find out the business is not all it appears once they've entered. This can be be enigmatic and attractive to some viewers.-Yet another opening idea could be Aya sitting upon her throne although her back is turned away from the camera and you only see this grand office chair. The chair can then turn still concealing her identity. You'll then see Aya's shoes/heels walking down the long corridor towards the confrence room. She'll then enter late as all other employee's are waiting patiently for the bosses arrival.- We could have everyone gossiping in the meeting room before Aya comes in as we're aware gossip is a huge element to soaps, althought for a trailer we must highlight a dramatic storyline to capture the audiences interest.- We're exciting about all the potential opening scenes and could feature all of them. Once Serhan finds the documents he could then beginning handing them round to all staff members around the table. This will allow us to film each character and highlight there main characteristics. Aya could eventually enter late being the last one to read the document. She can then reveal these secrete work documents. She can take them out and it large font the name of our soap either Verve House or Southbury Rd can be shown as well as negative bank statements. The camera can zoom out intoconvention soap form and there present upon the table newspapers feturing headlines about the recession or specific business failure.- Be presenting all the characters at the table we're hoping audience's can find atleast one that they're intrigued by eg; the good looking sexy man, they may begin speculating he'll have an affair with Aslihan as we may chose to show them to staring at each other. But on Aslihan's arrival we can show her 'giving-the-eye' to the female receptionist, this will be one storyline we'll breifly introduce viewers with and it may be enough to want to make viewers tune in.-As Aslihan walks into the building the tramp can be sitting just outside the main entrance or can be hiding in the car park. This may be enough to make viewers question why there's a tramp there. We could represent him to be rather shifty and intimidating, or generally dirty and degrading to the image of the business. However we chose to repsent this character, viewers make be rather shocked and would be interested to find out why he's there, weather he's allowed or maybe wondering if further action will be taken to remove him etc.-When Serhans rustling through the files before the meeting he can comment on the nail polish, this again will hopefully cause questioning from viewers....Enigmatic storylines are a key convention to soaps and to trailers of all kinds and are focus at the moment is to present enough vague stories to appeal to a large audience without diverting from the realism of the situations.Enigma's are key to attracting viewers to tune in, when filming a trialer it doesn't neccesserily represent the style of how the soap would normally be represented. This trailer we're planning, in terms of filming style and general narrative structure, is an exception to the normal conventions of soaps. If we were to film a scene from our soap then we would follow the tradionaly structures such as avoiding the close ups/abstrast representations and heavy symbolism.