The previous post on my focus group feedback... I can definately say that i have learned alot from the audience feedback, especially from the focus group. They were very helpful and fitted into the category well of the audience slot. They were an ideal group and very interested in our soap idea. They liked the idea of watching people similar to them and also inspired us to create our trailer and changing our minds from the original one. We have different perspective to the recession and understand the boss too.
I have also interviewed the potential target audiences. Soaps have a wide range of target audiences and i wanted to see whether it would attract other types of audience too, so i have also interviewed an audience from a slightly different background...
This is Bill, he has come from a working-class background but has a fashion degree and is working at a fashion distribution company. He has gone up to middle-class and has quite a comftable life. However, his job is being effected from the recession and has effected him in a way to adjust his consumer lifestyle to the current economic recession. He is quite busy with his work but he does like going to watch a film at the cinema. He enjoys films which have a realistic and educational factor. He likes to shop in the latest designer clothes but he keeps the classic professional look. He likes to go out once in a while with his friends after work to a bar or club and is in the know about the latest music releases so he enjoys most types of music. His family watch EastEnders but because he does not have time he cannot watch it often. Our soap, according to the focus group, he would enjoy watching a soap which is similar to his lifestyle, so he would be able to watch our soap at 9pm twice a week when it is broadcasted. He would sympathise with the characters as they have also felt the squeeze in this economical crisis. He also lives on his own and is not married even though he is 28 years old (it is expected him to marry due to his culture by this age but his work gets in the way) as london is a multi-cultural society he would find a place for himself in the soap as the boss is muslim.
Bill would watch Verve House bcause it fits in his schedule and he can find the realism in this soap. Such as the mixed classes and multi-cultural characters.
The trailer shows the boss's side of the recession. Firing your workers are not always easy. From the focus group findings i decided it was a good idea to have the boss as the main introduced character. It is a stressful trailer, it is it made up of fast shots and repetitive shots to emphasise that it was a repetitive and stressful, also confusing experience for the boss.
The Poster:
The poster looks like from a newspaper comic at the back, usually they have similar drawing on newspapers such as "The Metro" which is a common Londoner newspaper as it is usually read by commuters in the morning (People who are the target audience).
I think this poster is really good. It takes into account the target audience and it also takes into account British norms: We like to 'lighten up the situation'. I used paint for this poster and i beleive i achieved a comic effect. However i do think that it could have looked more professional but still acheive the comic look if i had used photoshop, i.e. the colour could have been more vibrant.
The website:
The website has the same font as the poster. I think i have acheived a house style like this, and also i have used similar colours, the colours i used are not too bright. For the website i think i have sufficient detail and managed to include everything i can for an upcoming soap. I did the gallery page and i think i have established the area of where the main body of the soap would be. Pictures are important as they can excite the audience and pictures can create a familiarity with the audience.
Overall, I think i have acheived a well-balanced mixture of three products. The website and poster have the same font and the trailer's camera shots are used as part of the banner on the website. I think i have considered and researched my target audience thoroughly and have linked the three products well.
The title is the name of the company Verve House. I think that it is quite a clever name to use because of the word - house within the title. It brings everyone in and creates a union and a feel that everyone is 'under the same roof'. The word Verve according to the dictionary means "vitality: an energetic style". So in other words it means an energetic house or busy house. This sums up the soap because the characters are drawn together by this mid-point which is Verve House. It sums up what they have in common and what they are going through: the recession causing them to make quick choices. If looked into it deeper, the idea of having coffee: being alert and ready but then get tired quicker because of the caffeine.. The name is a good choice overall. However, most soaps are named after the area which it is in for example, EastEnders (east London). Verve house does not unit a community but rather forms one. I think it successfully represents an individualistic society and draws different people together who do not necessarily have to be living in the same street. Verve House houses other staff other than the office employees. The caretakers, receptionists and more extra people.. But they still form a 'House'. It unites the audience with the characters also and welcomes them into the house because they are both experiencing the economic depression.
Setting:
Verve House is set in North London. I beleive it is a realistic portrait of London, i have seen programmes where foreigners come to England, especially London assuming that the United Kingdom is a fairytale-like place and then being smacked with the truth when they arrive. The setting is a realistic representation of London within the working world. There are vans and cars parked in front of the office which make it look really industrial, however when you walk in it has classy offices. It is a good contrast i beleive as it merges two styles together, middle-class and working-class. And that is what i wanted to acheive. London is a indicidualistic multi-cultural society and i think it is good to show how differences can become an identity of a place i.e. London. The recession is what unites them if you set aside the status of individuals. Costume/Props:
As we were filming in offices we already had the props which we needed to acheive office effect. However the additional props which were vital are the coffee cups, ashtray, cigarettes, different outfits for the boss. The outfits of all actors had to be smart and suitable for the workplace to add to the realism. The coffee cups were a way to show how stressed the boss was and that maybe she had been lacking in sleep. The ashtray is quite important to show how much she was smoking. The clothing changed to show that it was different days and that the 'firing' process was stressfull and time consuming. The change in clothes is not a filming error. The aim of the changes were to stress the audience and to make sense of the situation. Smoking within the trailer in the office could be argued that it is unrealistic, however it does show that she is high in status, powerful and stressed. It also shows she is independent and brave. The boss also has a headscarf which is quite important to show her spirituality and also, to confront stereotypical ideas of the muslim community. I think it is a big issue today about the prejudices of islam and has caused a national fear.
Camera work/ editing:
The editing is the main eye catching thing about this trailer. The aim of the cutting camera work is to show a build up and routine of the boss's stress. The ashtray building up, cups building up, the pace of the music all suggest as though she is losing her mind. The variety of fast paced shots suggests what the boss is feeling and suggests how alone she feels. The fast shots also show how the characters feel from being fired but only a glimpse. The camera shots are just for the boss to show how she feels, alot of the time people hate their bosses but we were trying to emphasise with her. As it is a new soap being introduced it is quite long for a trailer compared with EastEnders:
However this could be because most people know who the characters are in Eastenders and this trailer may fail to attract NEW audiences.
Narrative: Other soap operas may show gritty reality to the audience but they fail to show the emoitional psychological part of it. They may accessorize their storylines with emotions for the audience to feel but jepodises the character of the person going through the stress, usually by skipping to a different storyline.
The trailer which I participated in producing is based on a soap which has conventions of soap operas and dramas. My production is based on a business and on its workers going through the recession.A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction usually broadcasted on television. What differentiates a soap from other television drama programs is the open-ended nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. Soap operas have a large scale of target audience; young teenagers to the older ages. The success of soap operas is mainly the narratives used and also the characters as well as the settings. An example of a successful soap opera is EastEnders. The series has been going on for over twenty years and is the most watched programme in the UK. EastEnders uses a wide range of characters through age, ethnicity and gender, and, generally bases it around working-classes. The conventions of soap operas are that they used ‘real’ storylines which can occur in the audiences’ lives. As Eastenders is set in east London, the storylines would contain issues surrounding the lives of the characters living in London, for example, jobs in London or certain events which would take place in London. Soap operas’ target audience are mainly women, and initially when soap operas were first running it was actually for women. However, today it has more male audiences than it would have had 15 years ago. In my production, the conventions of soap and drama are intertwined. It is easier to understand this by saying that I have used conventions of soaps but also, I have improved on the conventions according to my target audience and to make it more realistic. Soap opera narratives run concurrently, intersect, and lead into further developments. This structure has worked well and keeps the audience waiting till the next episode, the intersecting storylines are like mini-cliffhangers and almost forces the audience to watch other storylines within the episode, so ending cliffhangers of the episode has the same effect with these mini-cliffhangers.
In my production social class is an obvious matter and there are clear lines between the classes. In contemporary UK it is thought that class identities are blurred because of the wider possibilities for working classes and other classes to buy into the class they wish to identify with. Most people believe this because of the individualistic society London is. In fact class is an obvious element in our lives because certain classes have certain advantages, for example, middle classes have advantages on money and education where as working classes would be more different; access to higher education is usually through a student loan and most families receive benefits in this class. In my production there is a spectrum of classes which would be used, not just working-class like EastEnders. It is based in London and we keep the element of individualism, but portray it more as loneliness rather than community based like soap operas, just because this is realistic in a soap based in London. The class of the characters are middle-class and goes down to working-class to ‘classless’ class, which is someone who would be seen as a ‘tramp’ in societies’ eyes.
The production is mostly woman dominated. This emphasises on the success of women and also to represent them in a way to break stereotypical image of women. One of the characters featuring in the production is a homosexual young female; the men in the office are attracted to her but she is not interested. The aim of this character is to show that there is not always an ‘office slut’ and that women are not subsidiary to men. The personal assistant is male and unpopular with the employees but has a close platonic relationship with the boss. He is unsuccessful socially and represents a male character who, in some ways, subsidiary to women. This is just to draw a contrast between reality and stereotypical characters where in soaps usually women are obedient to men. Women are becoming more successful and stronger as time goes by. The boss is the dominant female and she is typically a stressful person because of her commitments to her work. She also represents the Muslim religion which is not found in British soaps. Her religion is not so much of a ‘big deal’, her headscarf is the only symbol to show this and this shocks the audience, in a way, to see a Muslim female boss in the workplace. London is a multi-cultural and secular society and Eastenders fails in some ways to portray this effectively. We do not see a lot of religious people in soaps, or at least in a long term. Her religion and beliefs are not a moral issue but just her lifestyle. Currently within the western world there are prejudices surrounding the religion mainly which are the effects of the media on how it is the religion of terrorist. In our groups’ interview with an office, (mainly made up of white Christian workers) they agreed that they were aware of the exaggeration of the media about this religion and that actually the businesses that they have agreements with are mostly Muslims or Jewish.
There is also a character in the production that has ADHD. Soaps do not tackle mental disorders as ‘normal’ as often. Schizophrenia is also a manageable disorder when taking prescription drugs. It is quite common to meet an array of people in London and the idea of a character having a mental disorder such as ADHD is just to portray this. It is a disorder where a person has difficulty in concentrating and can affect their life drastically in terms of work. Soaps play a huge role in educating the audience in many ways according the storylines they use to make people aware of certain things. This character is just to represent that anyone, even someone in your workplace, can have a health issue but also that there is no need to actually highlight it in sense where the whole office (or community) would have to feel sympathy towards that person, because it is acceptable to be different. The portrayals of disabilities are becoming popular, for example, in Hollyoaks there is a character that has a wheelchair. The idea of using disabilities, as well as educating the audience, it also attracts to disabled audiences and drawing them into the soap community and making them feel part of it.
Realism is a massive part of soaps. Traditional soaps are community based but unfortunately this is not so common in London anymore, this does not reflect London’s individualistic society. People are becoming more independent. The community based feel Eastenders has is more towards post-war Britain and this is becoming out of fashion. In our interview for research, when asked about Eastenders people questioned why nobody had a washing machine (a mutual point in the soap is a laundrette). As a group we challenged this idea and by featuring different characters we tried to draw a line between people to emphasise that communities do not exist anymore in the professional world. However, we do try to create a new fashioned community, one which consists of different and independent people yet also as one body because the people featured in the soap are working in the same area of work. So, communities do work in soaps because we see this through current successful soap operas, however it needed updating by extending it and using the idea of community in a different way.
A current issue such as the recession which is globally impacting people and businesses are not being touched on enough by soaps. It is a major event in most peoples’ lives because it has caused people to lose jobs and even go bankrupt. This massive issue should be highlighted more and not featuring this in a soap is quite peculiar because a soap is actually meant to reflect real life; the audiences’ life. As the target audience are working classes for most soaps and the crisis has affected this class a lot, it should be used as a main storyline which runs throughout the episodes. My production’s spine and what holds together the storyline is actually this matter: the money crisis. Because money is such a universal thing, the target audience are middle and working classes.
In soaps it is fair to say that narratives are exaggerated because every episode there is always something wrong with someone. No one is ever just happy. I understand that this is done for entertainment purposes, and I would say that this exaggeration is not an accurate representation of people. Some of the major problems which have happened to some of the characters’ lives in Eastenders would not happen in anyone’s lifetimes. I believe that if featuring a happier episode it would have more of an effect to the audience if something bad happened in the next episode because it would disappoint the audience rather than an ongoing ‘unlucky’ experience for the characters.
The target audience for my production are people between early 20s up to middle age who work in an office environment. They would be able to sympathise with the characters, i.e. the new girl character would be a window for the audience to learn and understand the surroundings and the idea of the soap and to meet to the people who are featured in the soap. They would learn about the soap with the new girl. The other characters are appealing in different ways for the audience; the ADHD sufferer is actually a good looking character and is meant to appeal to the female audience. Eastenders has such a large scale of audience of different backgrounds; this is because they feature such a huge scale of different characters. My production would just appeal to a niche audience, an audience that would appeal to the characters. Young adults may be interested in watching this soap because they may want to work in an office or already do and want to empathise with the soap.
Soap opera narratives run concurrently and intersect. This structure has worked well; the intersecting storylines are like mini-cliffhangers keeps the audience waiting. The main cliffhanger at the end of the episodes keeps the audience waiting for the next episode. This is a main element of soaps and this convention is necessary to keep a soap running, so we have kept this vital element. The interweaving storylines keep the characters updated and the storylines updated and gives a chance to unravel more and more storylines to keep the audience interested. It also creates a way to bond the characters and maybe even introduce new ones. Soap operas also have central meeting points. In Eastenders the pub, launderette and the market are the main points in which characters meet each other and also to form gossip (another convention). The ideas of the meeting points are also a vital ingredient to identify a program as a soap. The meeting points in my production are places where an office employee is likely to go and, the target audience of middle class and working class are also likely to identify with. These places are the pub, the car park, and the kitchen of the office. There would also be outside meeting points away from the office premises to maybe introduce new characters or to just have a chance to see the characters outside of the working environment. However, like in EastEnders where everyone knows each other somehow, not everyone would know each other in my production, simply because of the main message of London being a crowded yet lonely place.
The ideas being communicated is that long running soap operas, however successful they may be, they are actually outdated when paralleled with the real world. They do cover the realistic issues of daily life through storylines, but they seem exaggerated. London is a multi cultural city and it can be easy to forget this because it is always around us. There should be more variety in the characters’ cultures in soaps to appeal to a wider audience. The production seeks to confront stereotyping and just prove it wrong because the stereotyping itself is created by the media and by using media we are trying to undo it. Empowering women and just bringing a certain religion to surface are just the slight ways in which it may help.
In order to not break any legal rules we had to use copyright free music for the trailer. There are websites which hosts a variety of music and it was quite easy to choose one because some of the labels where fit for our trailer i.e. 'business' or 'stressed'. These were specific labels which were quite helpful to create the mood that we wanted. The mood was fast paced, confusing, no lyrics (the camera shots are confusing so it would be a good idea not the confuse the audience with lyrics since the characters are also speaking). I quite like our choice of music because it sounds futuristic and alien which is how the characters feel and also our soap represents a contemporary London unlike EastEnders.
