Which soap would you think is the most successful?
Why do you think this is?
What do you think of the soap?
Would you say it is realistic?
State what you think is unrealistic about it
Whos' your favourite character generally?
Why is this?
What storylines would you like to see more of?
Is there anything you would like to see more of?
Is there anything missing from your favourite soap that you would like to see?
Would you watch a soap that has a strong reality element? (eg. real scenarios based around the reccession)
Is there any part of reality you wouldnt like to see in soaps?
What would you relate to most in soaps?
When would you sit down to watch these soaps?
This is the questionnaire we are using to determine who the target audience is, and what sort of pitch we would like according to the information we receive.
Locations:- Offices (central meeting point)- Pub- Car park- Reception- Kitchen (staff room)- Car (travelling to and from work)- Houses/homes-Tube?
Target Audience:- Middle/working class- Unemployed, entrepreneurs, business minded people- People of all ethnicity's
Main Characters:
1. Women in charge (boss).-Very loud and powerful
2.Boss PA (personal assistant)-Timid, quiet, keeps everything calm- Gay, 'in the closet'
3. New girl.- Attractive and flirtatious- Lesbian- Intern, training
4. Sexy man (tall, dark, handsome)- 'normal' with a very peculiar laugh.- Takes medication for mental condition (eg. ADHD)
5. Care taker-'Stoner'- Very slow and not very intelligent- High most of the time
6. Tramp in the car park- Although in society he would be seen as a minor, we could make him someone who gives advice or something? so maybe he could be the philosophical one like the conscience of the cast because i think we need a kind of 'serious' character' since most the cast are eccentric in their personality.
At the moment there is recession affecting all businesses and employees.
Official economic data shows that a substantial number of nations are in recession as of early 2009. A global recession has resulted in a sharp drop in internationsl trade, rising unemployment and slumping commodity prices.
Overview
The late-2000s recession is shaping up to be the worst post-war contraction on record:
Real gross domestic product (GDP) began contracting in the third quarter of 2008, and by early 2009 was falling at an annualized pace not seen since the 1950s.
Capital investment, which was in decline year-on-year since the final quarter of 2006, matched the 1957–58 post war record in the first quarter of 2009. The pace of collapse in residential investment picked up speed in the first quarter of 2009, dropping 23.2% year-on-year, nearly four percentage points faster than in the previous quarter.
Domestic demand, in decline for five straight quarters, is still three months shy of the 1974–75 record, but the pace – down 2.6% per quarter vs. 1.9% in the earlier period – is a record-breaker already.
(Information taken from Wikipedia)
We have decided that the recession is a major point this year and has effected a lot of people and caused people to become redundant, households are effected, relationships i.e, co-worker relationships, money causes stress in households too. It is sensible to make this a theme in the soap as money surrounds everything in our lives especially in London. There is an idea that London is an individualistic society and has caused people to become like "robots" and living to work rather than working to live. Our jobs represent our social status and our status effects the way people perceive us. Having a soap explaining and emphasizing with people who have become redundant people who are suffering in their work would show a different perspective on what is going on and not everything should be judged through how people live, we are forgetting that people are people and we just see them as jobs instead, like a tool.
In lesson we looked at the conventions and forms of soaps. With this list we then (in our group) discussed possible conventions we'd like to keep, others which we'd like to develope and ones which we would discard.
Our ideas so far:
-Realism is crucial
- Eccentric characters
- 'Big Brother' soap
- bizare characters in reality
- Viewing time is not crucial as with the internet and sky plus intelligent viewers can view it at any time that suits their leisure.
- Relevent to the year (eg, finacial year)
- Include more ethnic groups (possible sub titles)
- Documentary style (as similar to dramas such as desperete housewives)
- More depth than a love triangle
- 'ghetto twist'
- Keep strong narratives with gossip
- show more of a minority lifestyle within the mainstream (eg homeless people)
- Two sides of life in one location
- Have quirky camera work to appear glamorous/stylised
The trailer starts off by Peggy looking like she is happy and doing something she would always do. The music in the background is like from a music box. She spots Archie from the mirror and starts walking towards him. The set looks technological because the lights on the floor go on and robotic arms starts whirring and takes off a flower from her dress. She is not happy about it but she continues to walk towards Archie as if she is walking down the aisle in her wedding. It seems as though he is controlling the machines and that they are "editing" her the way he wants her to look. He makes her dress shorter and replaces her tiara with a simpler minimalist tiara. Towards the end she is sprayed with something on her face making her face look younger. It looks as if he is in a mid-life crisis and wants something new in his life, a change. They are both quite old and they are surrounded by technology.
There isn't much to this trailer in terms of characters and speaking. There are only two characters and no one speaks, the background is very simple and not presenting the set of EastEnders.
The main aim of this trailer is to attract their audience through their story line and through enigmatic shots. Why is he doing that? Why did her pupils go smaller?
The trailer begins with a shot of Charity’s back looking onto a partially naked man on a bed in a diagonal position. Charity is wearing a cream/gold coloured silk dressing gown, as is the colour scheme of the room’s decoration. The room looks regal. This gives the impression on indulgence and the richness of this character's lifestyle, she is portrayed as though she has alot of material weath or a woman on a mission to own wealth, maybe through the men she chooses to have close relationships with. The audience do not yet know this character is charity because her back is turned to the audience. We then see her face and she gives a satisfied smile in a sinister way, as if she has acheived something, her goal, as if she is proud of her self; she turns behind and seems to be walking towards the camera. She walks to the bathroom where there is a bath tub, surrounded in red rose petals, placed in the centre of the large room, the long shot emphasises the size of the grand room. This shot suggests also to grandness of the house she is in, it has high ceilings and alot of trouble has gone to prepare the bath by decorating it with red rose petals- red roses are symbolic of passion and love.. but because she goes into the shot by her self to indulge in this luxurious bath, it is suggested she is selfish in a way.. maybe the passion and love which is portrayed is involved with herself - her passion for her acheivment and going into the bath to wash away her sins. There is then a close up of her eyes but she is not looking directly into the camera. The close up shot continues to her hand stroking her neck; she is wearing black nail varnish and a big black and gold ring on her finger. There is also a close up of her lips while she is putting on lipstick and strokes her neck again. After these close up shots, a medium shot assures the audience she is looking into a mirror sitting at a dressing table while she takes off her black short wig, another close up shows her kissing the mirror; the close up makes it seem like two people are kissing. There is then a medium shot of her back, this time with long, blonde, wavy hair taking off her gown followed by a shot of her feet where the gown piles to the floor. These shots are very sexual and makes her seem vain because she kisses her self in the mirror, maybe she is just making sure by looking into the mirror that it was all her who did this; being in this place was her personal goal and she had acheived it. She sinks into the tub, her back turned to the viewers; she is surrounded by candles and her head in the shot is aligned with the mirror on the dressing table making her seem centred. The water overflows and flows to the floor on the rose petals. Maybe the water washing away her sins finally wash away the passion and love (the red rose petals) away and the water is now mixed with the petals. There is a zoom of her face while relaxing in the comforting water, the zoom carries on to her eyes while they are shut. The zoom then reverses and zooms out from her eyes and shows her unsatisfied face and we see she is under the rain on a dark road, she looks up to the road sign where it says ‘Emmerdale’ which is ‘2’ miles away showing how close it is. From the sign it pans down where we can see her with the sign, she hitchhikes a ride towards Emmerdale and we see in a long shot the long dark winding road. She is back to square 1, at the beginning and the image contrasts with her indulging character. Just as though she seemed like she had lost everything, she gives a smile to the driver - a satisfied smile, and we realise that this is the beginning of a new journey; a new goal she has set out to acheive. The narrator is a woman and with a calm voice: “Trouble’s back, Charity returns”. Throughout the clips, the song “Trouble blues" is being played. It is a slow song and the lyrics ‘I won’t be trouble no more’ shows she is actually someone troublesome, or used to be at least. This trailer gives the idea that she will be trouble again and she is ready to use someone.
This trailer works very well because of the camera shots. The biggest effect it cause is the way it demonstrates contrast. From and indulgent character to a soaking girl in the middle of a lonely road. The camera shots are an obvious success; the close ups create
"The Office" is a situational comedy based around an office. The idea of our production is also based around an office however it is different in terms of it's narrative structure. "The Office" has elements of realism in terms of mise-en-scene and the setting but the characters and the fact that it is a sit-com is only for entertainment purposes. The target audience is probably wider than our target audience because we aim to attract and approach the audience through the narrative and plot whereas the sit-com is just to make people laugh. It does not explicitly aim to inform the audience of the work they do or their financial situation but surrounds more of the funny side of working. Their ethic is understandable: people work in offices and they just want something funny in an enviroment they are familiar with; this is what makes them successful. In our project we aim to use similar mise-en-scene:
- clothing: smart clothes - props: desks, chairs and computers
The actor/comedian Ricky Gervais is well known for entertaining people and this sit-com may just attract fans and not only the fact it is based in an office. This means it is not exactly a realistic representation of office life and because our production is a soap, this means we have to show realism and representation of work life in an office. And, because it is a soap we also have to show places other than the office, weave into the lives' of the characters showing their personal life too. The office in our soap would just act as a central meeting point.
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. A soap opera, according to Albert Moran who is Senior Lecturer in Media at GriffithUniversity, (Brisbane, Australia), is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode". Soap opera narratives run concurrently, intersect, and lead into further developments. Soap operas rarely "wrap things up" storywise, and generally avoid bringing all the current storylines to a conclusion at the same time. Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort of cliff-hanger. [1]
Soap operas have emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors. Most UK soap operas focus on working-class communities.
EastEnders programme makers took the decision that the show was to be about "everyday life" in the inner city "today" and regarded it as a "slice of life".[2]
“Working-class” audience as a target for Eastenders has worked well and has become popular in this class. “Working-class” is a group of people associated with people who are employed for wages, especially as manual workers. People from this class usually have time to watch television and do not have “hectic” lifestyles as opposed to, for example, a doctor would, with emergency calls to a late surgery.
The setting is in the fictional “Albert Square”. The characters in Eastenders all live in this area so it makes the audience feel as though they are a member of this community because they are presented into the lives of the different characters so it makes the audience have a sense of belonging to the soap. It also has a sense of familiarity because the area is a local place with markets, businesses and schools. It is a “middle-class” area where it is linked to the target audience as most of the population class themselves as “middle-class”. The East end has a history of, at one point, being a place of industry and work and was a place of poor quality of life, so it is iconic to feature characters of families which face problematic issues in their life.
There are varied age groups of characters where audiences can relate to characters in a way. There are middle aged couples in the soap are in love with each other and this may be interesting for people of this age who are in a similar state in reality, or this may just be interesting to the age group because it may be an experience the audience has not had recently. There are also younger characters that are still in full-time education and younger audiences can relate to these characters because they have a common interest among the similar aged characters. So, it is just a pleasure to watch what their “peers” are doing.
In Eastenders there are homosexual characters present. These characters that are featured in this soap are an example of how soap operas, and the media, have changed and developed over some time to become parallel to modern society. Years ago, being homosexual and to explicitly show this sexual preference would have been rare and difficult to accept by both the person and society; Eastenders puts forward, by featuring these characters how homosexuality has become something casual and a part of society.
Eastenders also features concepts of paedophilia in recent episodes. Even though the purpose of featuring this thread in the soap is not to promote paedophilia or to attracts paedophiles it raises awareness of the idea of this sort of behaviour which could be happening anywhere, even in your own home; the characters Tony King has a relationship with Whitney Dean a 15-year-old school girl. The child abuse storyline is an issue which had been created in association with the NSPCC and in accordance with BBC editorial policy. The soap’s storyline shows tackling difficult social issues such as domestic violence and mental health. This feature among other features can subconsciously educate the audience of what could be going on in their neighbourhood and even make the audience who have experienced such social issues to feel united to the characters in similar dilemmas.
Each episode is about half an hour but the day of the soap is no longer than a day. Time still carries on as it does in the “real” world of the audience, so if an episode were to be shown once a week, the life of the characters would have also passed a week since the last episode, however, Eastenders is broadcasted almost everyday, which adds to the realism of “everyday life” of the soap, so the audience are constantly “visiting” Eastenders.
During the time of the absence of the soap audiences have a chance to discuss or predict what could happen next. There is a past and present of the soap but the future is the discussions or gossip of the audiences about the soap.
Different races in the soap represent the multi-cultural state of London and “mirror” the audience’s life in London. There are different ethnicities present in Eastenders such as Black and Asian. Viewers, again, is in knowledge about different cultures; one of the characters refused to eat pork because of the rules of their religion.
Eastenders may be able to “teach” the audience about different concepts of society whether it is ethical issues or cultural issues, on the other hand, the soap also uses stereotypical characters. A female character in the soap is known to be as a “gossip”, whereas, there are no men characters who gossip. Another stereotypical type of characterisation is that men have more successful businesses as opposed to women. Some teenagers are presented as rebellious and classified as “trouble makers”. Another character where stereotypical features are implied to be a homosexual man who speaks in a feminine tone of voice and seems to be “bitchy” towards a past partner who he thinks is flirting with another man. Using stereotypical characters can be unrealistic but it is helpful in a way to identify a certain character in order to understand them better.
Eastenders, being a British soap opera mirrors the social issues of London well. The storylines and threads of the soap may well make it seem bleak and over exaggerated but this is assumed to be a way of capturing and keeping the audience to view the soap. Eastenders is built well as it is a long-running soap with history of characters and past events which have occurred making the soap more realistic. Most soaps could get less ratings as time goes by because of the “dragging” series, however, Eastenders has used the typical techniques well of time, narrative and repetition.
Eastenders which is set in London has certain elements of realism regarding location and storylines, they are obviously dramatised and exaggerated for entertainment purposes, however it holds onto alot of realism whether it is social issues, politics, philosophy or anything else really. But what the main point is, it gives accounts of daily and possible dilemmas which could happen to anyone living in London. For example, keeping up to date with current issues and up to date with news i.e, HPV vaccinations for girls in schools, swine flu pandemic, the recession, maybe a current football game or current music within the soap would make the audience feel more familiar with the storyline.
It is clear that realism is a massive part of soaps because they are portrayed to be "a slice of life". Traditional soaps such as EastEnders are community based and most of the character know one another somehow. The idea of having an altogether community would have been realistic years ago but in contemporary London, where EastEnders is actually based, this is not realistic. London is an individualistic society and people are becoming more independent and private. It could be argued that the reason why Eastenders is actually successful is because it has a community feel; that everyone shares their problems and it is ironic that the viewers of this soap actually are involved and part of the soap community too just by watching characters' everyday lives. So, how ever unrealistic it may be to have such a close knitted community at that time and place, it still works well in attracting the number of audiences it does.
The central issues underlying the study of realism are:
Conventions creating the effect of the real
- Realism consists of codes and conventions which aim to convey a sense of reality to audiences - Realism comprises the effect of the real and is thus created by codes and conventions which refer more to other codes and conventions than reality it self. What we see in the media are copies of copies
Codes of realism differ and are constantly open to change
- The codes and conventions of realism vary over time and are constantly open to change. They can be extended and modified as audience perceptions about what counts as "realistic" change - As new technology develops through the means of media production new conventions of realism are established. - Therefore, A sense of reality can be conveyed in several ways.
Realism is a version of reality and is an ideological representation of reality.
It is conventional of soaps to have realism. Realism is a crucial element within soaps and this involves the storylines and the setting. The structure of the soap episode is also conventional, it uses a structure where different narratives interwine and there are also mini cliffhangers.
Storylines involving love, family life, school life, workplace, economic and other issues surrounding audience lives are present within soaps; mostly typical issues surrounding working class lives.
Soap opera narratives run concurrently and intersect. The structure has worked well; the intersecting storylines are like mini-cliffhangers keeping the audience waiting. The main cliffhanger at the end keeps the audience waiting until the next episode. The interweaving storylines keep the characters 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 even introduce new ones.
Soap operas also have central meeting points. In EastEnders these are identifies as the pub, laundrette and the market are the main points in which characters meet each other and also to form gossip (another convention).
Based on market research by the BBC commissioning in 2003, Eastenders is most watched by 16- 24 year olds, closely followed by 25-34 year olds. An average Eastenders episode attracts a total audience share between 45% and 50%.
The 10pm repeat showing on BBC Three attracts an average of 500,00 viewers, the omnibus attracts a further 3 million. Eastenders has the highest audiences in British television history.
Despite a decade and a half of high viewership, it was the most popular in the early 2000s. Attracting an average of 15 million for most episodes and peaks of upto 25 million for the climaxes of popular storylines. Sonia's shock birth in 2000 was watched by 19.3 million viewers in 2001, Mel's marriage to Steve Owen was watched by 22.5 million viewers.
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. A soap opera, according to Albert Moran, is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode". Soap opera narrative run concurrently, intersect, and lead into further developments. Soap operas rarely "wrap things up" storywise, and generally avoid bringing all the current storylines to a conclusion at the same time. Soap opera episode typically end on some sort of cliff-hanger.
Soap operas have emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflict; some coverage of topical issues set in familiar domestic interiors. Most UK soap operas focus on working-class communities. Eastenders programme makers took the decision that the show was to be about "everyday life" in the inner city "today" and regarded as a "slice of life".
Working-class audience as a target audience for Eastenders has worked well and has become popular of this class. People from this class usually have time to watch television and do not have hectic lifestyles as opposed to, for example, a doctor would with emergency calls to late surgery. Working-class people have jobs from 9pm till 5pm most of the time and the broadcasting time for Soaps are usally around 7 or 8 pm.
