We now have a rough storyboard of want we want key shots to look like in each scene of each separate story.
Anna Philona wrote what was happening in each shot and i drew the characters' positions and what was mainly happening in each shot.
We are going to develop this once we become more clear about the detail we want to include in our shots and I will also include more detail in the drawings so that we can see clearly what we want to achieve with the camera.
We chose not to scan this in because it is only a rough storyboard, however, Anna Philona wrote up the details of it onto the group blog. So that is where the full version of the storyboard is.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Soap Trailers
I found this trailer on youtube and thought it had similarities to what we want to achieve in our own trailer. It is a 'Hollyoaks' trailer and is the one I found with the fastest-cut shots, which I think is something that would interest us as we do not want to have cuts in our trailer that are too slow as it can seem quite boring and not- exciting to watch. One trailer shows most of the cast made up of youth, with a sexual nature to the shots. The music is fast-pace and comical.
There is a male voice over throughout, talking directly to the audience. The voice is self-advertising the soap, addressing the audience and engaging them in what is being said. 'Hollyoaks Later' is made to look much more sexual than the normal 'Hollyoaks', and contains scenes of a much more sexual nature. There is a girl sitting in a van who says 'Honk is you're horny' and then beeps the horn of the van herself. The voice over says: 'For five night, join the gorgeous lads and lassies'. It is obvious why this trailer is intended for an older audience, however, we want our audience to be wide and able to watch our soap in the evenings, not late at night, so it is important that we keep the sexual inuendos to a minimum.
This is a link to the video on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88C2a_kHkt
Written up by Anna Constantinou
There is a male voice over throughout, talking directly to the audience. The voice is self-advertising the soap, addressing the audience and engaging them in what is being said. 'Hollyoaks Later' is made to look much more sexual than the normal 'Hollyoaks', and contains scenes of a much more sexual nature. There is a girl sitting in a van who says 'Honk is you're horny' and then beeps the horn of the van herself. The voice over says: 'For five night, join the gorgeous lads and lassies'. It is obvious why this trailer is intended for an older audience, however, we want our audience to be wide and able to watch our soap in the evenings, not late at night, so it is important that we keep the sexual inuendos to a minimum.
This is a link to the video on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88C2a_kHkt
Written up by Anna Constantinou
Monday, 28 September 2009
Research: The super-imposed image portrayed in some soap operas- Hollyoaks
I looked at this photo in class and am looking at it again now to document my understanding of styalising in soaps.
These photos show how Hollyoaks has an uncommonly attractive cast, styalised to look good and attract the opposite sex, and henceforth, an audience. Also, it shows how real life would be like on the left, with an average pub and the people in it being normal and over- weight with average looks, but on the right, it shows how the cast look in a soap wanting to look sexualy attractive to its auience, and the people look like models, slim, stylish and beautiful. They also have an expensive breed of dog with its own little pink coat on, and the woman in the red dress is smiling in an attractive way and holding a wine glass to show her extravagance and class.
However, this way of being extravagant is unrealistic, and we want to keep our soap realistic, so this research has been realistic.
Friday, 25 September 2009
Research- Life changing issues protrayed in soap opera- Rape
'Victims of rape can be severely traumatized by the assault and may have difficulty functioning as well as they had been used to prior to the assault, with disruption of concentration, sleeping patterns and eating habits, for example. They may feel jumpy or be on edge. After being raped it is common for the victim to experience Acute Stress Disorder, including symptoms similar to those of posttraumatic stress disorder, such as intense, sometimes unpredictable, emotions, and they may find it hard to deal with their memories of the event. In the months immediately following the assault these problems may be severe and very upsetting and may prevent the victim from revealing their ordeal to friends or family, or seeking police or medical assistance. Additional symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder include:
- depersonalization or dissociation (feeling numb and detached, like being in a daze or a dream, or feeling that the world is strange and unreal)
- difficulty remembering important parts of the assault
- reliving the assault through repeated thoughts, memories, or nightmares
- avoidance of things, places, thoughts, and/or feelings that remind the victim of the assault
- anxiety or increased arousal (difficulty sleeping, concentrating, etc.)
- avoidance of social life or place of rape
Above, I have posted some information from wikipedia on the effects of rape on women. I think it is important to do background research into an issue before portraying it and publishing it within the media. I think there needs to be a good understanding of the issuse in order for it to be portrayed the right way. Of course, it would be difficult to actually film a rape scene, however, the after-effects of rape on the victim can be acted out realistically with the correct level of understanding. Women can form depression following a rape attack. If this is portrayed poorly or incorrectly to the public, then it gives the public a wrong impression of the behavior of victims of rape, and I strongly feel that this is something soaps and dramas have the duty of not doing, as their goal is to give public understanding. This is useful information for me, because one of the issues that we are portraying within our soap is rape, and I now have a better understanding of how important it is to treat these issues with care when filming them, and obviously, there will be victims of rape within our audience, and if anything, we want them to feel comforted by our soap, not distressed.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Treatment
Treatment- Group effort written up by Anna Constantinou
The main idea for our soap opera is a culture clash in a small area. The point of the culture clash is that with two different cultures conflicting, there would be a lot of drama to portray to an audience over a long period of time which would make it a success. There is a lot of culture clash in the world we live in today where people from different backgrounds do not always see eye to eye and find it very difficult to understand each others’ cultures and religions. This is not always the case, however, something small; for example, romance between two people of different religions, or arguments about how people should dress cause conflict, and this makes it an issue in our lives today and it always has been. It is usually the older generation which enforces the tradition which they feel their children must obey, but young people and our generation seem to crave difference and change, and this is what will allow our audience, which will consist mainly of older teenagers and young adults, to understand our storylines on a personal level.
The overall view of our soap is basically English or non religious family conflicting with a religious family such as Indian or Greek. This would provide the ideal basis for a conflict clash in a small area. It would be better to use a small area rather than a larger one because it would then be easier to focus on the two families and the world around them rather than the world with two families conflicting within it. It is not 100% clear about the details of our characters, but we are basically going to have a gay or lesbian character from a religious family who is forbidden to be gay or lesbian because of how religious they are and is not yet aware of their sexuality and has not yet told anyone about it. There is going to be the friend of the gay/lesbian character who is actually religious, but at the same time, a ‘’live and let live’’ sort of character. The religious family will be new to the area, or the non religious new to the area (what ever one benefits us depending on what characters we can pull off). There is going to be the parents of the two characters, and the boyfriend of the religious friend who agrees with her about not having sex until they are married. There will be the non religious family with an openly gay/lesbian daughter/son and a friend of this person who is also non- religious. There will also be the not- so important characters, but these are not very clear. There will need to be a sense of community, and for that, there will need to be a mixture of characters, but for now, we are focusing on the main ones.
The small stories we have decided upon for the episodes are:
*celibate girl gets pregnant (drink gets spiked and she gets raped)
*love triangle (jealousy and turning against each other)
*cheating affair (needing company turns into something more unintentionally)
*suicide (a history of grief…flashbacks)
*drug addicts (relief- influence)
*At a party, the friend of the gay/lesbian religious character, who has agreed with her boyfriend not to have sex until they are married, is drinking with her friends and without realising, while she is dancing, has her drink spiked by a stranger. Completely drugged and not realising what is happening, the girl is lead into a room without anyone noticing and is raped. The next morning when she wakes up, she remembers nothing about it and thinks it is because she has had too much to drink. A few months later, when she checks the calendar, she realises she must be pregnant, but has no idea how until she starts to remember bit by bit what happened, in her dreams.
*With two boys and a girl, both are infatuated by the girl’s charming quirky character and beauty, but which one will win her heart? Or will she refuse both of them and go for another?
*A woman who’s husband is hardly ever home feels lonely and in a desperate moment befriends the younger man who brings her shopping rounds every weekend, where it unintentionally develops into something more and she cant control it. Over time, when it develops into a full blown affair, it is no longer her feelings, but the huge secret which she is fighting to keep under wraps.
*A teenager troubled by the shame of their parents past takes their life leaving behind a mystery.
The setting that will probably work is the school, as we want our soap to have a youthful modern feel to it. However, we could also use one of our houses for the party scene, a high wall with a drop for the suicide scene, or with a bit of fake blood, and a knife, cutting the wrists. (I think this could work quite well).
We could also make an effort to find a busy street in order to get the community feel within it, and a playground scene to capture children playing football. This would portray the normal behaviour of the local children playing.
Our target audience will be from about 16- 25. We will make it appeal to that audience by portraying enough interesting storylines to keep the audience reeled in. The audience will sympathize for some characters and dislike others. We will only be making the trailer to a soap, so the obvious choice for music would be music that the characters cannot hear. ‘Hollyoaks’ uses this approach often, not just in their trailers, but in their episodes as well. It is not exactly realistic, but it gets its audience in the mood. The trailer for ‘Skins’ always uses upbeat music to convey the energetic mood of the series to the audience it is trying to real in, and this is what we want to achieve. We will leave our sense of realism basic, however we have already discussed the kinds of camera techniques that would work to heighten this. We thought that opening and shutting the cap on the lens of the camera could create the effect of eyes blinking when the raped girl is waking up. Obviously, in the trailer, we do not want to reveal too much, so cliff- hangers are the key to keeping the audience wanting more. Amongst all of the characters, the sense of gossip will be strong, and is a definite must for our soap as well as the trailer. It could be an element of why a character decided to commit suicide, what the woman having an affair fears most, and what all the youth do amongst themselves while one of them is unknowingly pregnant with an unwanted child. The time within the series will be realistic like ‘Eastenders’, with only a night passing between each episode, so that the audience feel more like they are within the action. The realism of the soap will be even more evident as we will be using real locations such as the school, the streets, and real houses.
Overall, we think this idea for a soap will be a good idea as it brings something slightly new to the world of television with the storylines fit for a film, and we feel it will be successful if it were a real media product.
The main idea for our soap opera is a culture clash in a small area. The point of the culture clash is that with two different cultures conflicting, there would be a lot of drama to portray to an audience over a long period of time which would make it a success. There is a lot of culture clash in the world we live in today where people from different backgrounds do not always see eye to eye and find it very difficult to understand each others’ cultures and religions. This is not always the case, however, something small; for example, romance between two people of different religions, or arguments about how people should dress cause conflict, and this makes it an issue in our lives today and it always has been. It is usually the older generation which enforces the tradition which they feel their children must obey, but young people and our generation seem to crave difference and change, and this is what will allow our audience, which will consist mainly of older teenagers and young adults, to understand our storylines on a personal level.
The overall view of our soap is basically English or non religious family conflicting with a religious family such as Indian or Greek. This would provide the ideal basis for a conflict clash in a small area. It would be better to use a small area rather than a larger one because it would then be easier to focus on the two families and the world around them rather than the world with two families conflicting within it. It is not 100% clear about the details of our characters, but we are basically going to have a gay or lesbian character from a religious family who is forbidden to be gay or lesbian because of how religious they are and is not yet aware of their sexuality and has not yet told anyone about it. There is going to be the friend of the gay/lesbian character who is actually religious, but at the same time, a ‘’live and let live’’ sort of character. The religious family will be new to the area, or the non religious new to the area (what ever one benefits us depending on what characters we can pull off). There is going to be the parents of the two characters, and the boyfriend of the religious friend who agrees with her about not having sex until they are married. There will be the non religious family with an openly gay/lesbian daughter/son and a friend of this person who is also non- religious. There will also be the not- so important characters, but these are not very clear. There will need to be a sense of community, and for that, there will need to be a mixture of characters, but for now, we are focusing on the main ones.
The small stories we have decided upon for the episodes are:
*celibate girl gets pregnant (drink gets spiked and she gets raped)
*love triangle (jealousy and turning against each other)
*cheating affair (needing company turns into something more unintentionally)
*suicide (a history of grief…flashbacks)
*drug addicts (relief- influence)
*At a party, the friend of the gay/lesbian religious character, who has agreed with her boyfriend not to have sex until they are married, is drinking with her friends and without realising, while she is dancing, has her drink spiked by a stranger. Completely drugged and not realising what is happening, the girl is lead into a room without anyone noticing and is raped. The next morning when she wakes up, she remembers nothing about it and thinks it is because she has had too much to drink. A few months later, when she checks the calendar, she realises she must be pregnant, but has no idea how until she starts to remember bit by bit what happened, in her dreams.
*With two boys and a girl, both are infatuated by the girl’s charming quirky character and beauty, but which one will win her heart? Or will she refuse both of them and go for another?
*A woman who’s husband is hardly ever home feels lonely and in a desperate moment befriends the younger man who brings her shopping rounds every weekend, where it unintentionally develops into something more and she cant control it. Over time, when it develops into a full blown affair, it is no longer her feelings, but the huge secret which she is fighting to keep under wraps.
*A teenager troubled by the shame of their parents past takes their life leaving behind a mystery.
The setting that will probably work is the school, as we want our soap to have a youthful modern feel to it. However, we could also use one of our houses for the party scene, a high wall with a drop for the suicide scene, or with a bit of fake blood, and a knife, cutting the wrists. (I think this could work quite well).
We could also make an effort to find a busy street in order to get the community feel within it, and a playground scene to capture children playing football. This would portray the normal behaviour of the local children playing.
Our target audience will be from about 16- 25. We will make it appeal to that audience by portraying enough interesting storylines to keep the audience reeled in. The audience will sympathize for some characters and dislike others. We will only be making the trailer to a soap, so the obvious choice for music would be music that the characters cannot hear. ‘Hollyoaks’ uses this approach often, not just in their trailers, but in their episodes as well. It is not exactly realistic, but it gets its audience in the mood. The trailer for ‘Skins’ always uses upbeat music to convey the energetic mood of the series to the audience it is trying to real in, and this is what we want to achieve. We will leave our sense of realism basic, however we have already discussed the kinds of camera techniques that would work to heighten this. We thought that opening and shutting the cap on the lens of the camera could create the effect of eyes blinking when the raped girl is waking up. Obviously, in the trailer, we do not want to reveal too much, so cliff- hangers are the key to keeping the audience wanting more. Amongst all of the characters, the sense of gossip will be strong, and is a definite must for our soap as well as the trailer. It could be an element of why a character decided to commit suicide, what the woman having an affair fears most, and what all the youth do amongst themselves while one of them is unknowingly pregnant with an unwanted child. The time within the series will be realistic like ‘Eastenders’, with only a night passing between each episode, so that the audience feel more like they are within the action. The realism of the soap will be even more evident as we will be using real locations such as the school, the streets, and real houses.
Overall, we think this idea for a soap will be a good idea as it brings something slightly new to the world of television with the storylines fit for a film, and we feel it will be successful if it were a real media product.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Pitch and research
Pitch:
*Culture clash in a small town.
*Dramatic, emotional relationship issues.
*Cellibate girl gets raped at a party.
Treatment:
Main stories:
*Celibate girl gets pregnant- medium term. She has never slept with her boyfriend. She goes to a party without him. Her drink gets spiked, she gets raped, and she falls pregnant as a result.
*Cultural clash in a small town- medium term. Young man/girl (undecided)- from a very religious family and background, and is trying to come out as homosexual.
Possible smaller stories:
*Love triangle between two boys and a girl- medium term. The two boys fight for one gril's affection.
*Cheating affair- medium term (undecided on characters).
*Suicide (flashbacks from past, story has been going from before)- long term.
*Drug addictions.
*Culture clash in a small town.
*Dramatic, emotional relationship issues.
*Cellibate girl gets raped at a party.
Treatment:
Main stories:
*Celibate girl gets pregnant- medium term. She has never slept with her boyfriend. She goes to a party without him. Her drink gets spiked, she gets raped, and she falls pregnant as a result.
*Cultural clash in a small town- medium term. Young man/girl (undecided)- from a very religious family and background, and is trying to come out as homosexual.
Possible smaller stories:
*Love triangle between two boys and a girl- medium term. The two boys fight for one gril's affection.
*Cheating affair- medium term (undecided on characters).
*Suicide (flashbacks from past, story has been going from before)- long term.
*Drug addictions.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Research- Hollyoaks- How is it different?
I am analyzing 'Hollyoaks' so that I can understand how it is different from other British soaps and how this makes it sell. This research will be useful for my own coursework because it will enable me to use similar techniques and character qualities if we want to make our soap different and modern like Hollyoaks. Below is a youtube video of the launch trailer for 'Hollyoaks'. This is what was braodcasted to advertise that the soap was going to start being shown for the first time on television.
Each character takes it in turns to say who they are seductively to the screen, but when it comes to one woman's turn, she stumbles upon her words. Then the camera cuts, and another ones shows the girl ending her lines, and showing all the camera equipment. When a man says to the woman, c'mon its only a small part, she says: yes iv heard and looks down. Everyone laughs, and the trailer ends. This shows that this soap has always been sexual and more casual/ modern and more about looks than anything else. We want our soap to follow the conventions a bit more and be less about looks, and more about conveying realism and relationships.
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Research: Analysis of Eastenders Christmas special trailer
Above is the trailer on youtube. From this trailer, I am hoping to gain a better understanding of the kind of dramatic storylines that are used within conventional soaps such as 'Eastenders', and how they are used. 'Eastenders' has been running for 25 years, so it is obviously a successful soap opera, and I think it is good to look at as research.
The trailer begins with jolly, merry Christmas music and slow motion shots of characters embracing, hugging, kissing cheeks, shaking hands, putting the roasted turkey down on the table and wishing each other a merry Christmas, all muted, with the non-diagetic chistmas music playing. Many different camera angles and shots are shown portraying Christmas joy and festive happiness amongst the characters. Then the camera cuts to a shot of the characters sitting down at a dinner table like a family, all holding Christmas crackers together and moving their hands up and down, about to pull, and then, they crack the crackers and the camera cuts to a single character taking a piece of paper out of his cracker. At this point, a female voice over says ''Who's the daddy?'' and the music turns into a low eerie decellerating whirring noise. The audience see the character's expression, and because of the sudden almost-silentness, we can tell that the character has just found out something really bad and devestating from the piece of paper he has found in his cracker. The camera fades to black and back into action over and over, we see the devestated character kneeling down next to a female character looking into her eyes. He then gets up quicklyand leaves from our view at which point the voice over says ''The truth is out''. From this, we understand that a secret has been made known to this character, and he does not like it atall.
This trailer works because it is full of sudden tension and questions. The audience are constantly asking narrative enigmas after the trailer finishes, which makes them want to watch the episode when it plays.
This research has been useful because I have seen how useful a cliffhanger can be, because this trailer leaves the audience in great suspense, and this technique would be really useful within our own trailer. If we could incorporate a devestating storyline and have a cliffhanger at the end of our trailer, it would leave our audience in great suspense, and they would want to watch our new soap, which would make our trailer successful.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Research: Analysing 'Emmerdale' trailer
This video shows how 'Emmerdale' has always portrayed a country way of life, and also how technology in media has improved. This video's audio work could be better if the voices were easier to hear with the Emmerdale theme music, however, the video is on full volume, and I still cannot hear what the characters are saying properlly. At the time when this triler was broadcasted, it would not have been too big a problem, because the audience would have been used to the audio sounding like this, however, today this trailer would be seen as poorly made because there is a very high quality standard of filming equipment availuable for production companies to use. Learning from this has been useful because even though we will be using high quality equipment for our coursework, we need to be careful to avoid poor audio work so that the voices of our characters will be able to be heard over the volume of the music that we choose to use.
This trailer shows the country life of seven characters. It begins with a medium side shot of a man and a woman sitting down talking on a bench. It is very hard to hear what they are saying, but I manage to understand ''and that stupid kissogram. Have you any idea how hard things are for me and Susan?'', so I am able to understand that he is confronting her about the trouble she has caused him for his relationship. They are wearing plain pastel coloured T-shirts and a jean waist-coat and straight- legged cuffed jeans which show the kind of fashion for yound people at the time. The camera then cuts to an over-the-shoulder shot of two men having a hushed conversation about something qthat has happened. I cannot really hear what they are saying, but it sounds like the one who is doing all the talking is giving the other man advice, so I am able to understand that this is about quiet confrontation. They are wearing green jackets and hats and farming clothes which suggets that they are country folk or farmers. The camera then cuts to a man walking into a stable with a broom, and we hear a horse as if it is freightended, so we assume that he is trying to hurt it in some way. However he is stopped from whatever he is doing by a woman behind him brandishing a whip and shouting at him, calling him names. They then have a fight and continue to shout at each other until they get stopped from a second man. They then stop fighting and stand and stare at each other angrily while a voiceover says the soap's name and the time and day that it will be broadcasted, as well as a small remark to get audiences intressted at what is happening at the time in the soap: ''Feelings are running high in 'Emmerdale''.
I think this sort of soap would attract the kind of viewer who enjoys simple things and every day drama that comes from social and professional living in the countryside and would therefore would be intressted to watch this soap furthur when the voice says ''Feelings are running high in Emmerdale''.
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