Poster Rough draft 1



Soap opera magazine rough draft 1

Rough cut 1

We showed our rough cut to our demographic audience and gained feedback to see what their impressions were of our trailer, poster and magazine. This is to get the feedback and make any changes that we hadn't thought of before. So far our trailer is only a rough cut and we are aware of that fact that there is still a lot missing but it was still helpful to receive both positive comments but also things they think we could improve on.

Some of the positive comments we received helped gain confidence in our trailer as we are aware of the parts that people thought worked well which would help when it comes to making our second rough cut. Some of the positive comments include a good setting. Most groups commented on how they liked where the trailer was set and how its different to other trailers. Another was the characters and costumes as the mise was well thought about. Some groups commented on how the costumes they wore fitted in well with their character and the personality that we wanted to show. It revealed a lot about them as characters by the use of colour and connotations. Other positive comments include ones like good use of various shots, unique ideas and good use of lighting.

The demographic audience also gave us a few things they believe we could improve on after watching the first rough cut. What people mostly commented on was how continuity was not always accurate. However, we put that down to the trailer not yet being finished as we understand it does not yet fully make sense as not all scenes have been put in yet. The feedback for this did prove helpful as there were certain shots that they found discontinuous that we had not before noticed. Other improvements were ones such as no titles, voice overs or music which are all things we intend to include as we continue on improving our trailer.

Final Costumes

Final Costumes

Here are the final costumes that the characters wore when filming our soap opera, we changed the outfits about quite a few times for it to create the correct mood for our trailer. Fitting the right costume to the right character is a very important part when making a production, it gives the audience an immediate insight to the character before they know there story.

Blossom Hill Pitch

Final Shotlist

Final Shotlist

Final Script

Final script

Compared to the first draft our script has developed and improved in terms of the way characters come across and the storylines have developed. In the draft script the final storyline that involved a young girl pretending to be older than what she was has now been taken out and the main story now consists of the young mother who was raped and hasn't told her son who his father is. We felt this type of storyline was more suited to a soap opera compared to the other one. We also removed it because of the characters involved and how we aimed for a young cast and with that storyline we would have had to include and older male. In the final script we also give the young child some dialogue to add to the dramatic storyline and to also draw audiences in with the range of characters we use as well as the storylines.

Filming Schedule

The filming will take place on Tuesday 15th November at Broomfield Studios from 4.30pm. We will be at the studio form 4.00pm to set up the equipment and set. The actors will come at staggered times depending when their character is being filmed as detailed below in the filming schedule. All the characters will be needed at the end of filmng for the group photo and magazine pictures and we expect filming to be finished by 7.30pm.

Soap Development

Through the audition process and actor finalisation we have discovered that some of the actors that we had in mind to include in our soap, either do not fit the roles or have other commitments on the day of filming. Also, as our soap is similar to that of Hollyoaks we have realised that there are not many older characters and we feel that the younger characters will appeal to our target audience. We have therefore had to change the demographic of the characters involved in the soap and change the concept from focusing on the people of Blossom Hill as a whole to focusing on the youths of Blossom Hill. We are still keeping the same target audience but are adjusting some of the characters to fit the younger role.

The characters who we are changing:

The Business Man- He will now be a young, irresponsible entrepreneur who can't handle all the money he is receiving and begins wasting it on whatever he wants including drugs.

The Single Mum- She will now be a young single mum who had a teenage pregnancy due to an unfortunate event when she was 13 and this was rape.

The Couple- They will now be a younger couple but still with the same storyline of the love triangle.

The Daddies Girl- As we are not including older characters we have decided to make the daddies girl the innocent girl. We feel that having this character will be better for the bitchy girl storyline and our demographic audience will be able to relate more this type of situation.

We have had to cut two characters from the soap and these are the Sugar Daddy and his girlfriend. This has had to happen due to the older actor being unavailable on the day and also we feel that the character now may not fit with the other young actors/characters.

Equipment

Equipment

Casting

Casting

Finding Cast Members

Due to our soap opera having such a wide range of character ages from 6 - 40years, we are having huge difficulties trying to find actors to be in our trailer. Due to this we decided to email various Amateur Dramatic societies requesting to use their members. This is the email we sent:

Hello, I am a A level media student from Chelmer Valley High School desperately trying to find a handful of male and female actors in the age range of 20 - 40 years to help us film for our A level. We are making a trailer for a new soap opera and are short of older characters that are vital for our piece and we were hoping to use some of your members. We cannot offer money but can offer experience infront of a camera. They will be needed for either Monday the 14th November or Tuesday the 15th November. If you could help us with this we would be forever thankful,

Paige Lyons
Chelmer Valley High School.

We sent this to the amateur dramatic groups Phoenix, Springers Aod and Galleywood Theatre Group.

Magazine Shotlist

Magazine Shot List

This is the shotlist for our magazine, creating a shotlist when taking pictures is a great way of staying organised. Having a plan gets the job done quicker and to a higher standard, it also saves wasting valuable time shooting by working out what you are going to do. Making a shotlist for our magazine ended up saving us time and gained us a range of possible pictures we could use. By planning to take a lot of pictures it meant if the pictures turned out different to how we planned we always had a back up plan.

Location Scouting

Location Scouting

Existing soap locations

Costume Ideas

Business Men/ Drug Dealer


Two Dads & Mum and Son

Three Bitchy Girls & Innocent Girl

Glamorous Couple & Bachelor

Sugar Daddy & Two Girls With The Sugar Daddy

Here are some examples of costumes we want our characters to wear for our trailer. Every costume has a reason why we think it would be best for them to wear it. Costume is very important and determines a one character from another. Discussing costume ideas is a great way for us to get to know our characters better.

Poster Shotlist

Poster Shotlist

This is the shotlist for our poster, creating a shotlist when taking pictures is a great way of staying organised. Having a plan gets the job done quicker and to a higher standard, it also saves wasting valuable time shooting by working out what you are going to do. Making a shotlist for our magazine ended up saving us time and gained us a range of possible pictures we could use. By planning to take a lot of pictures it meant if the pictures turned out different to how we planned we always had a back up plan.

Auditions

We have decided to not cast Amy Platt with the part of the Bitchy Girl as we feel that she comes across as too innocent and doesn’t have the right bad girl attitude to fit the role.

We have decided to cast Laura Thomas as the Bitchy Girl as, from her audition we feel that she portrays the right attitude needed and also, has the right look for the character that we want.

We have not decided to cast Mr. Irven as the role of the Drug dealer as we feel that he slightly too old for the role and doesn’t quite have the look that we are going for.

We have decided not to cast Alex Cockburn as the Drug Dealer as we feel he may look too young for the role and not fit the conventional drug dealer/business man role.

For the male member of the young couple we have decided to cast Matt Bonner. Even though he auditioned for the role of the Bachelor, we feel that from this he is more suited to the role of the young couple as he has the stylish/glamorous that we are looking for. Also, he has good acting abilities which we think will help portray this role realistically.

For the Bachelor we have decided to cast Darrel Baldwin. We have decided this because we feel he is stylish and has the confidence for this role. Also, he is the correct age that we wanted for the role.

For the Mum we have decided to cast Jess Wilding, we feel that she has the right look for the role and also, has motherly qualities. We wanted to cast a slightly younger female to play this role for the plotline we have created. So overall she fits the role really well.

We decided not to cast Miss. Neagle as the mum. We felt that her audition was rather serious and she didn’t really have the right vibe that we are looking for.

For the female member of the couple we have decided to cast Emma Jobson. She has the look we want as she is stylish and glamorous, but also, she is a good actress and we feel she has the confidence for this role.

We decided to not cast Jess Foster as the female half of the couple as we felt that her audition didn’t really fit the role and was very dramatic. Also, we thought that she may look too young for the piece as well.

For the child we have decided to cast Teddy Stone. He has good acting abilities for a young child and has the cute look we want. We feel that he fits the role perfectly and will be great to work with.

The Audition Script

Draft Script

Animatic Storyboard

Our animatic storyboard gives us a good guideline for when it comes to filming our actual trailer. Even though we may not follow it exactly to how we planned it will give us a good guide for what we want. The storyboard shows all the shots we intend to use in our trailer and the order in which the storylines appear and when each character enters. Doing this animatic storyboard has helped confirm our ideas for the trailer and how we hope to follow through with what we have planned when it comes to filming it.

Draft Shotlist

Draft Shotlist

Lighting Information

For our trailer we will be using artificial lighting as we are filming in a photography studio. The lighting will make the characters stand out against the white background and bring out their colourful costumes. As we are using artificial lighting we can film at any time of the day as it will not be affected. The photos we take for both poster and magazine will give good quality photos with a professional finish. Also, the actors will look vibrant and fresh.

The artificial lighting may connote a sense of class and emphasise the fact that these people are of a high standard. The bright lights against the white background will make it look classy. If we planned to base our trailer in a darker environment we don't believe it would give off the same feel of status and class and would not present these people in the way that we intend. Using an artificial light will also help to maintain continuity as we will to using the same HMI lights all the way through the trailer.

Equipment List

 

Ideas for Magazine

Ideas for poster

This is the initial idea for what we would like our soap opera poster to look like. As our trailer is including a photo shoot of the cast we would like our poster to include the posed photograph like the one shown at the end of the trailer. We want to have a connection between the trailer and the poster for advertisement so, potential viewers will know that they are linked. The characters will pose in a position that can show their storyline/personality and they will be pictured against a white background. We feel that a white background will give the poster a crisp and sophisticated feel which will reflect the theme of the soap. Also, we would like to include money falling over the characters to reinforce the high class and glamorous characters and show their wealth. We will include the title, tag line and information for the soap on the poster as well. We would like the font to be black and simple but big enough for the potential audience to see. Overall, we want to give our poster a glamorous feel.

Draft script

Draft script

Props

Props

When it came to filming we didn't use all of the props as first suggested. As we altered some of the characters, this lead to some of the props not being used, including the cigars. With the champagne we decided to go against this idea as we didn't feel that it would have fitted in with the studio and also, as we changed the age range of the characters we felt that this idea would have been more suited to the older ones. We also did not use the compact mirror and lipstick as we decided to not involve the girly girl character in the trailer. The Bachelor didn't end up wearing sunglasses, we felt that we wanted to actually show his character more in the trailer and the glasses may have hidden this. As he was involved in the main story line, this was another reason why we wanted to reveal the whole character to make sure that it was clear to the audience. The rest of the props suggested were used and worked well within our piece.

Emails For Music

We sent emails to Fergie and Pixie Lott to request permission to use one of there songs in our soap opera trailer, this is what we said:

To Fergie

Dear Sir/Madam.

I am writing to seek permission to use the record 'Glamorous' by Fergie for our A Level Media Exam. We have been asked to produce a new soap trailer and we believe this song would be perfect for ours, our soap is about young people with a glamorous lifestyle. We want to use this song but we will not be making any money from it, it will only be seen by a handful of people as it will be on youtube privately. We thank you for your time and hope you take our enquiry into consideration, many thanks.

To Pixie Lott
Dear Sir/Madam
We are writing to enquire permission to use the song 'It's all about tonight'
by Pixie Lott. We are media studies A level students who are currently
working on creating a new soap opera trailer for our
coursework. As we are focusing on making it a new
vibrant and youthful soap and feel as though this song would
be perfect for the trailer. We will be uploading it to
Youtube but will not be making any profits from this trailer. Only a handful of people will have access to our trailer
as we will only be using it to count towards our A level
grade.  Many Thanks

We decided to email different record companies to broaden our choice when it came to selecting music for our trailer. As we were not using the music for profits we felt it could potentially be a good idea if we received the permission we required. We had a particular style of music in mind for our trailer and to do this we knew we had to at least try to get in contact with the companies as we wanted the right kind of music to overall improve the trailer.

Stock Characters

Photographic Storyboard

We have created a Animatic storyboard which gives us more of an Idea about how our soap will look (compared to the normal storyboard), this is just a basic understanding of what we want.

Since doing the photographic storyboard we found our ideas changed compared to when we did the initial storyboard. Initially we liked the idea of setting it in a party environment but later realised that we could potentially find this challenging and would not be as effective for a soap trailer. We all agreed that we preferred the idea of a photo shoot setting as its an opportunity to have all the characters in one room together. We felt this was a better idea for a trailer as the characters could come across better and the storylines could be put forward as the location is a sort of blank canvas that we can experiment with. After doing the photographic storyboard we knew for definite that we wanted to carry on this idea as we felt it worked well in images and hoped for the same when it comes to filming.

Storyboard- Initial ideas

In our group we have discussed a variety of ideas for our trailer. We have drawn two storyboards to show our different ideas that we have had. By creating these storyboards we are able to see how our ideas could potentially turn out.

Storyboard 1- This storyboard shows a glamorous party that would be used to introduce the characters, personalities and possible story lines.

Storyboard 2- Here is our second idea, which is a glamorous photo shoot. We will include the majority of the characters especially the main ones. All the characters will congregate for a photo and we will use voice overs to show their real thoughts and give an insight of what their life is really like. From this we will be able to show characters, relationships and possible story lines.

As a group we have discussed our two ideas. We believe that they are both good ideas that would give the viewers an insight into the new soap and not give too much away. However, we feel that our second storyboard will be more accessible and better to evolve, as the first story would need to involve a lot of extras to give a real part vibe.

Flowchart

Millie

This flowchart shows the order of the shots that we want to include in our trailer. This is a rough idea of what we want to include and the shots we will use for each part. We like the idea of showing each character walking into the studio. We agreed this was a good way to introduce not only the characters but their individual storylines and how some of them intertwine with another. As shown in our flowchart we intend to make all the characters be a part of a storyline but think its best to leave the most outrageous and dramatic one till last. We believe this is the best way to capture audiences and to hook them with the most interesting storylines that will leave more of an impression on them due to being put last. The way we have set out this flowchart makes apparent not only our storylines but an idea of what camera shots and angles we want to use. This is to get a basic idea of how we want the trailer to be and to give ourselves a rough guideline to follow when it comes to filming.

Initial Plot/ Narrative for our Soap Opera

Initial Plot/ Narrative for our Soap Opera on Prezi

Storyline Moodboard

Here is a moodboard with many different storylines that are incorporated in soap operas, to follow the generic conventions of a soap opera we needed to add some of these storylines in ours. We did this moodboard to help get ideas of different storylines that we could potentially use in our own trailer. The images we use all relate back to previous storylines in existing soaps and some are ideas that we have already thought of and want to include.

Target Audience - Moodboard

By doing a target audience mood board it has allowed us visually see who we are aiming our soap at. Also when having to do questionnaire's on our target audience we can base them on the mood board and see if they match up to what we want. The moodboard basically tells us we want to aim our soap at a young modern audience who could either be students or working class. We want our target audience to like watching Hollyoaks and The Only Way Is Essex because that is what our soap will be similar too.

Target Audience Profile

Here is a Target Audience Profile which will tell you who we are aiming our soap opera at and who we would expect to wa\tch it. By doing this it will help us to make sure that we use certain story lines/characters which will attract the type of audience we want.

Class

The class of our audience would be a mix of people from working class right through to the unemployed, in the demographic groups B through to E. Even though we would like our soap to contain more high class characters and show a sophisticated lifestyle, we still want to attract an audience of this kind to show them that living the high life does have its downfalls. Also, from our target audience research we found that people from these demographic groups are the ones who watch soap operas.

Gender

Our audience will be a mix of both males and females. We discovered from target audience research that soap operas are enjoyed by both genders. The story lines included in our soap opera will allow both genders to relate to and enjoy. By aiming it at both genders we will also, attract a wider audience and it will be more marketable.

Age and Race

Our soap opera will be aimed mainly at the younger generation ranging from the ages of 16-30, like those who watch programmes such as, Eastenders and Hollyoaks. We have decided this because our soap will include young characters fluctuating from  the ages 16-35 and therefore a younger audience will be more likely to relate to their life and their character. Also, from previous audience research that we carried out, we discovered that the age range of people who watched the soaps such as Hollyoaks ranged from 16-25. We are also, aiming our soap to viewers of any race and ethnicity.

Interests

We would expect our audience to be interested in finding out what it is like to live the high life. Also, such things as shopping, socialising, gossip, going to the gym, watching TV and reading magazines. These will be some of the things which the characters in our soap will be interested in as well so, they will be able to relate to each other and these are the types of things that people from our age range would like to do.

Uses and Gratifications

Our Soap will use the Hypodermic needle theory and just feed the audience the information. We want our soap to be easy to watch. Also, viewers tend to watch soap operas after they have had a long hard day at work and we want our audience to be able to relax and unwind, while watching it but still have an enjoyable experience.

Initial Soap Opera Ideas

As a group we came together and discussed our first initial ideas of what we would like to make our new soap about. We have presented this in a mind map and have included such things as possible characters and themes.

Initial ideas on Prezi

Soap Opera Brief

We are creating a trailer for a new soap opera and also a poster and listings magazine that would be used to promote our new soap.

The initial idea for our soap is to be a glamorous, high class soap as we feel this is a gap in the soap opera market. We got inspiration for this idea from programmes such as Hollyoaks, The Hills and Footballers Wives. These programmes have all inspired us in different ways, Hollyoaks as they are young, The Hills because of their lifestyle and relationships and Footballers Wives because of the money and classy characters but they still include dramatic story lines that can be included in a soap.

In the first few episodes we would like to introduce the characters and their lives, show the area and significant locations. We would also include story lines such as a hint of an affair, family troubles and a drug scandal. We want to show the audience that it isn't always happy in paradise and that money can't buy you happiness.

The purpose of the soap opera trailer is firstly to promote our new soap and entice possible audiences. We want to show the viewers what they are likely to expect to see in the soap and give a brief insight into the characters. The purpose of the soap opera poster is to promote our soap and inform people about it. It will help us to show our soap to the biggest and widest  possible market as not everyone may see it. The purpose of the listing magazine cover is to advertise our new soap. It will show the target audience what else they can expect to see on the market and that a new and exciting soap is coming onto their TV screens. We will be able to show further story lines and show the look of the look of the soap. All these products will link together to advertise the show they will also follow the same sort of format including fonts and include the main characters and slogans.

We would like our advertisement to make the audience intrigued about what might happen in this soap and what they may expect to see. In the trailer we would like to use a small cliffhanger to make them want to query what is going to happen. We want to give enough information to the audience about the new soap but also, leave them questioning and wanting to find out more.

All three products will use a variety of different technologies. The trailer will use a video camera to film and then it will be edited on a Mac computer using a special film programme. The poster will use a camera, be edited on a computer and a high gloss printer to produce the product. Finally the magazine will use a camera for the photographed images and an editing programme to pull it all together.

Location Moodboard

Here is a mood board about the different types of locations that we may want to include in our soap opera. We have included such places as houses, clubs, restaurants, gardens, boutiques and household rooms. We have gone for the glamorous feel to our soap so we have chosen images to represent this. We have been looking at larger houses to represent the wealth and the glamorous interiors to go with it. In many soaps they include a pub as a main place to socialise however, as we want to add a bit of glamour into our soap we would like to include a nice and elegant bar. Also, we would like to include lavish gardens with pools, Jacuzzis, padded sun loungers to really give a sophisticated look. Other locations such as boutiques and clubs we would also like to include as other places to set dramatic scenes.

Glamor Moodboard

For our soap opera trailer our group have discussed different ideas for what we could make our soap like and the kind of soap it would be and whether it would be like any other existing soaps. We wanted to create something glamorous as we thought that there is a gap in the market for a glamorous weekday soap that also shows the lives of these people and the drama involved.We will have to think about everything including locations, props, costumes etc when it comes to making it glamorous. We want to include things that are going to make these characters seem like people who are of a high status and make the area they live in to be a high class environment.  We want to put across that even though these people are perfect on the outside their lives are not all as they seem.


Mood Board

Character Moodboard

Here I have done 2 character mood boards, the first one shows the sort of characters we want to include in our soap opera, these include:
Sugar Daddy, Young Glamorous Couple, Bad Boy, Druggies, Businessman, Airhead, Comedy Child, Homosexual boys and girls and a dreamboat boy.
The second one shows celebrities that represent the characters we want to use in our soap.

Character moodboard


Celeb Character Moodboad

Conventions Found In Trailers Compared To Full Episodes

Soap Opera Trailers
Snippets of different shots.
Variety of different shots -  mid shot, two shot, close up etc...
Cliffhanger
One main character
Few characters of Props Theory
Showed any time
One main storyline
Low key lighting 
Ends with information about the soap (where to watch it, time etc..)
Logo shown throughout or makes an appearance
Music Juxtaposes trailer (EastEnders christmas one etc..)
First or Second of Todorovs Equilibrium theory




Logo shown throughout trailer




One Main Character

Snippets of Different Shots

Ends With Information About The Soap



 Full Soap Opera Episode
Starts with signature music 
All steps of Todorovs Equilibrium theory sometimes used over 1-3 days
All scenes flow into each other
One or two main characters used
Played at a certain time on a certain day - scheduled.
On going - doesn't have an ending
One main storyline with lots of minor ones going on at same time.
Same length of time usually 30 minutes or an hour.



Starts With Signiture Music

Same length of time usually 30 minutes or an hour

Played at a certain time on a certain day - scheduled

On going - doesn't have an ending There is a big difference between a full soap opera episode and a soap opera trailer, mostly being because their is a time limit. If a trailer was to be the same length as a full episode most of the conventions would be the same apart from a trailer having snippets and always ending on a cliffhanger. A trailers uses its conventions to entice its audience into watching the soap regularly but the full episode is ongoing everyday and drags the story lines of the trailer out over a period of time.

Soap Opera Trailers

When comparing our results from the individual soap opera trailer task we realised that for most of the findings they were quite similar. A lot of the trailers were shown either during the adverts of that soap or either before or after. The time the trailers were shown usually depended on the contents of that trailer. But most of the ones we watched were audience friendly and could have been shown at any time of the day.

Soap Trailers

After comparing results and creating a chart we realised which soaps appeared at what time the most and the most popular times for a trailer to be advertised. The most common time was around 7pm-7:30. We believe this to be because these are the times most of the soaps are on or are on its advert break. Advertising a trailer at a similar time to when the soap itself on creates interest to the audiences and gives them a chance to see what plots are developing. We found that more trailers were shown during the evening rather than early in the morning. Sometimes this could come down to the contents of the trailer and whether they are audience friendly to show at a certain time. We want our trailer to be audience friendly so it can be shown all throughout the day to give it more of a chance to be seen by a wider variety of audiences that would not perhaps usually watch the soap.

Soap Opera Trailers Target Audience Questionnaire and Results

Here we have created a questionnaire to ask people about Soap Opera Trailers. By doing this we are able to gather the information we need to know to make a good quality trailer and one that is realistic like the trailers out there today.

Soap opera trailer on Prezi

This information we have collected from the questionaire will help us to broaden our knowledge of soap operas and what are peoples favourite parts in soap operas. For example we asked the question what do you look for in a trailer? our audience said they expected a really big storyline which is eye catching but for it to not give too much away, so we know to make our storyline interesting and unique and to add suspense so we do not give away what is going to happen. Another question we asked was What time do you expect to see a trailer? The answers we recieved back was Prime time and before and after a soap, therefore we know to air our soap trailer between 7 - 9 so we know it will definately be seen. Another question asked was What would you expect the trailer to be about? our answers showed us the audience wants new characters or a traielr to show a big event, they said a good example of this was at christmas time. We have decided to add lots of different characters so the audience have loads of new people to take interest in we want to give each character a big storyline. What is a good trailer you've seen and why? is the fourth question we asked, the tram crash was the most popular trailer giving to us by our audience, they said they liked the happiness contrasted to the sadness and the amount of suspense in the trailer was key. We want to try and recreate this in our trailer by adding plenty of suspense and show the characters happy on the outside with a big secret so they are sad on the inside, this shows the contrast in our trailer aswell. The final question we asked was What Information would you expect to get from a trailer? our audience said they wanted a brief insight to the storyline but also to know what channel it is going to appear on and the time and date. This is a must have for our soap opera trailer as we want to stick to the key conventions and they are the key conventions.

Soap Opera Target Audiences and Results

We asked a selection of people to complete our questionnaire about Soap Operas, this was to help us discover the demographic groups Soap Operas appeal to. Here is a copy of the questionnaire we used.

Soap Opera Questionnaire

Soap Opera Trailer Target Audience Results Analysis
After doing this it now tells us what demographic groups Soap Operas appeal to so when we come to aiming our soap at a target audience we will know more about what type of demographic group we will need because of this questionnaire. We can look at our results and see what target audience we want to aim our soap at. The answers from this questionnaire will reflect on the decisions we make further on during our film because we now have our target audiences opinions, we can't say what we want to do is the right decision because we need to be influenced by our target audience as they are the ones who will be watching our film.