Plan for Magazine

In our group we decided to individually complete draft Magazine front pages, paying steady attention to the conventions we had researched when analysing existing magazine front covers and also completing other research on existing TV listings magazines, this is one of my draft magazines, I have not rendered it but am aware of the importance of eye-catching colours, i have taken all the conventions on board when creating this draft such as minimal unused space where the background is peeking through, also the left third and all the other key features were taken into account, the taglines were snappy, the pictures were dramatic as were the stories they were revealing, the main focus was originated towards the middle of my magazine featuring a very large story focusing on only two of the many characters within the soap opera, a bar code is also included for continuity and for a more professional look.

Initial notes on a soap opera magazine

As for our project as well as a trailer and a poster for our soap opera we are creating a soap opera listings magazine, my initial thoughts on a soap opera magazines conventions, convantions we will have to follow when creating ours are as follows.

An example of a soap opera magazine

Eye catching - The magazines I have looked at are all very similar aesthetically, they contain very eye catching colours and many different colours for the writing, the background of the writing and the general scheme of the magazine.

Photos - The photos of characters are always very large and facing outwards towards the reader, the main story seems to involve at least two characters and they usually represented with a large photo, as well as the less important stories still have a large photo of the soap opera characters involved relative to the size of the text and the box they are in.

Lack of Blank Space - There is always a lack of blank space, the entire surface area is usually covered be it with photos of characters, the barcode, large block capitalised writing or information about the magazine itself.

These three initial ideas of the certain conventions within a soap opera magazine will aid me and my group once we decide to create our magazine product and when researching further into this type of product as a whole.

Analysis of existing student trailers.

Mise-en-Scene.

The trailer starts off using a lot of the colour green in trees, fence panels and moss within the shot, this can be used as well as the obvious body language and text to connote envy and deceit, the costume used in this scene seems to be primarily black connoting evil, lies and death, and the overall location of an alleyway connotes crime and anti-social behavioral that you would associate with younger adults.

We next move on the a kitchen setting, the woman included within the shot in the stereotypical gender associated with this location, the colours of white and pale green and yellow connote a calm, and peaceful setting as well as the white being used to connote innocence and purity, although the woman's red jumper may connote incoming danger or rage,

the next scene is separated by some very powerful transitions which include key words contrasting with black and white, which may connote that in black and white this is what's happening although the trailer contains scenes which start the explain how it is not simply black and white, the next scene is an argument between two men, one is in a white shirt whilst the other is wearing black once again, this may connote that the man wearing white is good and the man in black is evil, which can be concreted by the conversation taking place. 

the final scene is in a subway, connoting already a dark dirty location and situation also uses blood to connote death before it rounds off into an old fashioned whodunit, with two males in white, smart dress and a woman shooting them, this break in stereotype may have been used to shock the audiences and raises questions that need to be answered.

Sound

Interestingly there is a lack non-diegetic sound within the trailer with is not conventional within soap opera trailers, it is just filled with diegetic background sound such as birds singing and children playing this helps ad the the verisimilitude of this soap, causing the audience to feel similarities to the characters, I believe that due to the overpowering sound and repetition for each character the foley effect is used for the gunshot at the end, which is very powerful to the audience.

Narrative

Narrative is strongly feature within this trailer, there are many different storylines within the trailer about many different subjects, this is conventional to soap operas as drama is shown between relationships with characters, although a voice over is not included at the end of the trailer which breaks stereotype as they usually are included. 

Camera Movements
A wide variety of camera movements and angles are used within this trailer, including:

• Long shot
• Two shot
• Point of View
• Over the shoulder
• Close up
• Mid shot
• Pan
• Tilt
• Zoom

These are all conventional camera movements that are used within soap opera trailers, we will be sure to include a variety of camera movements also when creating our product. 

I will be sure to use the information I have gained here when creating our product, analysing these past student created soap opera trailers will help me to know exactly what to include from these and how to elaborate in order to receive the best marks when creating our soap opera trailer. 

Specific Knowledge of Soap Operas

Detailed Knowledge of Soaps


I have created a mind map with more specific knowledge of soap operas before I research deeply into the production, exhibition advertisements of a soap opera in order to aid my course, when research is composed I will make sure I refer to this specific knowledge of soap operas from before in order to see how much knowledge I had before and how it had improved.

Soap Opera Trailer Analysis: Eastenders

Trailer: Hurricane Sharon Trailer

Time: Summer (July- August) 2012

Program: Eastenders

Channel: BBC1

Titles shown: The titles were shown at the end of the trailer through the typical BBC1 red title screen with white writing, they do not give a specific time of when the storyline will come to surface but they do say that is is "Coming Soon" which may be put in order for the audience to watch the show for every episode so that they do not miss it, also they have included a hashtag, in order to be used on the popular social networking sight Twitter, this may be to attract a younger audience by using cross media convergance within their trailers, much like Hollyoaks.

Mise en Scene ·        Classic locations- Albert Square, Market, Queen Vic ·        Dark coloured props and clothing- Mitchells, Billy and Phil ·        Wedding Dress- connoting purity? - Juxtaposition of varying themes- or an underlying message? ·        Low key lighting- natural- connoting disequilibrium- Toderov’s theory of equilibrium ·        Special effects of storm- breaks stereotype of soap operas, special effects not normally used.

Narrative ·        Disequilibrium shown- to attract and raise questions for the audience. ·        Bringing in old character- to boost ratings- conventional narrative. ·        Sharon shown perhaps as villain (Hurricane) surrounded by its victims. (Propp’s Theory of Narrative

Sound ·        Non-diegetic score ·        Relevant to hurricanes ·        Iconic, catchy non-diegetic sound throughout ·        Rain squeaking sign, footsteps and car. ·        0:35 to END - narration (pun, short snappy intro, time (soon), Channel (BBC1)

Camera Angle ·        Very short shots ·        Variation of establishing shots (Square, Queen Vic +….) ·        Stereotypical - lots of close ups to show emotion and reaction. ·        Lots of fast zooming/panning/tilting – connoting action!

This Analysis was completed on this trailer of Eastenders from Summer 2012:



This Analysis and research will be used in order to complete our own soap opera trailer.

History of The Soap

Why are Soap Operas called soap operas?

Soap operas began in 1930s America and were extremely popular, the regional radio stations which appeared in this time all over the U.S.A relied on advertising for their revenue, and with a choice of either using adverts or sponsoring an entire programme, like Harvey's furniture store sponsor coronation street.

The main audience for these soap operas were housewives and obviously they were an ideal audience for companies supplying household goods such as soap, detergent and other cleaning products and these companies needed to utilise these radio stations in order to attract a large audience of this type who would buy their products. The stations came up with the domestic drama serials that focused on the home and family situations thought ideal for entertaining these women at home, these melodramatic and romantic stories were an immediate success and someone coined the phrase 'Soap-Opera' to describe such a serial.

'Soap' because of the type of companies they were sponsered by and 'Opera' as they were very dramatic much like an actual opera.

 The Archers

The Archers has been running nationally since 1951, it is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and is still going strong and attracting an audience of over 5,000,000 listeners making it the longest running soap opera.

Conventions

 Conventions are extremely important with the success and creation of soap operas, some conventions include:

• They are set in a particular place
• Focus on family life and personal relationships
• Based on a large group of characters living in a particular place who's storylines often overlap
• Romance, love and secret relationship are in most storylines.
• Most soaps focus on working-class communities.
• Everyday situations and relationships are shown in order to attract an audience through uses and gratifications 
• Each episode contains multi stranded narratives 
• Soap operas are usually sponsered by companies - For example Canons, Hollyoaks and Harvey's furniture store for Coronation Street
• not unlikely narratives ( but unlikely for them all to happen to the same people in the same village / street)
• Creates realism within the episodes which attracts audiences ( placement of clocks, diegetic sound, ect)

References:

• http://www.slideshare.net/bobusmaximus/3-history-of-soap-operas (Dawn Fletcher 2006) (last accessed by my on 11/09/2012)
• http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/s3/coronation-street/news/a63798/harveys-announced-as-new-corrie-sponsor.html (Kris Green 2007) (last accessed by my on 11/09/2012)
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/08/archrs_an_everyday_story_of_we.shtml

Independant Research: Hollyoaks

Hollyoaks is a long running British soap opera, first broadcast in October 1995, it is based in the fictional suburb of Hollyoaks in Chester, and contains around 50 characters centred around Hollyoaks Community College, by the turn of the millennium it had a substantial fan base and was seen as a vibrant, modern and young person's soap.

Hollyoaks airs at 6.30 – 7.00 on channel 4 Monday to Friday every week and is aimed at a younger audience who are possibly within demographic group E, it caters extremely well for this audience through it’s representations of gender, age and sexuality among other things, they are predominantly stereotypical and commit verisimilitude towards the audiences targeted, causing them to engage with the soap by empathising with the characters and drawing similarities to their life, making it seem more real than staged.

Representation is used strongly within this show in order to attract an audience, I noticed through watching episodes how representation is used.

Age – Age is represented towards our target audience with a large portion of the characters portrayed being extremely youthful, usually either students or newly employed young adults, within demographic groups of E and D

Sexuality – There is strong connotations of sexuality, with transgender, homosexuality and heterosexuality represented regularly and has a help and support hotline and website for people within these categories suffering from discrimination or social problems, sexuality is represented through mostly stereotypes (colours, props, speech) and sexual relationships.

Theresa McQueen (Jorgie Porter)



Mercedes Fisher (Jennifer Metcalfe)



Gender – the relationships between male and female is stereotypically represented by many of the characters, although some breaks in stereotype is also shown, male gaze theory from Laura Mulvey is given through female characters in the soap such as: Mercedes Fisher, Theresa McQueen, Amy Barnes, Nancy Osborne and Carmel Valentine, the power balance in a heterosexual relationship also being a regular focus within the soap.

Refrences: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112004/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl 

Knowledge of Soaps

To start off with a good understanding of Soap Operas we created mindmaps before we did any research, these mind maps contained basic knowledge we already knew about soap operas such as:

• Typical Storylines for Soap Operas.
• The channels they were broadcasted on.
• Some characters within certain Soap Operas. 
• And a few examples of British Soap Operas.  

Knowledge of Soaps


We will use this information when creating our soap as it will aid us into deeper research soap operas, this baseline knowledge give an outline of which we can start from when researching and creating our final soap opera trailer.