Soap Opera Whole Episode Analysis

In groups we analysed whole episodes of different soap operas in order to catalogue the conventions that are actually being used in contemporary soap opera episodes such as the types of character and the storylines used to check for a pattern beween the different soap operas exhibited by different television channels such as Channel 5, BBC1, Channel 4 and ITV1, later in groups we will compare each of our findings in order to aid us in our knowledge of contemporary soap operas and their conventions.

I created my research on BBC1's extremely popular soap opera Eastenders and noted down on the table different conventions and relevant information for one half hour episode.

Number of Characters and Types	Settings	Number of Scenes	Storylines Evident within Episode
19 main characters excluding extras without speaking roles Conventional Characters: ·         Married couple ·         Bad father figure w/ wronged daughters. ·         Villain ·         Home wrecker	·         The Square ·         Interiors of 5 different homes were used including kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms ·         The interior of the pub Queen Victoria ·         Café interior ·         Exterior of a children’s park.	In total there were 24 different scenes which portrayed the chosen 19 main characters within this episode.	The different storylines were as follows: ·         A father trying to rebuild a broken relationship between himself and two of his daughters ·         Two storylines revolving around broken families due to cheating husband and mistreatment of a husband. ·         A love triangle was featured ·         An engagement between two younger characters which was unwelcome to the parents. ·         A cancer scare for a character with a lot to lose.

I feel that carrying out this research will aid me and my group when we move to the production section of our product and create our trailer and also our poster and magazine front cover as the conventional storyline will be used as well a the settings for us to create a successful and conventional soap opera.