1. How does your product use, develop
and challenge the conventions of real
media texts?

2. Can have a range of
10-15 main characters
UK soaps are more
who have a big range
realistic than USA or
of gender, sexuality,
Spanish soaps.
class and races to
appeal to the audience
as much as possible.
In Coronation Street, a grotty pub
is one of the main locations used Tend to be aimed at
to create a realistic but
exaggerated lower class feel to female audience.
the characters.
Soaps weave into our Catharsis- the viewer
culture. can relate to the
drama in the tv drama.

3. A narrative perspective
shows who’s point of
Traditional soap operas view the story is shown
run continuously where from.
as American soaps are
often shown in series.
One main story over
the whole soap and
many different sub
stories which get
sorted out in episodes.
American characters
British characters American and Spanish soaps are more
unrealistic as the characters are always
made to look good. Whereas British soap
characters wear minimal make up to
create more realism.

5. The first shot of the
Hollyoaks trailer uses an
establishing shot to
show the characters in
an expected place they I challenged this
would meet up. The convention by using a
mise-en-scene of the mid shot of Soph and JP
chairs and plastic cups on a sofa in a living
shows they are at a room. Because of the
place like ‘Starbucks’ or mise-en-scene of the
‘Costa Coffee’ so shows sofa and the plain white
they are friends on a wall, the audience can
casual catch up. establish where the
characters are (in a
living room
environment) but it
keeps the main focus on
the emotion on Sophie’s
face without starting off
with a close up camera
shot.

6. In this shot on the
character trailer the
character walks into Here, Mon walks into
the camera mid shot the camera two shot.
rather than the camera She is also framed by
follow him which I found either side of the alley
to be a good technique way and more
that we then went on attention is drawn on
and used in our trailer. her than Grimmers.
Because of the
establishing long shot,
The red on the brick
the audience know
wall contrasts with the
because of the dark
green making it stand
lighting, Mon may be
out. We did this so
walking into a
when the audience saw
dangerous situation.
the colour, they’d
subconsciously think
about danger. Empty alleyway gives a
sense of depth to the
scene.
However, we mimicked
the Hollyoaks shot Grimmer’s
using a long shot when costume is all
Shad walks into her black which
kitchen which is connotes he has a
established by the dark side to him
dining table and the and because of the
chairs to create an situation shown by
impact of her the shot, it shows
entrance. he is meeting Mon.

7. Here is an over the
shoulder mid close up
shot of the character to
show his emotions in the
Hollyoaks trailer. It
includes the other
characters head and a
plain background to
make sure all attention
is on the character’s
facial expression.
We also used an over
the shoulder shot but
only showed part of
The plain brick Grimmer’s face to
background wall keeps establish the position of
all the audiences’ focus the characters.
on Mon’s emotions
displayed by her face in We made Mon’s
this midshot. character stand far back
but still in a mid shot
position but from a
high angle to show
Mon’s vulnerability.

8. In SKINS this scene really appealed to
me where ‘Cook’ is speaking to ‘Effy’.
It’s location is in a dark alleyway
which we imitated when we used
dangerous situation.
This show a two shot mid shot of
both the characters and the dark
clothing and lighting shows they are
doing something wrong which in the
actual scene is shown by the drugs
the character ‘Cook’ is smoking.
In our trailer we used the same
position of the characters in a mid Grimmer’s costume is made up of all
long shot. The two characters are black to connote evil as he threatens
framed by the mise-en-scene of the Mon. Mon’s costume is black but a
brick wall and the lampost/fences white top reflects her innocence and
creating the feel that Mon can’t get her vulnerability to the audience
away. making them feel sympathy towards
her.
The location of the shot is in an
alleyway in Cheadle that’s very quiet.
As Grimmers is there before Mon, it
shows he’s not a good person choosing
an alleyway to meet someone and the
audience know they wouldn’t meet
someone there. It shows that
Grimmers is of a bad background.

9. We used a parallel
We used a long shot
narrative to show what
establishing shot to
was happening with both
show where Hal was
the characters at the
when Shad was going to
same time by starting
contact her. The
off with Shad ringing Hal
audience would
shown my a close up of
automatically know
her phone. We used this
from the shot after in
as all the audience
the parallel narrative
would know Shad is
that it’s Hal that Shad is
trying to contact
contacting because of
someone.
the note she left.
We then used an extreme
We used a close up shot of close up to show a point of
Shad to show the emotion view shot of Hal looking at
on her face. We kept her her phone. Because it’s a
eye level to the middle continuous edit of two
third of the screen so the character’s narratives, the
audience can connect with audience would already know
her emotions as they know this was Hal’s phone because
she is unsettled. of the mise en scene of the
train tracks that were shown
in the long shot establishing
I made the sound of the shot. This also creates a
non-diegetic music match realism as train stations are
the edits to make it seem easily accessable for
like there were thought everyone so it relates to our
beats. I also removed the target audiences’ travelling.
diegetic sound to make the
scene seem more dramatic
to the guitar solo.

10. Darker shadow on Grimmers’
face in this close up shot shows
he’s a bad character and
connotes he has something to
hide from the viewers. All soaps
have to have a bad person to
create drama so I think
Grimmers’ character would live
up to audience expectations and
by watching the trailer the
audience will be attracted to
this.
The light directly hits Mon’s face
connoting her innocence and
shows how afraid she is by her
facial expression in this mid
close up shot. The audience will
subconsciously pick up on this
and know that Grimmers is the
‘bad guy’

11. This is a song I had came across a while ago and I
thought it would fit my trailer straight away
when filming. It talks about having someone who
means something to you and my show plays on
best friends and relationships creating meaning
to the story. It’s a slow and fast paced song so
connotes the rollercoaster of emotions that are
in my tv drama.
The link to the official video of this song on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-rsQ2e_Gls&ob=av2e

12. Skins trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=mH0O5AuYC30
This trailer also uses short snappy
edits to the beat of the song as it
starts off fast then slows down to
start playing on the story lines. It
establishes the characters lifestyle
first which then turns into drama as
the music changes to match the
mood of the characters.

13. I chose short snappy clips as it’s one of the typical
conventions of a soap trailer and made them
match the beats of the music. I started off by using
0-1 secs
establishing mid shots and long shots of
characters to introduce them and show their full
costumes and the location they were in to show
their class (such as kitchen shows someone’s
housing environment and dark, grotty alleyways
show a bad background). I also used fade to black
edits between different story lines to make it
1-3 secs
clear to the audience when a different story line is
playing.
As my trailer shows the basic dramas,
3-4 secs
when the non diegetic sound is changed
to a faster pace I took advantage of that
and used edits to match the symbol
crashes on the drums and end of bars of
guitar solos to show the storylines
without diegetic sound creating
enigma for the audience to want to
5 secs
know why Hal doesn’t answer Shad’s
phonecall and why Soph and JP fall out.