OCR G324ADVANCED PRODUCTION

Jamie ClarkeCandidate Number: 4167Aquinas College: 33435

Planning

Run continuously, characters storylines overlap each other

Soap Opera forms and

conventions

Different ages, sexualities and genders to appeal to a wider audience

Lots of close ups to show emotions of characters

Soaps tend to be aimed at female audiences, affecting scheduling and storylines

Use camera as fourth wall (interior shots) to maintain realism, audience feel that they are there

Point of view shots (exterior shots) to maintain realism, audience feel that they are there

Lots of characters allowing parallel narratives and for characters storylines to come together, keeping audience interest

I uploaded all my planning and my final products to my blog allowing people who saw them to leave comments. This meant that all my work was in one place and so to was any audience feedback

http://jamieclarkea2mediacourseworkbl.blogspot.com/

Characters

There are eight characters in my Soap:

Max (Matt)Sophie (Ellen)

Clare (Laura)

James (Dean)

Tyson (Alex)

Craig (Jamie)Charlotte (Frankie)

Jack (Ash)

Story Lines

The trailer can be split up into three different storylines, which all link together through Max’s car crash:

Jack is Charlottes boyfriend but one day goes round to her house to find her cheating on him with Craig. In the trailer we only get to see Jack walking in on Charlotte and Craig saying goodbye, so the audience will want to watch the programme to see the full story.

James tries to con drug dealer Tyson by running off without paying for the drugs but is caught by Tyson before he can get away.

At the start of the trailer, Sophie tell Max (her boyfriend) that she is pregnant. As the trailer goes on we see the aftermath of car crash involving the death of Max, leaving Sophie with the prospect of being a single Mother.

As well as these three man storylines, from the trailer we can see that some of the characters have plotted together to kill Max. We see a man being paid and then tampering with Max’s car, the trailer ends with an unknown character receiving a text saying ‘It’s done’. This storyline is the one that links all characters together.

Q1. In what ways does your product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of existing media products. The soundtrack chosen goes well with the storyline as it helps make the

audience feel the emotion of the soap. Rather than being an upbeat song it is quite sad and starts off with a slow tempo but gets faster as the trailer goes on and the story unfolds. Also, I feel the lyrics link well with the story," You rip it from my hands” links with the death of Ellen's (Sophie's) boyfriend, Matt (Max); also Dean (James) stealing the drugs.

The mixture of fast and slow paced editing conveys the mixture of emotions from each character. One character has the excitement of having a baby but then is devastated by the death of her boyfriend. This is shown as during the phone call, the images of the car crash go in to slow motion and the editing is slowed down as if Ellen's (Sophie's) life is gradually slowing to a stop . However, in the scenes with Frankie (Charlotte), Ash (Jack) and Jamie (Craig) the editing becomes more fast paced to make the audience realise what is happening and that it is building up to something big.

The combination of slow motion shots and the non-diegetic voice over of the police telephone call shows that we are showing a flashback and something tragic has happened.

The fake blood enforces the fact that it is a soap and it has some hard hitting story lines.

Similar convention to Hollyoaks. Close up and emphasis of the blood.

For the drug deal scene we did it down an alley way to make it look more shifty, and dressed Alex (Tyson) all in black to make him look a bit dodgy as well. We used a long shot to show the full scene with both characters and the two walls to show them in the confined space. We also shot the scene a bit behind the wall as if we are spying on what is happening.

For the sequence where Frankie () is cheating on Ash () we shot Ash between Frankie and Jamie to show the fact that there are three people stuck in this complicated relationship and that maybe Ash is stood in the way of Frankie and Jamie.

In this shot you don't actually see the characters face to enforce the secret and creating an enigma. This makes it necessary for the audience to watch the programme to find out what happens.

We made sure that the two people in the relationship were from a same sub-culture to make it more realistic, rather than creating a relationship that hard to believe existed.

We shot this scene outside as it seems normal in actual Soap Operas for couples to be shot talking outside.