Media Soap Opera

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Target Audience Research

As a group we have created a Soap Opera called "Winchmore Hill" and we had to make sure that our soap opera trailer was suitable for our target audience. From previous research for target audience, in Eastenders we have noticed that it has a wide range of audience as they have characters from all ages and story lines which teenagers and adults can relate to. Therefore, as a group we realized it is a challenge to have a smaller range of target audience.

Firstly, our characters are between the age of 16-21 and our target audience would be the same age range as we know they will be able to feel the realism of the soap and more likely to be able to relate multiple narrative strands. Furthermore, we were aware of teenagers hobbies and everyday life, therefore it was simple to create conventions such as dramatic irony, cliffhanger and gossip.Gossip has been well known when watching a soap because of the unstoppable drama between characters. Representation played a big part because characters were represented with stereotypes which is a big part of our everyday challenge. As a group, we have tried to show our point of view on these and how they can be represented in our modern world. Careful consideration has to be taken into account when choosing the audience our soap will appeal to. We have considered many things including age, ethnicity, gender, working class before deciding. Also, to ensure we have chosen the correct target audience I have carried out a question to see if teenagers and young adults find our idea appealing or horrible. I have asked questions such as "How many Soap Operas do you watch per week?", "What are your hobbies?"

In conclusion, the carried out questionnaire had a great result because we were able to get to know our future target audience and ensure they receive the soap they won't get tired of. Also, our target audience were mainly University students and as part of being a student; they are able to see dram on a daily basis.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire: Winchmore Hill

1) How old are you?

2) Do you study or work?

3) Do you watch Soap Operas? If no, why?

4) If yes, how often do you watch Soap Operas?

5) What is your favorite Soap Opera?

6) What Soap Opera do you feel you connect most? and Why?

7) Are you a long or short term Soap viewer?

8) If a new Soap Opera was to be shown twice a week, would you be interested?

9) If yes, when would you prefer it to be shown?

10) If yes, would you prefer 7pm or 8pm?

Narrative Strand Script

A2 SOAP OPERA

LANA IS GOING TO VISIT HER BOYFRIEND WITH HER COUSIN CALLED ALEX.

SCENE 1/3: MARTIN'S HOUSE. DAY LIGHT. INT.

Alex: I've tried to call Martin but he wasn't answering his phone.

Lana: Oh they must be at home.

Alex: Lana, go check in the kitchen and I will go upstairs.

Lana: OK, I will do.

_________________________________

LANA WALKS IN ON HER BOYFRIEND (MARTIN) AND HE'S CAUGHT HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH HIS BEST FRIEND.

SCENE 2/3: KITCHEN/MARTIN'S HOUSE. DAY LIGHT. INT.

MARTIN: Stop Daniel.

DANIEL: What is wrong? You know, I love you.

MARTIN: I love you too, but Lana won't stop asking if everything is OK?

DANIEL: When are you going to tell her?

MARTIN: I don't know.

LANA: What is going on here? Why didn't you answer my calls? (shouting)

MARTIN: Nothing. Lana, it's nothing.

DANIEL: Tell her the truth.

LANA: Tell me what? (shouting)

MARTIN & DANIEL: We're in love.

LANA: You are not serious. Are you leaving me for him?

ALEX: What is going on?

MARTIN: She knows the truth.

LANA: What? You knew about these two?

ALEX: Yes Lana, but it wasn't my place to say.

LANA: I hate you all.

Location Recce

1)Rosa's house:

This is our first main location when Roma finds herself in trouble and goes to visit her best friend called Rose. Soaps have many indoor scenes which reinforces realism as the audience can see the characters have their own home too. Filming a conversation between the two teenager gave me the chance to use shot-reverse shot to build up tension and anxiety for our viewers.

Martin is one of our main characters and his house is set out to be one of the important locations where all the drama and actions takes place. Our target audience will introduced to those stairs in the trailer.

This is one of our main location as the truth behind the drama is revealed in Martin's kitchen. Therefore, it plays an important part as the audience will notice how interesting our soap becomes once all the characters reach the kitchen. Also, we have used artificial lights to make our scene seem as if it was filmed in the day light. Therefore, the light is stronger when the audience looks at their facial expressions. Kitchens are often seen in soaps as it keeps the drama realistic with a casual location. Furthermore, the audience usually will see scenes of characters having breakfast or making lunch/dinner in soaps.

Monday, 5 May 2014

Explanation of the editing process

After filming we had to edit. We edited using iMovie which is a program on the Apple Macs. We used some of the tools that the iMovie provides. We were able to select the videos that we would use in our film and then to drag them. We were able to select certain parts of a video and cut the part that we didn't need. iMovie also allowed us to add certain effects such a black background with text on it. We were able to increase the volume of the dialogue if the characters weren't loud enough.

iMovie clip trimmer tool, this tool allows you to control the beginning and the end of the clip.The iMovie precision tool which allows you to work with transitioning. It will allow you to work with two or more clips. It will also allow you to work with transition which means when two clips meet. With this tool you could extend an audio track and you can make a longer or shorter transition period. We used this tool when we added the black background with the text, we also made sure that the audience saw the text so that they see what it says on it, in our trailer the text had information on when the soap opera will be shown on TV and on what channel so we made the transition period longer than the usual to get the point across when the soap will be shown.

The crop tool allows you to cut out a certain part of the picture so it helps the audience to focus on one particular thing. As we filmed a soap opera trailer it was important that we made sure that the audience knew what to focus on the characters since it’s a brand new soap and the audience don’t know the characters.

The volume tool allows you to control the volume of certain parts of a clip, for example if a character is too load or isn't loud enough you could change that with the volume tool. In our production we had to use this tool because the volume of one of our clips was low and it was out of contrast from the other clips therefore we had to use the volume tool to make it balanced so that the trailer sounded in tune.

My contribution to the editing process, was with the precision tool, I had to add scenes together and I had to make sure that the transitioning looked realistic and as if it was a real soap opera.