Trailer Auditions Film

We recorded our auditions so we could choose what actors we would use in our trailer.


Below are the videos of our auditions:


Character: Jake





Character: Sam






Will Howlett & Alex Cockburn

Final Locations

As a group we have have decided on a different set of locations that would best fit our piece. We need to take different things into consideration such as availability, timings that we would need to film and what settings would be best to achieve the shot that we need. As a group we sat down and worked out what places would suite our piece the best.

We have decided on:

Writtle College:

• This is due to having contacts inside the college. This enabled us to gain letters of approval of filming quicker then we would with any other college. The college also fits with the criteria as it has a large range of different types of buildings ranging from modern to farm houses. This will help us to choose our perfect building to film.

Alex Cockburn's Bedroom:

• We have chosen this setting due to the large amount of space available. This would allow us to achieve the type of shots that we need. This bedroom also gives of the atmosphere that we want as the room is very separate from the rest of the house so we can show how out of sync this character is.

Chelmer Valley High School:

• We have decided to use an office in our school such as the sixth form office. This is because on the walls it has lots of information on universities which would set the scene well. We will also use Chelmer for another shot. This shot will be in a study area, which would give a large contrast to what is going inside it.

Chelmsford Town:

• We want to use a large variety of outside shots as our piece is predominantly inside. This will allow a different angle to the shots which give the feeling that this behaviour is behind closed doors. The use of out door shots in both day and night time will allow us to show that the stereotypical behaviour of teenagers is a wide spread thing and is not being hidden any more.

Will Howlett

Photographic Storyboard

We have created this photographic storyboard. It contains pictures of the type of shots that we would like to achieve in our final piece. We have not included music or transitions as this storyboard has the sole purpose of showing what shots and angles we need to include in the piece and the atmosphere we would like to create.





Will Howlett

Shot list for Soap Opera trailer

We have created a shotlist so when filming we can refer to it. This way we will make sure we will not miss any shots. This will help us save time by making sure we have all the shots that we could need. This will help us to save time in the future.

shot list



Will Howlett

Location scouting

We needed to consider Locations for where we can film our Soap opera trailer. We needed to think about the mise-on scene of the location and even take lighting into consideration.

As a group we decided to try to find a H.E college which would fit in with the storyline that we have planned. We want to find a modern looking building which have large windows which would allow us to zoom into the window and allow natural lighting to be used in the interview scene.We would like to film in a local university or college, we have approached a number of these and are currently waiting for confirmation.

We have a shot of a boy in a bed waking up late, this would need to be filmed in a quite large room due to the camera angles that we need to achieve. We have a number of places to choose from for this setting. Each of the members of this group have bedrooms that would suite the emotions that we would want to portray.

We have thought about where to film our piece. This has given us the opportunity to figure out what settings we would like to find for future reference.


Will Howlett

Trouble with Filming Location

Our original location idea for filming a variety of shots of the outside of a university and zooming in and out of the windows was to use Anglia Ruskin University. However we hit a problem with this location. We sent an e-mail as shown below:


Will Location Letter[1]



However we did not get a reply so we now need to think of a new location that we can use for our university shot.


Will Howlett and Alex Cockburn

Filming Schedule

We are getting the camera on the 1st of December and we will have it until the 5th.
The first of December is a Thursday so we felt this would be a good day to film our university location so we needed to check with or actors whether this day is ok for them to film on.
This leaves us  Friday Saturday and Sunday to film the rest of our piece.
On the Friday we will film the establishing shot of Chelmsford town during the day and we also need a shot at night so we will film this on the friday night as it will be busy and give us the correct atmosphere that we need.
On the Saturday or the Sunday we will film the remaining parts of our soap opera trailer depending on which day is best suitable for our actors.
This schedule gives us alot of time to do the filming that is needed to be done and also gives us time on the Monday to see if something was not done well enough to return to the location and film it again.

Rough Plan for Trailer (Flow Chart)

Flow Chart Media

Initial Audition Information

We created a short script to give to our actors during the audition so we could see who would play the part best.
For the part of Jake the script was:
'Do you know where Lee is?'

For the part of Sam the script was:
'I haven't seen him all day? I will text him now'

We auditioned 3 people for each part so that we could pick who was the best to be in our trailer.

Soap opera trailer questionaire results graphs

Here are the graphs that I created for the results of our soap opera trailer target audience questionaire. I did this so that the results gained were easier to understand.

Graph

Soap opera trailer questionaire results analysis

Once I had recieved back the results of the questionaire I analysed the results and related them to help me when creating my soap opera trailer as for what to include and different facts the audience expect to see.

Question 1) What age are you?

For this question I obtained a large range of results from people aged 16 to the oldest person being 66. I did this so that the results I obtained were not bias and so that I could get a wider range of results from different age groups and see whether the results are similar or see how they differ.

Question 2) What do you look for in a trailer?

A large amount of results were obtained from this question which I have listed below:

Storyline - 3
Character Introduction - 2
Fast paced - 1
Setting up something that will happen (Narrative) - 4

From these results it was clear that the trailer should really show something that is going to happen to build up suspense within the trailer to lure audiences into watch it, two people also commented that the trailer should be used to introduce characters and let the audience know a little about what kind of person they are. So with these results in mind when creating our group soap opera we needed to think about what will be included in our soap opera, we need to now think about creating a narrative during the trailer and maybe introducting the characters to let the audience know a little about them. We need to consider doing this because these are what people expect to see in a soap opera trailer so we need to ensure our trailer is done well and contains content that the audience expect to see to ensure they are lured in and therefore wach the soap.

Question 3) What time would you expect to see a trailer?

5PM - 1
6PM - 2
7PM - 4
8PM - 2
9PM - 1

These results show me that the audience do not expect to see a soap opera trailer on TV before 5PM or after 9PM. This shows me that the trailers for soap operas are aimed towards all different age groups if they are shown before the 9 oclock watershed then the content in the trailer must not be too explicit. This also shows me that trailers are aimed towards demographic groupings C-E as there are not trailers on before 5PM because if there was the target audience that the trailer is aimed towards would be working. From these results I can now apply this to when my group films our soap opera trailer I can start to think about what time it would be shown so if I am going to base the times of trailers on TV from these results (which would be the best option because the people asked in this questionaire would be the target audience for soap operas) I would need to make sure that the group trailer is shown between 5PM and 9PM preferably 7PM as this was the most popular choice chosen in the questionaire.

Question 4) What kind of lighting do you expect to see?

Depends on whats happening - 10

These results were easy to analyse as everyone answered the same, they said that the lighting used in the trailer will depend on what the audience can see is happening. If there is something related to death or murder or tradedy then dark low key lighting should be used as this would create a dark eerie atmosphere which shows the narrative as a dark one whereas if there is something happy occuring in the trailer such as a wedding or a party then there should be use of high key lighting to create a happy atmosphere. When relating this to my groups trailer that we will create I need to ensure I use the correct lighting, if the narrative portrayed in our trailer is dark with storylines such as murder I will need to ensure we use dark low key lighting whereas on the other hand if something happy is portrayed in the trailer I will need to make sure we use high key lighting to create the correct atmosphere and effect on the audience that we would be aiming for.

Question 5) How long do you expect a trailer to be?

20-30 Seconds - 2
31-60 Seconds - 1
61-90 Seconds - 3
91-120 Seconds - 3
121-150 Seconds - 1

From there results it shows that a trailer is expected to be from at least 20-30 seconds and no longer than 2 and a half minuites The most popular length time of a trailer is said to be either 61-90 seconds or 91-120 seconds so I will need to take this into consideration when my group create our soap opera trailer we as a group will aim to create a trailer lasting around 90 seconds as this was the most popular time chosen on our questionaire.

Question 6) Do you expect to see alot of dialogue during the trailer?

Yes - 2
No - 8

These results are quite clear with 80% of the people asked saying that they do not expect to see alot of dialogue during a soap opera trailer. There can be a little bit maybe to let the audience know a little about the characters in the trailer but the trailer should not be based on dialogue. The main dialogue that the trailer will use is at the end with a non-diegetic voice over explaining the details of the soap eg what time it is on and what channel. So taking these results into consideration for my groups soap opera when considering dialogue for our soap opera trailer we need to try to keep it to a minimum.

Question 7) Do you expect to see alot of words in the trailer?

Yes - 3
No - 7

These results show that the majority of people do not expect to see a lot of words used in the trailer the only expected to see the titles at the end and other words kept to a minimum. The three that said that they do expect to see alot of words described a trailer as in one that questions came up written on the screen and they said that they felt these were the most effective trailers. When considering our groups soap opera trailer task we needed to think about whether we would use words in our trailer in a way like the audience answered our questionaires or whether we will not use many words at all and try to keep them to a minimum with pretty much only the titles at the end.

Question 8) Do you expect the sound in the trailer to be high pich or low pitch?

High Pitch - 0
Low pitch - 0
Depends on what is happening - 10

The results from this question were very clear with everyone answering the same, they all said that the sound all depends on what is happening in the trailer very much like the lighting. If the storyline is something such as murder the sound used will be low pitch to create a mysterious dark atmosphere whereas if the narrative is a happy one in the trailer then high pitch sound would be used to create a happy atmosphere to the audience. When thinking about sound for our groups soap opera trailer it was clear that we couldn't decide on this until we had come up with a narrative that will happen, if it is happy then high pitched sounds would be used to express the happyness across to the audience but if the narrative is dark like a murder storyline then low pithed music would have to be used to portray a dark mysterious atmosphere across to the audience.

Creating and analysing this questionaire was very helpful as it gave us a wider insight into what the audience expect to see in a soap opera trailer so now we can take this into consideration when creating our own group soap opera trailer.

Generic Conventions Found In Soap Opera's

We have created a short film to show the conventions stereotypically found in Soap Operas. This will help us decide what to include in our piece as we will know what conventions are needed so we can make sure the audience can see our piece will become a Soap Opera.









Will Howlett & Alex Cockburn

Soap opera trailers Qustionaire

I created a questionaire to ask to 10 people from different age groups and different demographic groups so that I could get a clearer understanding of what the audience expect to see in a trailer so that I could learn what to include in our groups trailer and to fully understand conventions the audience expect to see.

Below is the Questions that I asked the candidates;

1) What age are you?

2) What do you look for in a trailer?

3) What time would you expect to see a trailer?

4) What kind of lighting do you expect to see?

5) How long do you expect a trailer to be?

6) Do you expect to see alot of dialogue during the trailer?

7) Do you expect to see alot of words used in the trailer (titles) or not?

8) Do you expect the sound in the trailer to be high pitch or low pitch?

Character bios

When looking at characters we needed to decide on names and what their characteristics would be, this will help us plan our trailer and will enable us to get the characters personality across to the audience.

Lee Stone:

This character follows the stereotypical view of a 'college drop out' We will show this personality from the start by showing him forgetting to turn up to an interview.
He will be shown to be intelligent but lacking to effort to get on with work and would rather enjoy teenage life then study.

This character will be largely influenced by the character 'Cook' from e4's drama 'Skins'
Jake Stewart:

He will be the more intelligent member of the group, he will still be achieving good grades but will be partying as hard as all the others. This will be done to show the fact that students can work well and still have a good social life. Jake will also be the boy that women would be wanting, he is the centre of the party and like a leader to the group.

This character is largely influenced by the character Tony from the first series of Skins.

Sam Cook:

This character will be shown as more of a copy-cat, he will be easily influenced and pressured into doing things which he does not want to do, this character will be dragged into getting into big trouble through various dangerous maybe even illegal doings.  This character will look up to the other characters and want to fit in with them.

This character will be influenced by 'Sid' from 'Skins'.

Consent forms

When considering our actors to play the parts of our characters for our trailer legal requirements are that we must have consent forms therefore was are going to be given consent forms and get them signed by our actors. We must do this and have them all signed by the actors that will be in our soap trailer before we can begin filming.
If the actor is under 16 we will need both theirs and their parents signiture.

Plot and Narrative Work

To achieve the best results of our trailer we need to think about the plot that will run, and what affect this has on the audience and how they think of our soap and what characters come across as.

The plot:

The plot of our trailer is centered around University interviews. Two interviews are shown with flashbacks to what the characters are really like when they are not being viewed and scrutinised by adults. The two characters are shown to be popular boys, one of their friends doesn't make it to the interviews so they call him to remind him. This introduces another character who clearly doesn't care about his future. These three main characters that you meet set the tone for the Soap opera.

Our soap will have story lines which will introduce new characters and situations. The characters involved will spread to lecturers, family members and other friends outside of the university life. This will enable new points of views which will enable a larger group of people to be attracted to the soap due to people being able to relate to them, whether it is a student or a parent going through the same issues.

Narrative:



The narrative of this piece is done to introduce characters in a none verbal straight forward way. We are introducing the two interviewees in a subtle way to show what they are like when they go out and what they enjoy, whereas we show the "college drop out" type character in a more full on way as this fits in with the stereotypical view that kind of person.

We have used the flashbacks as foreshadowing or what is going to happen to the characters later on in the soap, with the reckless behaviour having downsides. This soap will show the coming of age of people and them growing out of their stereotypical university life style and into mature people.

We are using a university in our opening scenes to show what age the characters are and what is happening in their life at the time that the soap is starting.

I have researched into university life and how things are run on campus. I have found videos showing the things that students get up to, this video highlights some of the issues that we would raise in our soap:

Will Howlett

Soap Opera Trailer Target Audience

I needed to start considering the target audience for a soap opera trailer so that I can start to consider what will be needed in mine to attract the correct audience. I needed to consider timings it is on along with other aspects such as demographic groups I will be aiming it towards.
After watching television and finding and recording what times we saw soap opera trailers on the TV it was clear that the times differed. Knowing from research that some popular soap operas were on before the 9 oclock watershed its clear that the actual soap opera genre depending on its content of course is aimed towards all types of age groups, with this in mind I needed to think about the types of people who would be watching the television at times before the watershed. From looking at the results obtained about what shows were when the trailers were shown it was shown during the breaks or just after popular shows which have high rating. So when relating for when I create a soap opera trailer with my group I would like to have had it shown between the break of a popular TV programme. I also need to take into consideration the content that will be in my soap opera so that I can place my trailer between a popular programme that has similar content to that of our soap opera to ensure the correct target audience (the people who would be watching the show like ours) see it.
The demographic groups that soap opera trailers are aimed towards are lower ones such as C, D and E . This is through the use of versimilarude that is used throughout the trailers towards lower demographic groupings such as market stalls, fast food shops, pubs and cafe's.
The times that the trailer would be on TV will effect the target audience as if they are on later for example after the 9oclock watershed they will be aimed more towards older teenage years and adults so as a group we will need to consider the times that our soap opera trailer would be shown so that it aims at the correct age group that we want.

Soap Opera Target Audience Ideas/ Mindmap

Mood Board

Timings of soap opera trailers

I have been watching television recently to try and find the timings for different soap trailers. I have watched a variety of channels to catch the trailers and have found three good examples.

Saturday- After Doctor Who BBC1 8pm- Trailer for Eastenders

• This trailer has been placed here to target a younger audience and to entice a family audience to the soap.

Saturday- After News BBC1 10PM- Trailers for Eastenders

• This trailer would have been placed here to target a higher demographic group, the different groups that they are aiming for is obvious, the audiences between shows such as Doctor Who and The News are very different so they are tar getting a larger range of people.

Saturday- In between Inbetweeners Countdown on E4- 10.45- Trailer for Hollyoaks

• The Inbetweeners bring in a young audience, the age group that usually view the show is between 16-20. The trailer has been placed here to get people that wouldn't usually watch soap operas become interested in soaps such as Hollyoaks.

Costumes for Characters

Costumes[1]

Draft Storyboard

As a group we have decided what we want our trailer to roughly look like, we have decided to follow the process of teenage life by showing a university interview and then jump shots to what they are like outside of an adults eye. We have created a flow diagram using Post-it notes, we did this so we could move the scenes around to decide what order they would best suite.

In this shot there will be a long establishing shot of a town at night

In this shot There will be another establising shot of town at night but this time with images of people drinking/smoking and partying.

In this shot the camera will pan round from the establishing shot to a long shot of a university window and will zoom in.

In this shot there will be a mid shot of two people in an interview and one of them asks a question

In this shot the camera zooms out of the window it just went into on the university

In this shot there is an establishing shot of the same time as earlier except this time its light

In this shot the camera pans back round too the university except this time goes into a different window

In this shot there is another mid shot of an interview with different character this time

In this shot there is a mid shot of a character smoking in a chair watching TV

In this shot it is back with a mid shot at the interview table

In this shot its a mid shot of the two interviewees together outside

In this shot another character joins the two characters

In this shot one of the characters sends a text to another close up of phone

This is a mid-shot of one of the characters waking up

This is a close up of one of the characters looking at his phone



This was the original order of events, we later decided that doing it this way would not have as much effect on the audience so we later changed the order to show a bigger juxtaposition of events.

The first shot is a long establishing shot of a town at night

This shot is a long establishing shot of the same town but this time during the day

This is a long shot that zooms into the university window

This is a mid-shot of two people in an interview

This is a flashback mid shot of partying drinking smoking

This is a mid shot of them back at the interview table

The camera then zooms out of the window it went into

This is a shot of the camera zooming into the same university but a different window

Mid shot of different character having an interview asked a question

Close up of character smoking and watching TV

Mid shot again in the interview room

Mid-shot of the two characters that were in interiviews outside together

Another character comes along and joins them asks 'wheres ....'

 

Close up of phone texting character

Close up of character just waking up

Close up of phone which displays the title of the soap on the text screen

This second version of our Soap Trailer I believe makes more sense, flow better and is also alot more exciting.

Props

To make sure we are organised to start filming we need to list all of the props that we could possibly need, this way we will have no surprises when we are in the middle of filming and then we could get our filming completed quickly and efficiently. I am going to find pictures of ideal props we would like to use and find the closest alternative that we can use in our piece.

Props we would need:

Table

We would need this table for the interview scenes, we would re use the same one in both to show that the interviews are taking place in the same place as each other. There will be a shot of two of our characters sitting at a table beause this is a stereotypical object that would be involved in an interview.

Chairs

We would use these chairs when showing the interviews, we would need to use chairs that are stereotypically used in schools or places of education. Again there will be two shots of this prop during the interview part of our trailer.

Mobile Phone

We need an old mobile phone with a large screen to show the text that the character receives. The phone would need to be an old phone to fit in with the characters profile. We are using a mobile phone beause these are seen as 'new media' and used by most teenagers so using a phone would create verisimilartude towards the audience. This prop would be held by one of our characters at the end of the trailer and will have the title and time shown of the soap.

Sheets of paper

We will be using stacks of paper to look as if they are information surrounding the interviews. These papers would be in a pile on the desk to keep to verisimilitude because we wanted to make the office look as realistic as possible for the interview scenes.

 

Cigarettes

As our piece involved student life we want to show one or more characters either smoking or holding cigarettes, this would be to create verisimilitude in this age group. Smoking is seen to be a rebelious thing to do so by having one of our characters (the laid back one) smoking it will show that this character is rebelious and will reflect his attitude towards the audience.

 

Beers

One scene of our piece is going to be shot on a night on the town, we would need some beer for our characters to hold to create verisimilitude.

Television:

We would need to shoot the back of a television with a character behind it, this will be used to show tho average activities that people of this age engage in.

Sofa:

We would like to use a sofa or another piece of furniture to have a character sitting on. This furniture would need to look used and homely and not a new buy as the stereotypical view of students are they are poor.



By organising what props we need it shall be easier to find what items we need and will make our time filming more effective.