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.

Stock Characters

We needed to consider casting our actors/actresses to play our characters. We needed to think about what we want them to look like and why, we needed to think of age, gender, costume, general look.
Firstly we looked at the characters we are using in our piece and tried to find comparisons of other characters from soaps to get ideas from them about how our character should look.

All soap operas have stereotypical characters that fit into props theory which are:

The villain
The dispatcher

The helper

The princess

Her Father

The donor

The hero

False hero

However unlike films soaps do not usually contain all of these characters in the same episode at the same time however they would all be in the soap but not involved in the same storyline or episode.

We are going to look at the 5 main soap operas in British television,  (Eastenders, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and Neighbours ) to gather more information on what kinds of characters we would need to include.

Some examples of these characters are below;

The Villain:
 

1

 

3

 

2



1) Eastenders Villain: Phil Mitchell

Phil first joined Eastenders on 20 February 1990, and was soon joined by his brother, Grant. He has become one of the soap's most popular characters and is the second longest-running male protagonist to appear in the serial. He was first introduced as the lesser of two thugs, but became a darker character after Grant left. More recent storylines, such as the return of his son, have shown a softer side to the character.

He has, owned many businesses in the Square. He has been married three times and featured in numerous high profile storylines, the dubbed "Who shot phil? and having an affair with his brother's wife. Other storylines that he has been invloved with include taking of high class drugs, murders and domestic violence.

2) Coronation Street Villain: Tony Gordon

The character first appeared on screen on 16 September 2007. He is a local businessman, disliked by many of Weatherfield's residents for his ruthlessness. His storylines have revolved around his business deals, his relationships and murder. Tony was named 'Bad Boy' of 2009 at the All About Soap Bubble awards, and 'Villain of the Year' at the 2009 British Soap Awards

3) Hollyoaks Villain: Warren Fox

He first arrived in 2006 and quickly became known as the show's main villain. Since his first appearance, the character has been involved in such storylines including drug dealing, murder and the 'Who Pushed Clare' storyline.

During the time in the show these are his occupations:

Businessman (since 2006)
Club owner (since 2006)
Pub owner (2007–08)
Gangster (since 2006)

The Pregnant Teen:



1



2



3

    

1) Neighbours- Bridget Parker

 In 2007 the Neighbours was revamped to boost falling ratings in Australia. As part of this, the show's focus returned to family dynamics and the character of Bridget and her family were created and introduced. Bridget made her first on-screen appearance on 23 July 2007. Bridget's storylines included being run over by Susan Kennedy, falling in love and finding her birth mother and falling pregnant at seventeen.

First appearance	23 July 2007
Last appearance	21 July 2009

2) Coronation Street- Sarah Platt

Tina O'Brien was recast in the role in 1999. O'Brien was given the part when she was 16, playing the character who was still only 12 at the time. She left the role in 2007. The main storyline which she was involved in was the teenage pregnancy The characters' teenage-pregnancy storyline was created to highlight the risks of teenage pregnancy. However, the storyline has been a highly controversial and discussed storyline because of the possibility that it glamorised the idea. Despite this, it has been praised for its message. Tina O'Brien has revealed that she was "naive" over the plot at the time of filming, oblivious that it would create much controversy.

First appearance	28 January 1987
Last appearance	30 December 2007

3) Hollyoaks- Amy Barnes

She debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 14 November 2005, Story lines that she has been involved in include topics such as Domestic violence, Scamming people out of money by pretending her child has leukemia and an underage pregnancy. The baby was conceived during a night of drinking, it has been used to highlight the bad side of alcohol in teens.

First appearance	14 November 2005

Last appearance       Still on the show

Homosexual:



1) Hollyoaks- Ste Hay


Ste has been at the centre of several story lines including joyriding, a baby kidnapping plot and a gay relationship. He was initially portrayed a "bad boy" type character. He debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 17 February 2006. Ste's gay storyline prompted Richardson to come out as gay. Its aim was to raise awareness of domestic abuse in a homosexual relationship. Whilst Ste and his story lines have received a mixed reaction from critics, Richardson has been nominated for various awards for his portrayal.








2) Eastenders- Christian Clarke

In November 2007, it was announced that a new gay character was to join the cast of EastEnders, as the shows bosses had seen how popular Antony Cotton was in the role of Sean Tully in Coronation Street. He made his first appearance on 17 January 2008. He has been involved in story lines such as the break up of his civil union to Ashleigh Jennings, the break up of a heterosexual marriage so he gets the male and the adoption of a child with his partner.

3) Coronation Street- Sean Tully
Portrayed by actor Antony Cotton, the character first appeared on screen in 13 July 2003. He has been involved in story lines such as breakdown of relationships and re kindling of old loves with other males. He is now part of the first civil partnership to be shown on the show.

Adolescent:

  

1) Coronation Street- Rosie Baxter

This character has been in the soap since 1990, the baby was played by a different actor, the actor changed in 2000, the type of story lines that she has been involved in include bullying of other people whilst at school, going through a Gothic stage, being in a relationship which her family are not happy with. She has had two near death experiences as she has been involved in two car crashes and an affair with her school teacher. These are all stereotypical story lines when involving a character that the audience has seen her change and adapt to her environment.

2) Hollyoaks- Newt

He debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 22 October 2007. He was introduced as the serial's first 'Emo' character and as the foster son of Jack and Frankie Osborne. During the character's duration he was involved in notable story lines including schizophrenia, a suicide pact and living in foster care. He also was involved in a teenage relationships which highlighted the pressure with sexual relationships. With being the first character that was classed as a 'Emo' the stereotypical story lines followed him, including depression, threatening suicide and other situations that are strongly linked to being an 'Emo'

3) Eastenders- Whitney Dean

The character is the adoptive daughter of long-running character Bianca Jackson, and was introduced in April 2008. She is the centre of a storyline involving a paedophile in the family. The character has been involved in other story lines such as affairs, teenage relationships and bullying. She is involved in a lot of relationships and most of these end in domestic violence or violence of some kind. This character is used to show how young teenagers need to think about relationships and sexual intercourse and the affects it can have.


After looking into stock characters we have decided that in our soap opera we will try to keep to these conventions but will encorperate different parts of them together.
Our soap is centered around teenagers so we will keep to the stereotypical view of teenagers in soaps but shall use different themes such as one character will be seen as the villain and having a character who will come out as a homosexual throughout the series.

We will use this information on characters to improve our characters and help them to stay to verisimilitude.

Will Howlett