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.