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]