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:
 

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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:



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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

Draft Script 2

This is our second draft of the script, we have made one large change, we have decided that the use of an interviewer would slow down the piece. To combat this we have rearranged the script, we have now taken out the interviewers questions but left in the answers. These answers make sense on their own so the audience can easily follow the trailer.

First Interview:


Interviewee: Well a usual day for me consists of studying and reading.


Second interview:

Interviewee: I think i would bring a bit of excitement and added intellect to the course.

Scene Outside:

First interviewee: Alright mate how was yours?

Second interviewee: Yeah, lied my way through that i think

First interviewee: Same, wheres lee?

Second interviewee: I will call him.

Will Howlett

Draft script

Our initial ideas for our film involves minimal talking, this is due to different factors which we decided would make our film look less professional. With the use of minimal conversation the focus is on the action and the feeling of the soap. A large reason for our decision is the lack of actors which would be able to handle a role with lots of dialogue.

Our piece involves a scene with an interview.

First Interview:


Interviewer: What do you like to do in your spare time?

Interviewee: Well a usual day for me consists of studying and reading.


Second interview:

Interviewer: What do you think you would bring to this course?

Interviewee: I think i would bring a bit of excitement and added intellect to the course.

Scene Outside:

First interviewee: alright mate how was yours?

Second interviewee: Yeah, lied my way through that i think

First interviewee: Same, wheres lee?

Second interviewee: I will call him.

Will Howlett

Target Audience Initial ideas - Mind Map

As a group we have created a mind map of the initial ideas of for our soap, we did this so we could find what audience we are targetting andhow we would entice different groups of people to watching our soap opera.

Through this excercise we have realised that our soap will be targetting a wide variety of people from different age groups and demographic groups.

Soap Opera Initial ideas - Write Up

After creating a mood board and mind map and discussing as a group our initial ideas for our soap opera we have come to a decision of what we want our soap opera to consist of.

Location - The location we have chosen for our soap opera will be a stereotypical town consisting of such places as nightclubs, pubs, cafes for our characters to go to. We have taken inspiration for this from the SU bar in Hollyoaks, these sorts of bars are common on university campuses so to keep in with verisimilitude we would include these in our locations.

Characters - The age of our characters we have chosen will be between 16 and 19. Our characters will be college age. There will be a mixture of types of characters in our soap opera consisting of stereotypical emo's chavs and indie kids, like those off dramas such as Skins, Misfits and Hollyoaks.

Storylines - The storylines of our soap will be a rebellious over the top look at student life consisting of use of alcohol drugs and drink. The teens will get in trouble with the law and generally be rebellious in the story lines.



Narrative - Our narrative would show the contradicting views on life at a university and the different emotions felt by students. As our piece is a soap opera it will be an open narrative.


Real media products/inspirations - We will be using a popular E4 programme 'Skins' as our inspirational product as this is what our soap opera will mostly relate too because of the rebellion theme and use of young adults/teens. Our soap will also relate to 'Hollyoaks' as this programme also uses mostly young characters so our soap opera will be a mixture of the characters from 'Skins' and the story lines from 'Hollyoaks'. Another relation to our media product will be 'Eastenders' as the setting will be similar (Town/City mainly outside) 'Eastenders' is the type of location we will be looking for when filming our media product.

Target Audience - There is a wide target audience for our Soap opera due to the use of many different types of character in the shows however there is a clear age range we are aiming for which will be teenagers due to the use of teenagers as our characters as we feel that teenagers will be able to relate to what they are seeing. We will be aiming at low demographic groups as our target audience due to the use of setting for our soap, as it will be filmed in city areas low demographic groups may be able to relate to what they see and to the story lines that occur.

Titles - Our titles will need to reflect on students and teenage life's, the titles need to be fast paced to keep up with what will happen in each episode as the soap will be as a whole fast paced.

Our piece will follow the same conventions as other soaps and dramas such as Skins, Hollyoaks, Beaver Falls and Inbetweeners. As a group we enjoy these dramas and feel that a mixture of the styles of these could make great watching. The trailers for a selection of these dramas shows our point as they use comedy to show serious points.

Trailer for Misfits:


Trailer for Inbetweeners series 3:




Trailer for Skins series1:

 

Trailer for Beaver Falls:

 

I have found these trailers to highlight the things that we want to include in our trailer, these trailers use comedy and excitement to get people to want to watch the soap. This is how we want to attract people to our soap.

Will Howlett

Health and Safety

When filming our piece we must make sure we are safe, this will be done so no harm will come to us whilst making the film.

We will follow a set of rules set out to us by our teachers.

Health and safety we need to follow when filming:

Remember that we are concentrating on filming be aware of traffic

Always be polite and respectful when interacting with the public

Do not attempt to film anything that could be constructed by a passer as illegal

If you are going to try and film in a public place you should approach the people who are in charge of that place for permission

Do not film in dangerous places

Soap Opera Brief

As a group we are going to produce a trailer for our soap alongside a poster and magazine cover. These would are all created to heighten the demand for this soap and to increase audience figures which would help our production team to increase in size and influence. All of these would link together through the same characters being used which would make them become more famous which would create more of a call for those characters to be seen in different situations. 




Friends is a good example of a drama involving a tight group
of friends trying to achieve the same things.



When we were mind mapping ideas for our soap we looked at different soap operas and TV series used the same conventions as what we were aiming to include in our soap. Shows such as Skins, Misfits, Friends, Beaver falls, Inbetweeners and Hollyoaks. We took influences from each of these by looking at story lines, characters, settings and plots. The shows we took influence from are not predominately soap operas but do contain elements which we would like to include in our piece.

When we researched into different soap operas we realised that comedy was very rarely included in them, we want to create a soap opera which has comedy but with serious story lines, such as in Friends and Skins. As we are going to base the Soap around groups of teenagers growing up and the continual changing of cast members is in line with the way that Skins and Hollyoaks create their shows.


In our trailer we would give hints and clues to what the story lines will be about, we would like to incorporate the use of technology into our piece to give different views on whether the large scale use of social networking and mobile phones has a good effect on teenage life or a bad one. In the first episode we would make sure every character has been introduced, then a problem would occur to create a storyline that we could expand on in later episodes. The ideal layout of our soap would not be have a single storyline which every character is involved with but smaller story lines which makes all the characters become involved in. This would be creating verisimilitude in our work as this is the way that life of our characters age would play out.

The four main characters in Inbetweeners are
very close, the females are used to separate them.
We have got inspiration from this.

As we are creating a brand new soap opera we would not be sure how the audience would take to it, we would like to create a feeling of sympathy for teenagers who get caught up in situations which can be construed as negative social behaviour. We would like to create questions for the audience and teach them about the structure of a typical group of people who are coming of age. We would like to have the audience to be asking whether or not teenage life is really how it is portrayed. This would increase the number of viewers as not only teenagers (who could relate to the show)

but people from other age groups could

use the show for entrainment purposes but

also for educational reasons.

Will Howlett