Evaluation Activity: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There are several conventions present in media products such as Soap Operas that simply define the genre unlike any other. These vary between several things already discussed such as settings and characters, and also the trailers themselves, and as we can see, each Soap follows these conventions perfectly, thus providing the show with a formula to go by when we were planning our film.
Despite our trailer being for a new show on BBC, we decided that it would be a good idea to also consider contemporary trailers for Soaps that follow a similar atmosphere to ours, with teen problems, drugs and all other kinds of factors common in the lives of younger people.
While we were planning our trailer, this trailer for the Hollyoaks wedding was released on Channel 4, being shown almost every day at the time.

In this trailer, there are multiple shots of various members all gathering in the church. There is also a low key lighting throughout casting a dark and sometimes oppressive atmosphere. There is also music playing throughout, giving the impression that despite it being a wedding, there is a sadness involved also.

We decided eventually that our Soap should show similar conventions whilst being slightly lighter toned, as the Hollyoaks trailer works mainly through established characters, whereas we required to portray our characters through the trailer, whilst also establishing them, and not giving away any plot points for the trailer itself.

We decided that, although we don't want our trailer to be as dark or contain as many complicated plot points, we decided to use some of the conventions such as the darker mise-en-scene for the atmosphere, and various slow motion shots and establishing shots to emphasize various scenes and shots as important to establishing characters.

The following 9 screenshots highlight various uses of conventions:

The first screenshot depicts the title of the film. The style of the title is conventional for BBC as it has the contains the famous red circling motions and the title of the Soap, thus establishing an up and coming production.

The title itself is conventional of Soaps, as Soap operas are typically named after the towns or communities in which they are set, as seen in shows such as Coronation Street, and sometimes also referring to the geographical location of the Soap, such as EastEnders, being set in the East of London.

Due to our Soap opera being set in the town of St Neots, we could not go for a geographical name such as EastEnders, as the town is not large enough or significant enough to draw a reference that audiences nationally will understand, so we decided the best avenue to pursue in naming our Soap would be to name it after the name of the street the Soap would focus on, thereby relating to the Coronation Street convention.

The second screenshot highlights the use of settings and locations of the Soap, as the settings will consist not only of larger areas such as the town center, but also thin and narrow streets, thereby challenging the typical convention of Soaps being set mainly in the pub.

In the trailer, the vast majority of the shots are taken in and around the town, with only one brief segment of the trailer taking place in the pub, which is also empty. A large convention in any Soap, as mentioned in the settings post, is the social hub, which is often a pub or bar. However, the vast majority of the goings on in the trailer are all around the town in multiple locations, which, while is not unheard of in Soaps, is still challenging the conventions of Soaps being set in a few key locations (residence, town and social hub).

The third screenshot highlights the costumes and props, and is used in key with the settings to add a tone of realism to the town, a typical convention of Soaps, as they are all set in believable settings with believable characters so that audiences everywhere can find something to relate to in Soaps.

The prop in this image is one of the few we actually used in this trailer, and is a laundry bag containing the gentleman's jacket. As mentioned, this works in key with the settings, as this shot is set directly next to the laundromats, keeping the relation between the settings and the props relevant. Another example of the use of costumes in this shot is my costume, wearing my coat with the hood down. Initially, I was not meant to portray this character, but when some of the actors didn't turn up to the filming, we had to improvise. By keeping my head down and my hood up, I was able to somewhat obscure my face in a way that doesn't distract from the trailer, but at the same time, works with the settings in the contrast between the formal shirt tie and trousers, and the informal hooded top and coat, adding some diversity to the characters in both age, and social class. A convention used in all Soaps to keep their characters fresh, and also offer more opportunity for more plot points and dynamic writing.

The fourth screenshot displays the use of editing, as it shows a fade wipe transition between scenes. This is uncommon in Soaps as all of the transitions are instant, making the show run much more fluently.

 However, this is a trailer, and not an actual episode. The use of similar techniques in an actual episode would be out of place and distracting. However, using the Hollyoaks trailer we used for some inspiration as an example, most of the cuts are still instant without any type of transition. However, despite this, the Hollyoaks trailer is set in a single location, with the events unfolding in real time, and with established characters, whereas this transition is used to display the passing of time, even if a short time, and also offers a good opportunity to reintroduce our first character as an antagonist to the couple.
In all of the trailers we used to study conventions, I have not seen any transitions such as this being used, and so it is likely to be unconventional.

The fifth screenshot is used to display the title font and style. Although this is the same screenshot as the first screenshot (highlighting the use of the title), this screenshot displays the font and style more clearly, as the transition is more complete in this screenshot.

The font used for the title is typical for the BBC, as their show announcements usually are written in a bold white font that is usually very straight and businesslike, with the exception of EastEnders, which keeps the show's original font, which is much more of a rounded font.

From the 2011 New Year's Eve episode trailer

As of such, by keeping a bold text that is relatively businesslike, we are able to keep our trailer font in between the two ends, allowing us to retain the BBC's standards of font, but at the same time creating an original type of font for the show to use outside of the trailer also.

The sixth screenshot details the story and how it is set up. Being a Soap trailer, we had to pursue multiple narratives to convey as many of the main characters as possible, and therefore we didn't have one individual story. However, I consider the character in the intro to be one of the two main characters in the Soap, and so his story is one of the more important ones.

The most important story follows the teenage father shown in the intro of the trailer. The music fits with the visuals as the lyrics say "I will ease your strain", right at the moment as he drinks another shot of alcohol, thereby establishing that he is a troubled character, especially after he looks at a photo of a newborn baby, suggesting his pain comes from the baby. This gives the character a back story as well as giving him the motive to do bad things, such as barging past the couple in the next segment.
However, as mentioned, seeing as the film is a trailer, we need to also focus some attention on the stories of the other characters involved, thereby restricting us to focus the narrative on a single character. This is a convention of Soaps, as each episode would typically shift it's narrative between many characters each episode, thereby making the community feel more dynamic, and also allowing the stories to be conveyed in real-time, as opposed to a film for example, which would focus entirely on one narrative, and therefore, have a main character and supporting cast, as opposed to several main characters. This means that our trailer follows the conventions of Soap storytelling.

This is also true for the seventh screenshot, which is used to identify the genre, and how it is set up.

A common source for writing in a Soap opera comes from the anguish and problems of a character, and therefore establishes a narrative that can run for a while through a Soap, and therefore we figured the best way to open a Soap trailer was to establish an existing problem for a character, and therefore it establishes a convention of Soap operas.
However, this wasn't the only example of this. Each character segment opens as though it has already begun, such as the section where the hooded character knocks into the businessman, thereby suggesting previous tensions with each other, or a bad back story for the hooded character. Each of which could be exploited for  a running narrative in a Soap.

The eighth screenshot details how characters are  introduced. Throughout the trailer, I used small captions to provide a small amount of back story to the characters, whilst still leaving it open to interpretation.

Each character has their own caption, with the homosexual couple having the shunned caption. This also allows us to show how other characters are viewed by the community they're in, with brief summarising statements about their background. However, despite this, we also detail a large amount of back story through the voice overs, with the man with the flowers for example describing his situation by thinking "She'll never love me", implying that he has been attempting to win her over, or at least possess feelings for her, for quite some time. Another example is with one of the homosexual lovers saying "sometimes I wonder whether our love is worth the abuse we get", suggesting they're constantly being abused and shunned for their sexual preferences.

The final screenshot details the special effects. Despite the transition between various scenes and a few overlays, such as the darkened corners in the 8th screenshot, most of our special effects were purely done through the camera work:

This car was parked near the florists, opposite the road where the couple are sitting with each other. Although the original plan was for Josh (the character with the flowers) to look at his hair in the window of a shop, and see the couple's reflection in the window next to him, we figured that, seeing as this car had a highly reflective window, it would be more effective for him to do his hair in the reflection of the car window, and then look up and spot them. This also allows us to show some more of the character, as he notices his own reflection before noticing his love interest and her boyfriend across the street, implying that his is somewhat self absorbed, and may prioritise himself before others.

The use of special effects were limited, aside from the occasional slow motion or filter for effect, deliberately to maintain the reality of the Soap. We decided that, in the end, it would be more effective, and conventional, to only use special effects where there was no other alternative, and therefore by using common items such as the car to create a special effect, we maintain the show's reality - a significant convention of the Soap genre.

Soap Trailer final draft

After receiving plenty of feedback containing both compliments to the original, and also lots of constructive criticisms on what could be improved, it was time to re-edit our trailer tailoring to these new suggestions.

The main changes that have been made consist of timing issues, and some of my own personal modifications. A prime example of the timing issues is that the first draft was much longer, by around 20 or so seconds which is a substantial amount of time regarding trailers. This was due to many shots being unnecessarily long, and as of such made the trailer drag for much longer than it needed to. When editing this draft, I went through every single scene, cutting and removing entire sequences that did nothing to advertise the Soap, but only made it drag. As of such, I was able to create a trailer that was much faster and had better pacing between scenes making it more dynamic.
A second change I made was one of my own ideas, and that was the music. Due to the first trailer being much longer, the song we play over the trailer went on much longer also, and I did not feel that the bass solo in the middle of the song helped advertise the show, and ultimately distracted from the trailer. As of such, in the original I looped the first half of the song. The result, despite my best efforts, was a sudden jump in the audio, which, although nobody mentioned it in the feedback, was very obvious. As of such I decided that, now that the trailer is shorter, I was able to play the song normally, and therefore could have a much more fluent soundtrack throughout the trailer.

Demographic research and planning

A core factor to planning and creating a Soap marketing campaign is knowing who to target your product to and why - your core demographic.
While we were planning, there were many different ideas to cater to multiple demographics, such as a simple Soap to target the normal audience such as EastEnders, which is watched predominantly by women ranging by age from an average of 16, to around 40 years. However, Soaps like EastEnders are of such a high profile that anything that could be considered taboo, or simply a bit of insensitive writing could lead to a massive controversy, and therefore they need to be very careful in what issues they write about in their show.
We decided that our Soap would want to deal with controversial and contemporary issues like youth drug addictions, whilst also catering to other factors like trying to get the girl. Therefore, we decided our demographic audience should be similar to that of teen Soap Hollyoaks, as they have a demographic of around 14 - 24 year old audiences from each gender.
This type of audience was, in my opinion, easier to write engaging stories for to put in our Soap trailer, as primarily, as I, and my team are from that age group, we would understand the issues that affect teens' daily lives more than we would understand daily issues for adults, such as bills. In addition to this, the cast to Hollyoaks is comprised mainly of younger people, as opposed to EastEnders or Coronation Street, as the young cast members in Hollyoaks allow the viewers to relate to their problems, as they will also be of a similar age.

The Hollyoaks cast

Therefore, this also allowed us to plan our filming much more efficiently, as we didn't need to plan our times to allow for multiple adults to make it to the filming. Instead, by having us and a few friends appear as the main cast, we were able to complete our filming within our set time.
Having our demographic similar to Hollyoak's was also good for our planning, as BBC One does not have a Soap to cater to the teen demographic, and so it also makes sense to have our Soap hosted on BBC. The demographic also allowed us to plan much faster also, because, as mentioned, many of the factors that affect the lives of the characters will have also affected us at some point, and so we would be able to apply our experience to the writing, thus making it much more believable.

Soap magazine covers

Once we had analysed magazine covers at the beginning of the year, we already had a firm knowledge of what a magazine cover consists of - thereby allowing us to simply change our previous copies from earlier to make our second ancillary text.
As described in our earlier analysis - magazines have many conventions similar to the posters or the trailers themselves. Primarily, many of the conventions have no relevence to the actual soap, but serve more practical purposes, such as the overall design of the poster - consisting of a blue background, red background around the title and a very compact layout of all of the information, as shown by this example below:

As of such, we needed to create a similar magazine with all of the designs, including the pugs, prices, main head image and taglines, and many more:

The first thing we are drawn to is the mast head, as it is backed by blue - red's compliment. In addition to this, the main dominant image overlaps with the mast head drawing the attention to the image next, which takes up the majority of the page. This is a convention common among all other magazines, as it helps sells multiple copies and also gives news into new soaps or plot progressions into already established soaps, as shown in the example image.

Soap Posters

After viewing and analysing various Soap posters, we had to create our own posters to advertise with the magazine article and the Soap trailer itself, thus creating a synergy between each of the marketing products.
When designing the poster, I went through several drafts, experimenting with the characters, the positions and the settings, attempting to replicate the style of the neighbours  poster.
The first draft I made featured the characters in their original positions from the end of the trailer, but I figured it would be too similar to the ending itself and therefore would look uncreative, or lacking somehow.
The next image I used was a picture from the town center, but the character's positions were wrong, as half of us were overlapping buildings, and the others in the road, with the sign was in the middle of the street. Therefore, I decided to create seperate layers for each of the characters to allow me to move them properly. Finally once I created a suiable position, I found that the background wasn't quite appropriate, so eventually I settled with the picture from our location study, with the street and pub.

I created this poster using a copy of Photoshop, taking ideas from several other posters involved in my research, such as Neighbours. I also used some of my own ideas to create a better mise-en-scene, such as removing the characters from their original pose and settings and placing them on a different street. I also used two text layers on avenue to create a 3D drop shadow effect, using red to imply danger and to also grab the attention of the viewers, as it stands out from the very grey tone of the poster.

Soap trailer first draft

After we managed to gather enough examples of marketing campaigns for Soaps, we were able to film and edit ours together.

Once we knew what demographic we were going to pursue, we decided a darker mise-en-scene and low key tune would fit the trailer perfectly, and through a case study, we also knew that BBC has never had a show that quite promotes itself to teenagers, thereby providing us with a window of opportunity to create a plausible trailer.

Soap Opera Posters

Marketing is crucial to spreading the word of  a new soap, and few marketing campaigns are as cost effective as posters. Despite this however, very few soaps use poster advertising, using instead TV marketing and word of mouth. However, some soaps do utilise poster marketing, and through the analysis of a few examples, we will be able to create a realistic soap poster for our coursework.

The first poster comes from Australian Soap Opera, Neighbours. Similar to any other soap, the main feature of the show is the cast whom are all present. The main feature of any soap is the cast and characters, so therefore the main image on any soap poster should be the cast and crew. However, the setting always plays an important role so the characters should always be shown in the area that the soap will mostly be shown, which is in this case, a neighbourhood. In addition to this, the writing advertising the show is written on signposts, giving the poster a more realistic appearance for the show's aesthetic.

In addition to these factors, the poster's lighting and mise-en-scene conveys the show as a show with a happier tone, and therefore I can understand the lighting is crucial for conveying the atmosphere for the show.

However, with more established and well known soaps, a simple image can represent the synergy, and as a result, there aren't many soap posters to analyse. Therefore, if a soap that is already established advertises through posters or billboards, it will do so through a simple synergy, such as the EastEnders intro picture:

As of such, if we are able to create a form of synergy, we'll also be able to create a plausible series of adverts to synergise between all of the promotions.