Soap Trailer Music

We have been looking into the different types and genres of music that we could include in our final cut of our soap opera trailer. We have looked at examples of existing trailers that make use of music so we can get a feel for what type of music to use for our trailer. Here are the trailers we listened to:

This trailer uses music to create suspense, and this is one of our aims. It also uses the music as more of a background sound as apposed to the main sound. This is relevant to our trailer as we are going to be using mainly dialogue.


This trailer makes use of ironic msusic as the music does not really match with some of the scenes occuring in the trailer. It sets up a good contrast as the characters are seen as being happy and cheerful and then we can see an accident, but the music remains the same. Keeping the music the same throughout adds irony and suspense.

The music in this trailer is more like a drone at the start, it gives the trailer a very spooky feel which is relevant as they are talking about death. This is a good style of non diegetic sound for us to look at as it is very much in the background and that is the effect we want to create.

Filming Diary

This is a diary which we recorded were we spoke about each day of filming. We discussed how well we though each scene went, any problems we came across, and how we overcame these issues.

Poster Experiment

We have already looked at photoshopping to achieve the desired look for our poster, as seen in the post below. We have now been looking at using a green screen to create a different look. Here is what we have come up with:

BEFORE -

AFTER -

Filming Schedule – THE Walthams

Filming Schedule

This is a copy of our filming schedule in which we have set dates for each scene of our soap opera trailer. We have included the time of filming and all of the actors needed for the scenes. We have also included maps for directions to each location. Everyone taking part in the filming has received a copy of this. Further organisation methods we have used include a meeting to discuss when everyone is free for filming, and a Facebook group has been made to give information to the actors such as what costumes to bring with them.

Poster Layout

We have considered all of the poster designs and decided to base our final idea on our second layout idea which consisted of the whole cast on a black background, with Georges eyes in the background looking down. We chose this because we thought it would have the best effect and gain the most attention as the black background looks mysterious and would draw people in. The eyes give a spooky feel to the poster and would make people want to know who's eyes they are and what they are looking at. We have created a basic mock up of the final layout to show what it will look like:




















This is the basis of our poster, the final copy will have the actual cast in it so there will be more people. The focal point will be Helen and Dan in the middle and there will be a spotlight shining on them to highlight them.

Poster Ideas

As one of our poster ideas includes georges eyes in the background we had a practice at photoshopping a picture of eyes into a black background and this is what we produced:


















This look is very mysterious and thats the feel we want to create with our poster.

Magazine and Poster Layout 3

Here are the Magazine and Poster Layout 3 drafts. These were created by James

Draft Magazine Cover

Draft Poster Cover

Poster and Magazine Layouts 2

Here are the second Poster and magazine layout designs for our soap. These layouts were both made by Matt Bigg.

Poster

Magazine Design

Poster Layout 1

We have also each created an idea for the layout of our soap opera poster. This layout design was done by Abi Crafter:

Walthams poster

Magazine Layout 1

We each have created ideas for layout of our magazine cover to advertise our new soap opera. This is the first idea by Abi Crafter:

Suds Weekly

Shot Lists

Here are the shotlists for our soap opera trailer, magazine cover and poster.

Shot list

Magazine Shot List

Poster Shotlist

Characters in Costume

Characters in Costume

Props

Props

Location Scouting

Location Scouting

Casting Pensiors

As we have casted our two older characters as two 18 year olds, we will have to use make up and mise en scene to give the impression that they are old. To do this we will use make up and props. We will use a dark coloured foundation to give an aged skin effect, talcum powder in the actors hair to make it look grey and props such as glasses and walking sticks. We will also use clothing to help create this effect.

Jenny’s Parent/Character Change

Document 1

Casting Information

After completing our audtitoning process we have made our final decisions on the people who will play the roles in our soap opera trailer. The cast list is as follows:

Dan -

The character of Dan will be played by Tom Le Gresley. We have chosen Tom because we liked the way he acted in the audition. He was convincing and could make the audience think he was genuine. He also reminds us of someone who is very down to earth meaning he can be easily related to, making use of the uses and gratifications theory of identification.

Helen -

The character of Helen will be played by Hannah Blakemore. We have chosen Hannah because she has a very bubbly personality and this is what we are looking for in an excited character about to get married.

George-

The character of George will be played by Oliver Moss. We chose Oliver becuase he acted in a way which brought to life the ideas we had for the character of George. For example the way he said the line 'Helen, why can't you be mine?' was very emotional.

Julia -

The character of Julia will be played by Jasmine Lee. We have chosen Jasmine because she managed to pull off a very good and convincing role of a pensioner. This is very important to us as we would find it hard to arrange actual elder cast members for our filming.

Peggy -

The character of Peggy will be played by Kirsty Dwyer. We have chosen Kirsty because, like Jasmine, she created a very convincing character as a pensioner. Her acting skills were very good and she had good camera presence.

Jenny -

The character of Jenny will be played by Jennifer Pike. We have chosen her because of her performance in the audition.

Jennys Father -

Jennys father will be played by Tayo O Martins. We have chosen Tayo because he created a very authortitve role in the auditions which is what we were looking for.

Vicar -

The character of the vicar will be played by Harry Murden. We have chosen Harry because he put across a serious face, it is important for the vicar role to be a serious character as he will be conducting a wedding.

Audtion Videos

We held our auditions and filmed them for reference when picking our cast. Our first audition was for characters Helen and Dan, played by Tom Le Gresley and Hannah Blakemore:



Lewis Tucker and Hannah Cullen auditioned for the parts of Helen and Dan:



Oliver Moss auditioned for the part of George:



Elliot Brooker auditioned for the part of George:



Jamsime Lee and Kirsty Dwyer audtitoned for the parts of Julia and Peggy:



Jo Roberts and Emmaline Gordon auditioned for the parts of Julia and Pegyy:



Matt Swales auditioned for the part of party extra 1, Lewis Spaul audition for party extra 2 and Rachel Short auditoned for Jenny:



Emily Armstrong, Alex Cooke and James Hanncock audition for the parts of Jenny and the Party Guests:



Tayo O Martins and Jenny Pike have auditioned for the roles of Jenny and her Parent:



Natalie Gillam and Emily Armstrong auditioned for the parts of Jenny and Jennys parent:



Harry Murden auditioned for the part of the vicar:

Audtions

As a group we will be taking out audtitons to find the cast for characters with speaking parts in our soap opera trailer. We will be auditioning for the following characters:
- Helen
- Dan
- George
- Jenny
- Julia
- Peggy
- Party Extra 1
- Party Extra 2
- Jennys Mum

Final Script

Final Script

This is our final script which has been developed a lot since our first draft script. We have added extra dialogue and more detailed stage directions. We decided that Jenny should have some dialogue in the party scene to point out to the audience who she is.

Audition Organization

To ensure we had participants for our auditions, we set a date and created posters to advertise this. The poster include important information about the auditions such as date and location. Here is a copy of our poster:

Audtion Poster

We will be using our final script for the auditionees to read off. They will read the section of the script for the character they are auditioning for.

Prop List

Prop List

Costumes

The WALTHAMS Costumes

We created a list of the costumes each character will be wearing. We chose the costumes based on the connotations they had and to make the clothing represent the characters. For example we have put George in all dark clothing except a white T shirt to connote that his intentions are not bad. It is important to give the characters clothing meaning to get the audince thinking about their personality and characteristics.

Equipment

Equipment

Locations

Locations

This is a list of the locations we will need to film in. They include a house, a church/registry office and a pub. We will be able to film the house scenes in the same house but using different rooms. We will try to create the best mise en scene in these settings to ensure we have verisimilitude, making it more realistic for the audience so that they find it easier to relate to. This makes use of the uses and gratifications theory of personal relation.

We will also have to consider the lighting in each scene. The lighting in the sofa scene with Helen and Dan should be very bright so it lightens the room to make the scene look light hearted. This type of lighting will connote happiness which is what we want to achieve in this scene.

In the scene with George on his own, we want it to be quite dark, but still light enough to see him. We will achieve this by having the curtains cracked so a thin beam of light can shine through. Instead of lights on we will use candles to give a more eerie feel. This lighting set up will give mysterious connotations.

The lighting in the party scene will be quite dark as it will be night time when the party occurs. There will be a light on in the room as the characters in the scene have left the main party to get a drink. As the lighting will be quite dull it will give the impression that something could go wrong. The following morning in the same location when Jenny's parent arrives home will be brighter so the damage can be seen, the sun will be shining through the window to show that time has passed.

The lighting in the wedding scene will be very bright to give angelic connotations. We want the scene to look innocent and untouched. This will help to give the impression that all is going well when really it may not be.

Abi Crafter and Matt Bigg

Animtic Storyboard

We have created an animatic storyboard by taking the photographs we took for the photographic storyboard and adding transitions to them to make a video showing the transiitons and giving more information on each scene and why we have chosen certain transistions. For exaple we have chosen to use fade to black transitions at certain points, mainly to give negative connotations.

Second Draft Script

Second Draft Script


This is the second draft of our script. We have further developed it from the first draft stage by adding stage directions, and time of action. It is important to give detailed direction for the actors and actresses so they know how to act.

Photographic Storyboard

Photographic Storyboard

As a group we have created a photographic storyboard. This is where we recreated the scenes we are going to have in our soap opera trailer and took photos of them showing the camera shots and angles we are going to use, for example we have used a mid shot for the first scene. We have included information on here such as sound and duration.

Initial Script

Initial Script

This our initial script. It includes basic directions for each scene including the dialogue. This is our first draft and we will continue to develop our script to make it credible so the audience can relate to the situations.

Initial Storyboard

Story

We created an initial storyboard to show what will be in each scene, which characters, the type of shot, the duration and the sound. This is an important aspect of our project as we need to know this information about each scene to continue developing it.

Trailer Narrative

We have made this radio show to portray what we are going to include in the narrative of our soap opera narrative. We chose to do it as a radio show to make it more interesting than typing it. We will be able to refer back to this piece of work when it comes to developing our project as it tells us the order everything is happening in, this could be helpful when it comes to making storyboards etc.

Soap Research

To gain a stronger knowledge into British soaps, we each researched into different parts of the British soap industry. We've individually analysed soap trailers, and looked at the history of soap and soap trailer conventions. We also each took out a survey to get some information on the types of audiences interested in soaps. This helped us to create our target audience profile and taught us what demographic group we should be aiming at. After performing the research, we compared it together in order to gain as much knowledge as possible from each other.

Here are the links to the pieces of research each of us did on our own blogs-

Matt Bigg History of Soaps Soap Trailers Soap Trailer Analysis Poster Analysis Magazine Analysis

Abi Crafter History of Soaps
Soap Trailers
Soap Trailer Analysis - Eastenders
Soap Trailer Analysis - Coronation Street
Soap Trailer Analysis - Emmerdale
Soap Trailer Analysis - Hollyoaks
Target Audience Questionnaire
Target Audience Questionnaire Results
Poster Analysis 1
Poster Analysis 2
Magazine Analysis 1
Magazine Analysis 2


James Garrod History of Soaps Soap Conventions Soap Trailer Analysis Poster Analysis Magazine Analysis

Simliar characters in other soaps and categorization

Characters and Categorization

We decided as a group to create a table to compare characters from exisiting soaps to our characters in our own soap. This helped is to understand what type of characters are involved in soaps, what category they fit into and what/who will be popular.

Storyline Flowchart

Here is our flowchart for the storylines of our first two episodes of the soap. There are three main plotlines taking place in the first two episodes, two of which interlink. This flowchart is primarily to show how the soap episodes would flow and not how the trailer flows


Story Line 2

We have made this flowchart to show the different storylines in our soap episodes and how they connect with each other as the story progresses.

Naming our Soap

We have had a group discussion to make a decision on naming our soap. We came up with several suggestions such as:
- Waltham Crossing
- Walthumbury
- Waltham Corner
- Cherry Garden Road
- The Walthams
We decided to call our soap The Walthams. This is because we feel this gave the best sense of village life. Our soap is going to be set in a village called Great Waltham so it also gives information as to where the soap is set much like other soaps such as Eastenders being set in the East End of London, and Emmerdale being set in Emmerdale. We have also taken inspiration from the soap The Archers, which has a very short and to the point name. By using a short and snappy name it is more memorable to the audience and stands out.

Character Profiles

Helen Johnson (major role) -
Age: 28 years old
Occupation: Bank Clerk in a nearby town
Helen is a young and aspirational character. She is happily engaged to Dan Baxter and are living together in the village. Helen spends her time working, and more recently planning the wedding.

Dan Baxter (major role) -
Age: 29 years old
Occupation: General assistant in the village shop
Dan is Helen Johnson fiance, he is happily engaged to her and is very excited for their big day. He spent a lot of time building up the guts to propose to Helen as he was very nervous but was very happy when he got round to it. He spends a lot of his time working at the local shop and enjoys going to the pub with Helen for a drink.

George Macintyre (major role) -
Age: 39 years old
Occupation: Unemployed
George is the village loner. He finds it hard to make friends and has very few. He is secretly in love with Helen Johnson but she does not know as he keeps himself to himself. He is unemployed and lives off benefits and his mothers money.

Hendrick Saunders (minor role) -
Age: 17 years old
Occupation: Student
Hendrick is the typical Jack the Lad. He is the popular boy amongst his group of friends and very rarely attends college. He does whatever he can to be in the centre of attention, even if it could get him into trouble. He is into drinking alcohol and occasionally drugs.

Jenny Gruff (major role) -
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Jenny is a typical teenage girl who tries her best to fit in with the crowd. She is new to the village so is trying to make new friends. She isn't the most popular girl yet but she plans to try to change this. She is focused on her studies most of the time, and is a high achiever.

Neil (minor role) -
Age: 56
Occupation: Pub Landlord
Keith loves his job working in the local pub and spending his days chatting to the locals and pouring drinks. He is very friendly and popular within the village. He is currently not in a relationship.

Keith (minor role) -
Age: 63 years old
Occupation: Unemployed
Keith is the village drunk. He has no aspirations and is on benefits. He spends all the money he does get on alcohol at the local pub.

Storylines in Detail

We have created a video to explain our storylines in more detail. The video includes clips we have created to represent the storylines, an explanation of each story and a list of which characters will be included in each story.

Target Audience Profile

Target Audience Profile

Comparisson of Target Audience Questionnaire Results

We are going to compare the results of our target audience questionnaires to see if we found the same results and to look at any similarities found.

Firstly we found that between the questionnaires the majority of the participants were females. This is very typical of a soap opera audiences as they are aimed mainly at females. We also found that range of ages interested in soaps was incredibly varied, from one survey finding the most popular age group to be 10 - 19 and another finding that it was 41 - 50. This is a very important factor we will consider because it means we will have to have a range of story lines and characters to appeal to all of these age groups. We will try and apply the uses and gratifications theory of personal identity to our soap opera so the audience will have a member of the cast who they can really relate to and sympathise with.

We found that with regards to occupation and demographic groupings, the participants ranged from groups E - C1. This includes people in retirement, students, semi skilled and unskilled worker, skilled workers, supervisory, clerical and junior managerial. This is quite a wide range of demographics but it is what we expected to find, we thought that soaps would be very popular within groups E - C1. This is because people with these jobs, will come home from work wanting to relax and unwind, by watching television and getting escapism from watching drama in someone elses lives.

When asking participants what their favourite existing soap opera was, we found that Eastenders was most popular. We believe this is because it is very appealing to a very wide audience. There is something for audiences of all ages and classes to relate to. It is also very widely advertised through the means of them media making very good use of posters and trailers.

We also asked whether audiences are influenced by viewing soap opera trailers. We found that the majority of participants said either yes or sometimes, particularly if a special episode was being advertised. This shows us that trailers can be effective if found interesting by the audience. Our trailer in a sense will be a special as it will be advertising a brand new soap, and hopefully this will enable use to gain a wide audience. This links in with our results regarding what first got people interested in soaps, which we found was trailers and word of mouth. This means that creating a trailer is likely to be effective in advert sing a new soap.

We found that the most popular time for soaps to be viewed was in the evening. We believe this is so due to a lot of people watching soaps whilst having dinner or after dinner. Also when people come home from work and want to unwind by watching something interesting on TV, they will want to watch something that will allow them to escape from their day to day life. This is where we would want the uses and gratifications theory of entertainment to be applied to soap, which says people will watch a piece of media to be entertained or to escape from day to day life.

Final Soap Idea Table

Using our mind map and discussion, we came up with a table showing the rough outline of some of our soaps conventions. The table includes our main characters from the first two episodes, the three main story lines which will take place, as well as the locations where we will set the first two episodes and the people we're aiming it at. As we came up with the ideas for the soap, one of our group members (Jimmy) even came up with names for all the characters.

I have put what is written up into an Excel graph to make it easier to read.

Table

Soap Brief

As a group we have created a brief for our new soap, we done this so we have a detailed description of the characters and locations to work with. We will be able to refer back to this whilst creating our product.

The JAMS Brief

Justification of Ideas

We have chosen these ideas because we know that they have worked and been popular in previous soaps.

The Wedding Scene:
We have chosen to create a storyline based on the idea of an interupted wedding. This kind of drama will keep the audience drawn in and create suspense. This fits in with the Uses and Gratifications theory of Diversion. This means the audience will watch the soap to escape from everday problems by watching something exciting and different to everyday life.
An example of this would be seen in Hollyoaks were the wedding was stopped by Max's accident.













The Pub Scene:
We are going to include scene revolving around a pub as we know the is a very strong convention in soaps and is very popular. This is evident from all existing soaps being baseed around a pub community. We plan to show the elder characters in our soap appearing in the pub, being the gossip based characters. This links into the uses and gratifications theory of Personal Identiy as we can appeal to an elder audience by including characters they would relate to.

Such as:













The Queen Vic from Eastenders

The Rovers Return from Corronation Street

The Party Story:
We have chosen to create a storyline based around a house party to help us appeal to a younger audience part of the socio economic group E. This links to the uses and gratifications of personal identity meaning the young audience will be able to relate to the young characters. We know this story will be popular as similiar stories have been used before. Such as Lucy Beale from Eastenders holding a house party that goes wrong.

Developing Storylines

We continued the mind mapping process by drawing these pictures to help us vizualise the potenial storylines for our soap. We have tried to include stories that fit in with typical soap opera conventions. To do this we have got stories revoliving around love, family life, young couples, a wedding, a pub based scene and a scene containing issues such as underage drinking and drug use. As we know these conventions already work in exsisting soaps, for example Phil Mitchell in Eastenders using drugs, it is a good idea to carry on the use of these conventions as they are popular and likely to gain a big audience.

Soap Ideas

Initial Soap Ideas

We have created this mind map to enable us to get together all our ideas on what our soap should include. We thought about potential storylines, characters, locations and target audience. We will develop this to get a definite plan for the items appearing in our soap.

the JAM

This is our group blog where we will post all of our planning, ideas and any work we have done. The group consists of Matt Bigg, Abi Crafter, James Garrod and Stephanie Hadlow.

We will be producing a trailer for a new soap opera, along with a poster and a magazine cover to promote this soap.