Read through the PowerPoint below, this will be used during lessons to guide you through Section A of the exam. Of the next week and Christmas Holidays research the Key Concepts, Possible Theory and Critical Approaches on slides 23 and 24.
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
Making links - Soap Opera Conventions
It's important that you can confidently talk about your trailer. Try the following task, and also return to it when you have completed all editing and have produced a final cut.
CLICK HERE to view the post that will help you with this
- How have you shown through your planning that you have made use of GENERIC soap opera conventions? (Go through each point on the Emaze presentation - address the ones applicable to your planning - no need to go through all the characters, just the ones present in your trailer)
- How have to applied the conventions of soap opera trailers in your trailer? and how do GENERIC soap opera conventions feature in your trailer?
- Explain how research has influenced your planning and final production (discuss trailer AND ancillary tasks). Reference specific research tasks, in particular research into existing media texts.
- How has MEDIA LANGUAGE been used to create meaning in your trailer? refer to Mise-en-scene, Cinematography (camerawork & lighting), Editing, Sound
- Discuss who your target audience is, how does your trailer appeal to them? Go through the audience 'types', would your trailer attract the attention of anyone not in your target audience group? - refer to audience feedback
Tuesday, 8 December 2015
Thursday, 26 November 2015
HOMEWORK
DUE MONDAY 30TH NOVEMBER
'Theories of intertextuality suggest that within a postmodern cultural context audiences inevitably read individual texts with an awareness to other texts which they might relate'. To what extent would you agree with this statement?
Referring to the research you should have completed for homework (CLICK HERE) write, 750-1000 words, use key words and reference actual media texts to support your argument(s).
DUE MONDAY 7TH DECEMBER
Read through exemplar candidate scripts, highlight and makes notes. You should be able to comment on the general structure of a typical answer to questions 1a and 1b and the content you are expected to write on. Below you will find the past exam questions:
Thursday, 19 November 2015
Media Theory: Homework
Due to not having access to 324B, on Monday's we will have theory lessons. Please complete the following homework.
- Find out what the following terms mean?
- Apply them to existing media texts - be prepared to show examples
- Can you apply any of the terms to your soap trailer? (doing this will provide you with a way of breaking with conventions)
WORDS TO RESEARCH:
- INTERTEXTUALITY
- PARODY
- PASTICHE
- HOMAGE
- BRICOLAGE
LINKS TO HELP:
Evaluation Questions
In the evaluation the following four questions must be addressed:
- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
- What have you learned from your audience feedback?
- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Consider the research and planning you have done up to now, would you be able to address any of these questions? 1, 3 and 4 should have some sort of answers by now and if not from this point on you will need to address that fact.
Ways to address 3 and 4
- Undertake a focus group - find out what people like about Soap Operas, why do they watch them? What keeps them watching? Show them some trailers what elements did they like/not like? Invite a small group of people to take part and film it, the video can go on your blog and the findings should inform your planning.
- When you have finished your pitches, we will deliver them to each other and feel in feedback forms. Pitches will be filmed you can then upload these to your blog and get more feedback. All feedback should inform your planning and changes to be made accordingly.
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Jobs in the Media
ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement)/Dialogue Editors
-
Advertising and Editorial Photographer
Advertising copywriter
Animation Director or Supervisor
Assistant Editor
Boom Operator
Camera Operator
Casting Assistant
CG Modeller
Compositor
Digital Painter
Director
Director of Photography
Distributor
Editor
EPK Director/Producer
Executive Producer
Foley Editor
Gaffer
Game Designer
Level Editor
Lighting Technical Director or Lighter
Magazine journalist
Newspaper journalist
Producer
Radio Broadcast Journalist
Radio Presenter
Storyboard Artist
Technical Director
Title Designer (TD)
TV Broadcast Journalist
TV Presenter
Web content manager
Writer
Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Soap Opera Trailers
How does the Kat and Alfie Trailer below employ intertextuality?
How can you apply intertextuality to your soap opera trailer?
Media Theory: Roland Barthes 5 Codes
For Section A of the exam you need to have knowledge of media theory that you can apply to your production work. If you have read my example analysis of a soap opera trailer you would have seen that I referred to Barthes 5 codes. Click the picture to find out more about these.
Wednesday, 11 November 2015
Lesson notes
At this stage it is of upmost importance that all RESEARCH is complete and PLANNING to be done by the end of this week, if not deadlines will not be met. In class you did some of the following and you will need to complete the rest to ensure that PLANNING to done well. You will be pitching your ideas during Fridays lesson (20th Nov). By now you should have also finished the RESEARCH for magazine covers and posters. Once your group has confirmed final decisions about the trailer individuals MUST start to plan their ancillary tasks.
- Write a paragraph about an existing soap
- Write one about your own soap
- When will it be on? Days, time why?
- What channel will it be on and why?
- Who is your target audience? Why will your soap appeal to them? (write an audience profile)
- What kind of trailer are you creating?
- What storyline will be featured?
- Create a moodboard
- STORYBOARD
- How has you planning of been influenced by your research?
- What soap opera conventions have you featured in your trailer?
- Have you been able to break with any conventions, in terms of content and/or technical structure?
Friday, 6 November 2015
Soap Opera Audiences
Read the following and take some time to read the original, then can you:
The following has been taken from an Ofcom document entitled Soap box or soft soap? Audience attitudes to the British soap opera. Click logo for the whole report.
- categorise the target audience for your soap opera as; Fanatics, Ironics, the Non-committed or Dismissives
- Apply Uses and Gratification Theory (Blumler and Katz)
The following has been taken from an Ofcom document entitled Soap box or soft soap? Audience attitudes to the British soap opera. Click logo for the whole report.
- The importance of the soap opera to the British audience as a popular form of entertainment has been well-documented. The genre stands out from other television programme types as one in which the audience invests both time and involvement, building relationships with characters over time. This means that expectations about the genre are based on experience, and the individual nature of each soap opera is created through an established long-term familiarity. It is when these expectations are challenged, with little warning or in a way considered inappropriate to that particular soap opera, that the Broadcasting Standards Commission receives complaints.
- soap operas are generally scheduled before the 9.00 p.m. Watershed and are viewed frequently as a family
- ‘There is ... a ... subtle sense in which soaps can be considered instructive. Since they concentrate on inter-personal relations ... set in a social and political milieu intended to parallel the surrounding society, they can hardly fail to send messages about appropriate or expected behaviour.’ (Other Worlds: Society Seen through Soap Opera, D. Anger, Bradview Press, 1999.)
- In soaps ... problems are attached to or worked through with particular characters and the handling of a specific issue depends very much on the way in which that character has already been established.’ (Social Issues and realist soaps: A study of British soaps in the 1980/1990s, C. Geraghty in R. C. Allen (ed) To Be Continued ... Soap operas around the world, Routledge, 1995.)
- [the] genre [is seen] as a vehicle for discussion, especially of social issues.
- Entertainment is the driving interest, mentioned by nearly two in five respondents (38%), underlining the importance of the soap opera as a way of ‘switching off’ for a period of time.
- ‘It’s only when you sit here and talk about how you think the storylines went and what you think about them. Without this I would just be watching it, absorb it and it would go out the other ear. I don’t really sit there and think about it too much. I know that it’s not going to offend me or shock me in any way. I can deal with whatever they’re going to throw up.’(Mixed Surbiton group, aged 20-35, Ironic) Despite this participant’s view of the importance of the soap opera in his or her consciousness, it is clear that there is generally a socially cohesive element to soap opera viewing.
- A quarter of the general public lives in households where most members watch soap operas together and soap operas are discussed in one form or another by two in five households, especially if the children are of secondary school age.
- ‘One of the characteristics of British television is the way in which the home-produced soaps have undertaken a realist function in their representation of British society ... Realism is a key concept for these ... British soaps and is called on as a justification or a rationale for the world they depict.’ (They Killed off Marlena, but She’s on Another Show Now: Fantasy, Reality and Pleasure in Watching Daytime Soap Opera, L. Spence in R. C. Allen (ed) To be continued ... Soap operas around the world, Routledge, 1995.)
Lesson Notes
Today you began brainstorming ideas that will help you to create your pitch. You came up with your initial ideas for your soap opera using a PowerPoint that can be found here. The ideas that you got down today can be turned into a visual mood board.
Interesting conversations were had about channel choices, audiences and scheduling. It's good that you were thinking about how you were going to attract your target audience through the channel that your soap will be on and the time that it will be on. Remember PRIME TIME is 7pm - 10pm and consider who the competition is on other channels.
It's really important that you work on pinning down your storylines as it is these or perhaps just one that will feature in your trailer. When considering your storylines always keep in mind casting WHO are you going to choose to act these characters for you?
The issue of music also came up, you can create your own theme tune, or if you know music students or musicians they may be able to work on something for you. You can't use an existing song for a theme tune, but you can use an existing song as a soundtrack if relevant to the storyline your are portraying. Hollyoaks used Billy Idol's White Wedding song.
After every lesson or team meeting outside of lessons ensure that you complete a journal post on your blog and label it as Production Journal. This should detail what you have done, and your plans moving forward. This doesn't always have to be written, you can record your planning sessions and then upload that to the blog.
HOMEWORK - Make sure you complete ALL research tasks, I will be marking blogs on Monday. Also you can carry on working on your pitch (split up the items that contribute to the Planning/pitch).
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Soap Opera Magazines
Can you all please purchase at least 2 soap opera magazines, you can find them online but they are dated. I will also try and get some and scan them for you.
Soap Opera Conventions
The following presentation was created using the work from CLICK HERE please do read more on the topic.
Soap Opera Posters
The conventions of a soap opera poster can depend up its purpose, clearly the main purpose is to promote the soap opera and attract the target audience to tune in and watch. All posters feature the channel logo, this not only shows what channel the soap is on but provides key institutional information, it informs viewers that this broadcaster is the producer of the soap opera. In the case of new soaps this institutional information is key as it will make them aware of the standard and potential style of the soap. In addition whatever channel the soap is on can in some cases also signal the potential target audience. Other conventions include a slogan from the examples below this can be with regard to a dramatic week, a specific on going storyline or to just promote the soap in general e.g. "Rub some Hollyoaks on it." In some cases the poster can also include a date and time or just the date - THIS WON'T be with regard to the normal scheduled times for that soap, but will signal when the drama will 'kick off'.
The following images are not posters but stills from trailers, but you can see how they could be turned into posters very easily
Hollyoaks 20th Anniversary
C4’s flagship soap, Hollyoaks celebrated 20 years on screen on October 23rd 2015, this would be a good case study to see how the promotion for the celebration worked across TV - the trailer/s, in magazines and through posters
Soap Opera Trailer Conventions
The average length of a soap opera trailer is 30 seconds to 1 minute longer, the trailers that exceed this length tend to be for exceptional story lines that the broadcast channel believe will attract large
viewing figures.
Friday, 16 October 2015
Types of Soap Opera Trailers
If you look at soap opera trailers you will notice that they fall into different categories:
Official C4 Hollyoaks Trailer: June 2015 'Proposals, police hunts and private affairs...'
STORY LINE SPECIFIC
Eastenders trailer for the 30th anniversary of the BBC show
The Week of Revelations - EastEnders 2015 Trailer - BBC One
THEMATIC
Fateful summer on Emmerdale
- Season
- Story line Specific
- Thematic
Look at the following examples
- On your blogs provide and description for each type; Season, Story line specific and Thematic.
- Using these examples or ones of your choice conduct and textual analysis of each type, ensure you use media language/terminology and reference how they have used soap trailer conventions.
- Say which type of blog you are going to create and how you are going to use and or subvert soap opera conventions.
SEASON
Official Hollyoaks Trailer - Spring 2015
'Betrayal, affairs and Mercedes McQueen homecoming... Spring has officially sprung in Hollyoaks!'
'Betrayal, affairs and Mercedes McQueen homecoming... Spring has officially sprung in Hollyoaks!'
Official C4 Hollyoaks Trailer: June 2015 'Proposals, police hunts and private affairs...'
STORY LINE SPECIFIC
Eastenders trailer for the 30th anniversary of the BBC show
The Week of Revelations - EastEnders 2015 Trailer - BBC One
THEMATIC
Shirley apologises to her son - EastEnders - BBC One
Fateful summer on Emmerdale
In addition to the types you should notice that soap opera producers tend to use trailers as a chance to break from the conventional way soap operas are filmed and come across visually. The mise-en-scene and cinematography lend themselves more to film conventions, this could be to excite the target audience. See the Coronation Street one below BUT you should have noticed this in some of the above examples too.
A2 G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media
Your A2 coursework is worth 25% of your final coursework grade. For your Advanced Portfolio you will be creating:
A promotional package for a new soap opera, to include a TV Trailer as the main task and 2 ancillary products which will be a listings magazine front cover and a poster for soap.
It's very important that you research the conventions of soap, soap trailers, soap listings magazines and soap posters. This research will provide you with the knowledge needed to apply to the planning and construction of your media products.
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