Soap trailer evaluation

Emma Hardy Emma Hardy Candidate no: 3487Candidate no: 3487

OCR G324 – Advanced Production OCR G324 – Advanced Production

Evaluation Qs. 1 – In what ways does your product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE existing codes and conventions?

Evaluation Qs. 2 – How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Qs. 3 – What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Evaluation Qs. 4 - How did you use media Technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Questions:

The brief we were given:

My group and I have chosen to create a new soap featuring a trailer and including a magazine front cover and a poster, both featuring our soap.

http://emmahardya2media.blogspot.com/ - Link to my blog, featuring planning, drafts of trailer and final soap trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuVExGlK4y0 – Link to my final soap trailer on YouTube.

Final ancillary products:

Evaluation Qs. 1 – In what ways does your product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE existing codes and

conventions?

(MOST OF QS. 1 IS AS A VIDEO – Link on my blog)

http://emmahardya2media.blogspot.com/

After researching the genre of soaps which we wanted to create and the typical conventions which are represented in a soap, we had to research a similar existing soap to ours to see how we could represent our soap similarly to an existing one and also how we could develop on what types of soap operas there are already on the market.

The similarities between our soap and an existing soap is;

• Some of the camera angles and shots were the same, as we also tried to include typical soap shot types.

• Character stereotypes we used, helped to give a better understanding of the storyline for the audience.

• The brand’s institution has been recognised throughout the trailer and ancillary products.

• There are parallel storylines running throughout the trailer.

Q1.Q1.

As we were aiming our soap at teenagers and young adults we wanted to create a similar soap feel as ‘Hollyoaks’. In order to create this time of soap we looked closely at the shot types which ‘Hollyoaks’ use.

Hollyoaks used shots such as:

Big Close Up Long shot, walking towards camera

Medium long shot, sat on sofa

Q1.Q1.

My group and I then tried to re-create some of the same shots ‘Hollyoaks’ use in their soap, and tried to fit them in within out soap trailer.

Big Close UpLong shot, walking towards

cameraMedium long shot, sat on sofa

Q1.Q1.

Similar shot types as an existing soap:

As well as looking at soaps such as ‘Hollyoaks’ and ‘Coronation Street’ we also looked at soap/drama – ‘Waterloo Road’ which is shown on BBC 1. We wanted to look at ‘Waterloo’

road’s camera angles and shots as it is filmed in a school/college so the age groups are similar to our soap’s ages, we wanted to see how the teenagers were represented.

Existing soap drama Our soap

Similarities: There are similarities between these two shots, as they are both framed in an over-the-shoulder shot and an MCU of the other person facing the camera.

Differences: However, there are some subtle differences between my soap’s clip and an existing soap clip. On my soap’s clip you are able to see more of the character’s shoulder and head compared to the existing soap’s shot. Also the girl in the existing soap is wearing a uniform to show what type of location this shot is taken at.

Q1.Q1.

Non-diegetic sound:

We had to edit in a scream when the girl (Sarah) gets kidnapped by the man, as there was no scream when she actually filmed it therefore we had to be careful with the editing to make sure the scream sounded realistic and was in sync with her mouth movement.

Q1.Q1.

Editing:

• The sharp editing creates a tense vibe, especially when the chorus kicks in, the fighting scene happens when the music is at an increased volume and also when the tempo is fast.

• The slow-motion editing in some points of the trailer creates suspense and apprehension for the audience.

• We have used different camera angles, so the story is shown from other people’s perspectives to help the audience get a better understanding of the storyline.

Mise en scene:

The mise en scene is created by the realistic setting/location we used, as we filmed our soap in a house therefore is realistic scenery and would be shown in a soap. Props were used such as a bed, a mobile phone and a work folder to again show a realistic approach to our soap, so that it wasn’t far-fetched and so that the target audience could relate to the mise en scene created.

Q1.Q1.

Title Cards:

The use of title cards at the end of our soap trailer, represents the feelings portrayed in the soap. The title cards are with a quick tempo towards the end of the trailer to encourage the audience to work out why there are certain words being associated with the soap.

The three title cards allow the audience to identify and guess which title card links to which character and storyline.

Q1.Q1.

Evaluation Qs. 2 – How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Creating a brand:

We all knew that we wanted to aim our soap at the ‘E4’ target audience members, therefore we had to create a theme throughout all of our products which we created.

On the main soap trailer, the title cards show the brand’s institution – by having the writing on the title cards in the brand’s specific font, on the last title card it shows the E4 logo - showing the institution – which will feature on the poster and may feature on the magazine front cover.

To keep with E4’s brand, we had to use font ‘American Typewriter’ when mentioning E4 on titles and also any writing on the poster. By using the same font which E4 uses it shows that we are keeping the brand running throughout all of our products.

Font = ‘American Typewriter’

Q2.Q2.

Creating a brand:

As well as using the same fonts throughout on all the titles cards etc. we also had to include the brand’s logo – which we all decided would be E4. The extremely recognisable E4 logo is seen on the soap trailer – showing the audience where they will find this particular soap, the poster – to advertise the soap and for the audience to know where they can watch it and will also feature in the magazine.

As E4 is a popular television station in the UK, several viewers identify E4 with the purple colour, therefore we made sure that our main colour theme was purple and would be the theme colour on our title cards and the poster so the audience can identify the institution.

Our brand’s institution

Q2.Q2.

Combination of trailer and ancillaries:

As we were creating a soap to be shown on E4, we had to make sure that there were similarities between the three products (soap and ancillaries) so that they interlinked.

We made sure that the billboard poster for our soap had the E4 logo and the name of the soap. The purple colour used on the E4 logo and banner was also represented through our soap trailer to show that the soap was an E4 product. On the magazine front cover, we represented the brand on the strip running across the top of the cover – to represent that the star of the magazine was from an E4 product.

On the poster and on the soap’s title cards we used the same font ‘American Typewriter’ which is the actual font that E4 use.

Q2.Q2.

Q2.Q2.

Magazine ancillary:

Before building our magazine front cover to feature our soap trailer, we looked at existing soap and TV magazines to help us recreate one ourselves. As our soap represents a high class of people, due to it being set on a farm, we decided to follow the conventions of a TV magazine called ‘TV & Satellite’ as this was quite a formal magazine and was not tacky like most soap magazines such as ‘TV Choice’.

Q2.Q2.Magazine ancillary:Large masthead, in white

Star’s eye looking directly at the reader

Other soap/TV dramas feature on the cover

Includes ‘new’ programmes, with photo slanted and with a yellow background

Brand institution shown

Includes several features and barcode

Similarities:

Q2.Q2.Poster ancillary:

We used a similar structure to the E4 ‘Skins’ poster to help us create a billboard poster of our own.

Soap/drama name and brand - E4 banner & logo with when it is aired.

Showing the more dominant/main character

Soap/drama’s setting/location features in the background

Poster includes other characters in the soap/drama

Similarities between our poster and an existing poster:

Q2.Q2.Poster ancillary:

Differences between our poster and an existing poster:

The differences between our poster for our soap and an existing poster for ‘Skins’ is the following;

• We wanted our poster to be landscape so we could incorporate the full image of the farm house/soap’s setting behind the characters.

• The layout is slightly different as we wanted to include the two girl characters (Sambuca and Bella) and their faces and body language, however on the Skins poster there are only two characters who are really in the picture.

• Able to see the difference in class, as our soap’s poster is bright representing wealth and higher class, whereas the Skins poster is dark and dull representing a lower class.