By Jordan, Alex, Morgan and Mollie

*

It is important that everything in the media industry has

a genre, because if it didn’t it would not have a target

audience and then it wouldn’t sell. This is no exception

to Soap Operas for example Hollyoaks is for a younger

audience because the characters in it are younger and it

is on earlier in the day compared to most Soaps.

However, soaps like Doctors are on earlier in the day and

therefore are aimed at older people because young

adults and people are at school.

There are three different types of genre for Soap Operas

they are:

Glamorous- everything in the soap is more expensive.

The people are upper class.

Light Entertainment- a soap you can laugh at and relate

too.

Social Realist- realistic and more sensibly than light

entertainment soaps.

Eastenders is a light

entertainment soap opera,

with storylines that can be

challenging but occasionally

funny.

Dallas is much more glamorous

because it is in America, with

sports cars and designer

clothing.

Doctors is more of a social

realist, it isn’t as dramatic as

some of the other well known

soaps.

Within Soap Operas it is important to have stereotypical characters. They are used to help

the audience identify characters and lets them get a better understanding of the storyline.

Some stereotypical characters appear in most Soap Operas, a few examples of these are:

* Thug – A violent person. Gangster like character. (Phil Mitchell)

* Nosy neighbour – Likes to know everyone else’s business. (Blanche Hunt)

* Womaniser – Seduces women. Has short meaningless relationships with them. (Carl King)

* Jack the lad – Someone who feeds on attention. Acts like a big man. (Max Branning)

* Young Ruffian – Causes trouble. Bully. Craves attention. (Ben Mitchell)

These stereotypes commonly apply to characters such as, Phil Mitchell, Blanche Hunt, Carl

King, Max Branning and Ben Mitchell.

Narrative

Soap Operas contain different storylines. For example

Emmerdale had a plane crash that viewers complained

about because it was broadcast close to the fifth

anniversary of the Lockerbie Disaster.

Dallas had a on-going storyline, “Who shot J.R.?” It was

eventually resolved months later to have been Kristen

Shepard, Sue Ellen's scheming sister.

Narratives are an important part of Soap operas as they

are what causes the audience to continue watching the

program. Usually at the end of each episode there is a

mini-cliffhanger that makes the audience watch the

next episode to see it resolved or view the rest of the

series to see the event resolved. Most storylines that

are used for soaps are things that you would find in real

life. For example they include murders, adultery and

people with drinking problems.

Emmerdale Plane crash

Who shot J.R.?

Coronation Street had a storyline that went

on for a week that featured a tram crash. It

effected the characters because they still

mention it in discussions today. It effected

the die-hard fans of Corrie because they

believed it really happened.Audiences of soaps like

Eastenders sometimes come

from deprived areas and like

to get involved in the

storylines.

The new series of Dallas has numerous

storylines. The selling of South fork

ranch, and Bobby’s battle with cancer. The

audience can instantly connect with the

characters because of the storylines and how

they are portrayed. An example of a

storyline is the battle between the brothers

John Ross Ewing and Christopher Ewing. This

storyline brings lots of tension and the

audience can relate to it because they might

have a bad relationship with their family.

**Mise-en-Scene is a French term used to describe the design aspects

of a theatre or film production.

*Mise-en-Scene is split into 5 features which are devised to send

signals to the audience about how we are supposed to feel about a

certain point. These features are:

*Settings and Location

*Facial Expression and Body Language

*Position of Characters and Objects in a Frame

*Lighting and Colour

*Props and Costumes and Hair and Make-Up

**An important part in film making either built from scratch or one that

already exists can manipulate an audience builds expectations then takes a

different turn. Some examples are;

*Science Fiction = Space

*Romantic Comedy = Home/Work/Happy/Dark/Candles

*Horror = Isolated House/Woods/Dark/Cellar/Basement

*Coronation Street = Manchester

*

*Clear indication of feelings smiling/happy (may be different in scary

movies). How a character feels towards another character/body

language. States, reflects relationship.

You can clearly see how these characters are

feeling in these scenes due to their facial

expressions.

*

*Power = Looking Up

*Closer to camera = status (and focus) puts emphasis on certain characters

*Image = two people opposite ends of a sofa, facial expression/ body language

*(eg Men in Black2 poster; Double act, mirrored actions, powers, shades, cool, kick ass, mysterious, covered identity)

**To highlight

characters/objects/mysterious/dark/disturbed/shading/confused/co

lour- Red=passionate/fiery – Green=calm. Hidden Emotions

*Low Key Lighting – backlights light and dark areas – used a lot horror

films – isolations – dark lonely places,

*High Key Lighting – Happy, Sunny – Rom Coms

*

*The costume, hair and make up play a huge part in showing off a

character in any soap. If they are wearing a suit then you instantly

think that this person is sophisticated and have a good job, whereas

if they were wearing a hoodie, track suit and trainers, you instantly

know that this person is a typical chav.

*You can easily see what time period any soap is in depending on what

they are wearing. If it was Downton Abbey then they would all be

wearing older period costumes whereas if they were in Eastenders

then they would be wearing the chav clothes described above.

**Low Shot = A way of making the subject appear more powerful

*High Shot = A way of making the subject appear more vulnerable

*Close Up = A way of capturing emotion or establishing connection

*

For a Soap opera to be popular it needs an

audience and because many main stream

soaps have been running for so long they

have not only a huge audience but fans as

well.

Some people get so involved in the storylines

they write hate mail to the actors or

actresses playing the character. For example

in Eastenders there was an abusive husband.

He would walk along the street and get dirty

looks as well as hate mail.

In Coronation Street when Deidre was in

prison there was a campaign from fans to get

her out.

Audience

Emmerdale had 9.2 million viewers on it’s 40th anniversary live episode.

Eastenders had 16.2 million viewers on it’s 25th anniversary live episode.

Coronation Street had 14.9 million viewers on it’s 50th anniversary live episode.

*

Our Soap

**We decided our soap opera should be

glamorous. Like the new Dallas it will have big

houses, nice cars and pretty people.

Main Characters.

Mum – Allison Smith – Karen Gillan

Husband – Seth Smith Jensen Ackles

Little Girl – Hope Smith Maggie Elizabeth

Jones

Boyfriend – Nathan Green - Bradley James

Additional Characters:

Farmer Joe – Peter Davison

Ann (Farmer Wife) – Janet Fielding

Mary (Daughter) – Sarah Sutton

*

*We decided to chose actors we knew to act in our soap opera, I liked Karen Gillian as Amy Pond (Doctor Who) and decided to cast her as something for the dads! Jensen Ackles and Bradley James are excellent actors from two highly regarded shows, Supernatural and Merlin. Also Jensen Ackles is no stranger to soaps, he played Eric Brady in the american soap, Days of our lives.

* I chose Peter Davison, Janet fielding and Sarah Sutton because they worked well together and are great friends and therefore have great chemistry on screen. Also they are my favorite TARDIS team!!!

**Mum and a five year old daughter escape after

abuse from the husband. Mum and Daughter

move to a new street away from husband. They

start a new family and after a few months the

husband finds them. At this point the mum has

a new boyfriend to protect them. The husband

kidnaps them. Eventually they are found and

the husband is locked up.

*

* Farmer Joe has a skeleton in his closet. It turns out he murdered an intruder on his farm and buried him. The Intruder turns out to be Seth’s granddad. Seth’s parents have a lot of money and manage to get him out of prison after he had kidnapped his family. He hires a hit man to kill farmer Joe and his family. Nathan finds something incriminating on Seth and it is big enough to put him away for a long time. Everyone from the show turns up at court and gives evidence to put Seth away. He is given life imprisonment however by this point the damage has been done. Farmer Joe and his family get put into protective custody and taken to a safe house. The hitman has rigged an explosion to occur when they shut the door. The house blows up killing the family. Allison realizes it is not safe for her daughter anymore and tells Nathan to take Hope and go somewhere where no one would find them. They head to Paris. Allison has begun drinking and fills her glass with brandy. She drinks it and falls over, poisoned.

* Folks would be broadcast in seasons of 23/24 episodes. This would be a good idea for a number of reasons. The actors would have time to work on other projects like Jensen Ackles could continue to play Dean Winchester on Supernatural and Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton would be able to continue with Doctor Who.

* We can end each season on a cliffhanger making the audience wanting to watch the next season to see the cliffhanger concluded.

* Finally it would be good for the show because the media would be interested in finding out anything they can about the next season.

Possible cliffhangers.

Meteor shower or plane crash

House explosion with someone inside

Terrorist attack

Literally a cliffhanger, someone

pushes someone over a cliff!

Location

We decided to set our soap opera in Folkestone

Kent. We decided to set it here because it is very

pretty and it kind of is the place you would go to

get away and start a new life. As you can see from

the pictures it is a seaside town and boats are

always there. It would be busy so it would not be

hard to blend in.