Introduction to Television Soaps

Media Blogger TV Soaps.

In the first lesson our class had to analyse television soaps (serial drama). I began by listing all of the soaps which I knew, the television I knew have been listed below:

-          Eastenders

-          Corrination Street

-          Hollyoaks

-          Emmerdale

-          Doctors

I decided that the list above are all television soaps as they all have a continuous plots which run throughout numerous episodes and they are not televised in seasons as they continuously run throughout the year on weekdays and scheduled at the same time.

We then had to give our opinion on soaps and what effect they have on the public, like many I had a positive outlook on soap operas although I don’t follow any of the soaps mentioned previously. I believe that soaps are good as they create gossip which people can talk about amongst their peers, create a family time as they appeal to a non-niche audience and they use of realism which people may relate to; which can been seen when viewers also engage with the characters on the screen.

We then watched a passage of the soap opera ‘Eastenders’ in order to see how they are filmed and have an analytical view using media terminology. I focused on the way Eastenders helps the audience catch up with the story of the soap; there were numerous ways which this was done in the episode which were;

-          Charlie listing historical events.

-          Personalities shown.

-          Frequent use of names.

-          Display of relationships.

The list above is typical of soap operas, they enable new/catch up viewers to understand and know needed information about characters of the soap within the episode that are relevant to the story line. There was also a few media techniques used which all contributed to the realism to the soap which are listed below.

CAMERA:

-          Close Up (CU): to show the expressions of characters and reflect their emotion.

-          Point of View (POV): focuses on important element (usually a prop or mise en scene) from the characters view.

EDITING:

-          Shot Reverse Shot: show characters talking within a conversation, usually fast paced.

-          Cuts: to add realism as it’s how the audience would see the transition if it was real rather than other transitions such as screen dissolves or swipes.

-          Sound Bridge: adds continuity as the sound overlaps what is on screen in order to make a more understandable cut transition to the next scene.

LOCATIONS:

In the episode there were uses of a house and church, this added realism to the episode as they are places which characters reside and a community area which people visit in real day to day life making the story more believable from use of realistic settings.