Soap Opera Conventions: Camera, Editing and Sound Conventions

Soap do not usually contain a lot of action, and are mostly dialogue-driven, the camera is made as invisible as possible in order to create an eye witness affect, the shots that are used to achieve this affect are establishing shots, over-the-shoulder shots, two-shots, mid close ups and extreme close ups.
Movement of the camera is also important as it navigates to and from conversation, moving the narrative to another interweaving the storyline changing the subject matter and visuals.

The establishing or linking sequences show the spacial context by providing an overview of the location, this is used when the storyline changes but can not be changed by the narrative.

The editing within soap opera is very simple, this means there are no or very little use of dissolves or fades, and only use of cuts in order to create a natural transition between story lines.

Sound within soaps is always diegetic; this means there is no added sound, meaning the sound within soaps is normally conversation, background noise, or music being played in the background (not soundtrack). Theme music for soaps plays an important role as is signals the start of the programme and at the end of the the programme which works as a cliff-hanger as well as adding suspense to the scene; it is usually the first note which overlaps the final frame of the programme which is the only non-diegetic sound within most soaps.

Soap Opera Conventions: Narrative Conventions

Soaps have no beginning and no end in terms of narrative, this makes them ongoing. This is achieved as there are interweaving storylines, narrative threads and strands. Soap opera episodes usually begin with an establishing sequence in order to show the location and are normally set at the beginning of the day. Each episode also ends with a cliff-hanger in order to tease the audience and influence of them to watch the next episode.

Episodes may contain the enigma code; this is where the question is raised, and an action; answer to the enigma occur, these are useful in creating storylines. Soap opera's storylines are usually based around themes, which can be introduced and develop over a period of time until they come to a resolution, or partial closure where something is left open and can be developed if the future.

Soap Opera Conventions: Location, Characters, and Subject Matter

All soap operas have an established location; example of established location: a street. Within established locations there are communities; characters who all know eachother.
Communities make meeting places in soaps important, they enable characters to gossip and share information, which is great for the creation and continuity of a storyline; example of meeting places: a pub.This may also be related to the proximity within soaps as characters never get far away from the established location for their work, or meeting places for an evening out.
Established characters within close-knit communities are an important narrative focus within soap operas, this is because new characters can be introduced, characters may leave, or old characters may return.
Families are also an important aspect of this convention as they may be extended or feuds between families. Both characters and families can give more information on the location or their class as well as their secrets which may be exploited to the viewers resulting in more interesting storylines which keep the audience entertained.

Group Planning: Pitch

Left: Seb Hall, Centre Left: David Maddy, Centre Right: Myself - Dalian White, Right: Philip Gatward

In order to obtain feedback on our goups ideas for a new soap and trailer, we had to plan and deliver a pitch to the class.

Our roles which we assigned within our group for the pitch were and a description of each section:

Seb: Name and Channel, Roles.

As we was undecided on a name for our soap we did not have a title for our soap in time for the pitch.

The chanel we chose to air our soap on was BBC 1; the main aim for this was to be the channels equivalent to Channel 4's Hollyoaks, we felt this would be new for the channel and attract younger audiences to watch.

David: Location Photos, Music.

For our group planning we needed location photos in order to find locations where we would be able to film our footage. After taking photos for our planning we used them in our pitch, the key locations within our pitch was the Pig and Falcon (Pub/Communal Area), and an Alley (for drug scene). We was also still undecided on the music for our soap as we was still planning our storyboards for the soap, a website which we had been using to look for music was Sound Cloud.

Myself: Target Audience, Editing Specification.

As we wanted to be the equivalent to channels 4's Hollyoaks on BBC 1 because we wanted to attract a younger audience, we decided to target the age group of 16-24. We had a very brief outline of the editing that we wanted to use within our soap which was based on the story board. As many soaps are used to create realism we did not want to include a lot of editing within our trailer, so we aimed to use as much raw footage as possible, as a group we decided we would use basic dissolves, and title screens within our trailer.

Philip: Characters

Finally we mentioned the characters within our soap trailer that we wanted to introduce, these where mainly teenaged males, we planned to use two males for the drug deal, a male losing a bet, and a pair of males getting ready to go out, and a coouple (one male/one female) which would be used to exploit the theme of family issues as we wanted an argument to occur within the trialer.

Pitch Feedback

The key feedback we recieved in order to help us with the planning of our soap, was to come up with a title by using local location or something which can relate to the characters of the soap we have created. The class suggested that we also involve more female roles within the soap as they are matriarchs within soaps so it was important to have females within a soap. The final piece of feedback which we recieved from our pitch was based on the music and to have a more specific target audience and valid reason as to why we have chosen to target them.

Settings: British Soap Operas

 Many British soap operas use common/public areas for their settings. Most sets used for soaps contain houses where the local characters reside and a communal area such as a pub. The use of these communal areas helps to create a multi-strand narrative as well as interlink characters and storyline of a single episode.  We see many times where a vast amount of characters within one episode, are all in one communal area.  A good example of this would be Eastenders where characters meet at the Queen Vic.

Another key reason for having these types of settings is in order to create a sense of realism. This is because they are places which we; the viewers can relate to, and is where we also go for family or friend gatherings.  Examples from British soaps of these types of settings include; Eastenders (Queen Victoria), Hollyoaks (Dog in the Pond), and Coronation Street (The Rovers Return). Below are images of these settings.

 Eastenders: The Queen Victoria

 Hollyoaks: The Dog in the Pond

 Coronation Street: The Rovers Return

Other settings within soaps usually include profession; an example may be a corner shop, salon, restaurant or a club. These also add to the realism of soaps, as they gives us more information on the characters and what they do for a living, which makes their personality and lifestyles more believable.

Group Meeting 2 Soap Discussion

For our groups second meeting, in our lesson we finalised our job roles within our group. Once we had finished assigning our roles we began to think about what to do for our soap.

Storyline ideas:
As leader of the storyline I led a group discussion, the initial idea David had was to have a drug scene or a chase. As we was struggling to create a storyline for a new soap I suggested we come up with narratives which we could use. Below is a list of the narratives we thought of to include:
- Crime (chase, drugs)
- Relationship (issue, friendship)
- Cafe (community area)
- Market (dodgy dealer)

Locations:
Town bridge
Pub

Group Meeting 1 Soap Discussion

For creating our own soap, we decided to be in the groups which we was in for our AS Media Studies group whilst creating our horror, this is because we worked well in order to create our footage.
For our first group discussion we (being myself, seb, David and Philip) had a discussion and brainstormed ideas of what to base our soap around.
As I am interested in law I was keen to somehow relate it with a soap as the main theme.

Job roles:
Seb - story boards, film.
Dalian - storylines, lead editor.
David - location photos, music.
Philip - project manager, director.