Soap Location

The location of our Soap is crucial in order for it to reach its desired target audience and follow all the codes and conventions of existing Soap Operas. As previously researched we found that most Soaps are set within a tight community and most Soaps contain the same sort of layout. As the a typical Soap is located in usually one village or small town the key features and areas therefore have a specific purpose and are usually connected or relatively close with each and every character. For example in this small community of a Soap location you will usually find a pub, some sort of restaurant or cafe, a laundratte and a local shop of some sort. So quite obviously when choosing our location it was key that we found somewhere which fitted and included many of these key elements in order for our Soap to be effective and work well as a whole.

So after much consideration, research and thought we chose to locate our Soap in the small community of Ashley Cross, Parkstone. By choosing this location we had plenty of options and different places to choose from for filming. Ashley Cross contains all key codes and conventions that we need to follow for an effective Soap Opera setting. Like most Soaps there is usually a piece of green area in the middle with perhaps a seating area and this is where everything happens in a sort of circle around the outside. For example Eastenders contains a small square in which people often meet or cross paths and it is seen as a key part of the socialisation of the community. For example in Ashley Cross there is a large green area, although it is alot larger than those featured in many typical Soaps like Eastenders and Hollyoaks we feel that it will still work and help to make our Soap actually feel like an existing and affective Soap Opera trailer.

In this area we have a pub in which most Soaps have as central meeting place. This is where people arrange to meet and socialise on a regular basis and is well known to everyone. Although Ashley Cross has a few pubs to choose from we chose to be slightly different in the setting for a central meeting place in our Soap and decided to use Isabel's Restaurant which is located just across the otherside of the green. This restaurant is a small run business which appears as though it is somewhere in which locals would go. At first glance it seems the sort of restaurant or bar in which was run by a family. So for example this fits in with the way in which the Queen Victoria pub in Eastenders is run by the Mitchell family and the Dog in The Pond pub in Hollyoaks is run by the Osbourne family. Its all about the way in which the everyone knows eachother in the community and all the businesses are run and set up for those who live in this tight, close area. This is why we thought Isabel's restaurant would be ideal for this location because also of the in which it is located directly opposite the green meaning two central meeting points are easily connected.


When also thinking about choosing our locaton another thing that drew us towards Ashley Cross was the way in which it was a busy bustling place with plenty of people wandering round. This is probably because it contains many shops, a launderette, a bank and food places. These are all essential places in everyday life and also key codes and conventions of a Soap Operas location. By having all these key places in one distinct area also makes the Soap alot easier to film.

Justifying Our Actions

Throughout our trailer we've made a number of choices and decisions that have had a big impact on the general outcome of the trailer as an entity. For instance, the entire Trailer has been shot with handheld camera, rather than with that of a stationary camera on a tripod. We chose to do this based upon the fact that we needed to challenge codes and conventions to an extent to create an original product. There have been occasions where we have considered that maybe the doing of the product in hand held camera maybe was a bit on the extreme side, however we have looked at in the sense that is in a documentary home video style, much like the TV series, Modern Family is.

In a similar aspect, you will notice on our trailer that their is a lack of dialogue that you can hear. The characters themselves are talking through the trailer, though we chose not to include the lines that they used primarily due to the filming technique that we used. For instance, to maintain a level of attention to the trailer, we have split the clips into bits. The problem with this technique however is that audio simply isn't distinguishable due to the rate in which the clips changed and advance.

Clip 1 Analysis (UNEDITED)

To effectively analyse our Soap Trailer we felt the most effective way was to do it for individual clips, and then do one final analysis of the entire trailer itself. For this part of the clip we filmed a local friend whom has done drama in the past and as such we were aware that he would have the correct knowledge and training to know how to handle himself in the situation that we proposed to him. The shot opens with Sean, our subject appearing to be talking on his mobile. We felt that the use of the mobile would be a good connotation of the fact that we're trying to create a 'younger' soap in the sense that it is more targeted at younger generations. Saying this, it does of course feature older generations, whom are featured in other clips.
Sean himself we have always considered as being quite a dramatic actor, and as such we thought it would be best to suit him for what he could do. The scene involves Sean's character trying to ring someone, and not being able to get hold of them which leads to him throwing the phone on the floor in despair.

We used a wide variety of camera shots for the clip as we really needed to emphasis the emotion behind the character. As we have chosen to try and focus the Soap Opera slightly more on teenagers and generally a younger audience we felt the addition of the phone, as previously stated is a perfect reference to these generations. Likewise, the frustration that he exhibits is a typical effect experienced by people of this generation when technology fails to work for them. However, their is of course a deeper connotation to this in the sense that he is (in the bigger scheme of plots) trying to get in contact with his girlfriends in regards to why she hasn't spoken to him in a number of days. We needed to effectively develop a level of story behind the character as of course we need the audience to actually tune into watch the Soap itself. Placing in a clip that the audience can relate almost acts like bait to an extent, where the audience can relate and think that they may take an interest. Relationship problems, such as the one that Sean's character us experiencing are typical events that occur in life, something our soap will represent.

Clip 2 Analysis (UNEDITED)

The second clip was of a friend of ours who looked like what we considered to be a relatively attractive male, whom was committing criminal acts. As illegal as the acts may be, criminal activities are present within modern society  and the fact that our soap is supposed to be a dramatised version of modern society, we needed to include such elements. Kerr, the person that we filmed suggested some ideas which we found to very helpful. Initially, we considered simply having Kerr attempt to beat someone up and filming the effects and include it in the trailer. After much thought though we decided against this for a number of reasons. Mainly, because the trailer was going to be aimed at a wide age group, we didn't want to connote a sense of violence intiall within the soap, as it could potentially be disastrous in terms of target audience. Not only our families unlikely to watch, but it would also eradicatate theoretically anyone under the age of 12 watching it as well, meaning that the programme would be aired around the 9pm watershed, the complete opposite of what we were intending. As such, we chose to focus it on online crime, as we've become aware that this is a very controversial issue currently in society, therefore we felt it would be appropriate to comment on it within the clip.
Notably, you will notice that an FBI warning arises when the user is doing something he apparently shouldn't. This was an attempt to 1. Make people take an interest into why the FBI sign is there and to 2. It also was a way to bring home to viewers the dangers of online crime, something we hoped would in turn attract them to view as they may well be interested in the outcome of the storyline.

Clip 3 Analysis (UNEDITED)

The third clip was of my parents. When creating our Soap trailer it was important that we used a variation of age ranges in order to make our product feel realistic as if we only used one particular age it would feel fake and would be dismissing codes and conventions of other Soaps.

In order to get the short clip to look effective it was important that we filmed more than was actually needed, this was so that when we came to edit our whole piece together we had more to work with. This way if you have bits that look uneffective and arent correct you are able to delete them and still be left with a decent amount of film. Its always better to film more than you actually need. Therefore when filming this clip to begin with we filmed it a few times in different postions. At first it was filmed in the back corner of the pub. Admittdly the lighting of this clip is very dark and doesnt quite give off the overall affect that we wanted to portray. So because of how dark it was inside the pub we decided to take the filming outside the pub where there are a few picnic benches designed for where the smokers can sit. We then filmed a short bit outside where my parents were having a casual drink and conversation. Along with filming them using a close up shot we also stepped across the road and produced a long shot of them having there drink. This way by producing different types of shot it gave us variation to work with so that we could choose the shot that fitted best and worked well as a whole.

Essentially this clip is representing key codes and conventions of a Soap Opera. It represents the social community and general meeting point which features in the majority of Soaps that we researched into.

Clip 4 Analysis (UNEDITED)

The fourth clip that we filmed involved my sister and mother. As a team, we had considered not filming a daughter and mother together as we simply were unaware of a duo that could act out the scene well enough and in an effective way to our standard of liking. However, in a situation where my sister and mother were arguing literally, I had a listen. I picked up on the fact that they could argue well with each other and asked if they'd do it again. Obviously, they were slightly wary as to why, but following an explanation I convinced them. The clip itself is in fact relatively short as we did worry that filming an argument for too long may cause the audience to get bored, or worse feel that the tone of the Soap is aggressive.

Final Trailer

Our trailer as final product is something we are immensely proud of as a team, purely because of how difficult it was for us to not only get the right type of people involved, but to make it interesting to watch. Because a Soap is based purely on 'normal' people, it was crucial that we had to have a relatively short, yet interesting to watch trailer. Notably, throughout it we made use of a great deal of cutting as we felt that this was the perfect way to maintain an audiences attention. Initially, we attempted to simply upload chunks of film and then merge it together to create a trailer, yet this simply did not work. After watching it back a number of times we discovered that it was simply last lustre to view, and if the trailer is relatively boring, then our target audience would consider the Soap to be. Really, that was our core ideology. We needed to create an artefact that would make people want to make the time to watch The Cross, something we did struggle to do. As previously mentioned, the merging of bulk of film just meant that people were staring at a similar scene for a good 5-10 seconds, which in reality may sound a short amount of time, simply wasn't during the playback, especially when the trailer itself, as shown by codes and conventions is only around 1 minute long.

We shot a good deal of film for the majority of our clips, as of course a logical philosophy would be to shoot too much, and not too little. Because of this, we had a good amount to play with so to speak in terms of the individual clips that we could extract from the material, and then actually place in the final film. For instance, there was an entire scene we shot of a neighbour whom was simply operating around her kitchen while surrounded by members of family. We felt though that the rest of the content simply dragged the trailer out for no reason, as we tried to go for the quality and not quantity recipe. This we felt would be absolutely key to creating an effective Trailer. As typically, if a trailer gets to long, people lose interest, so we felt it would be better to have the trailer around the length of a standard one, but change the style slightly. Arguably the most major problem for us came in the fact that no templates exist. Yes, templates exist of other media, but none of soaps, as such we struggled to an extent to maintain a level of originality, while trying to maintain what we had perceived and understood as the codes and conventions of a soap trailer. Trailers exist online of content from EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, but the content itself is limited in the fact that the soaps are already established, and are not looking to attract a new audience, simply maintain one. For us of course, we would be seeking to establish one, primarily a younger one that normally targeted by Soaps. As such, we hit a snag so to speak in the fact that we had to be completely original, using logic and intellect to decide what should be in the clip.

Throughout the clip you will notice their is a massive amount of editing that has been done in order to achieve the product, resulting on we consider to be relatively similar to typical codes and conventions, whilst bending them ever so slightly, and maintaining audience attention all at the same time.

The most major change that we have tried to make in terms of codes and conventions is simply the use of handheld camera, rather mounted on a tripod. Initially, we spent a good amount of time considering whether or not to use a tripod for stability, adhering to codes and conventions, or test them to the limit, and not use one. The method behind our madness was really down the fact that we wanted it to be different, but maintain the core founding of a Soap. We considered what we could alter to challenge these, and we hit a wall in the sense that we couldn't alter actual content, or people simply wouldn't understand the fact that it's a Soap. Thus, it came down to the filming of the content itself, resulting in us debating whether or not to use a tripod. We in fact consulted the public for some constructive criticism on what they thought of the trailer being done hald held, with the results being found within our Soap Research. The audience in fact voted against the idea, suggesting that it would stray to far away. However, we took a chance, and we're pretty pleased with the outcome, as it wasn't easy to shoot, nor edit. As a whole though, we wouldn't change a massive amount, other that potentially the diversity of the characters. We tried greatly to get a good range of ages, and cultures, but we were limited on a contact level, and the ability to arrange filming times.