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St. Andrew’s Catholic School

Center Number: 64135

Candidate Number: 6094

Candidate Name: Esme Quantrill

A2 Media Studies

Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media –

Production Log

Evidence of Planning & Research

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Aims and Objectives

AO2 – Assess candidates’ application of knowledge and understanding in evaluating their own work, showing how meanings and responses are created.

AO3 – Assess candidates’ ability to plan and construct media products using appropriate technical and creative skills.

AO4 – Assess candidates’ ability to undertake, apply and present appropriate research.

Brief Chosen

A 45 second – 1 minute 30 second trailer for a NEW Soap Opera

that will be exhibited on at 8:30pm (after Eastenders) that will appeal to a Male and Female audience. YOU SHOULD research when Eastenders is scheduled (Day – Time)

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Contents

Textual Analysis

Eastenders - Soap Opera Codes & Conventions - Multi Strand Narrative

Coronation Street

“..the home, the family, domestic tribulations and the strong woman, and as such, it has long been said to appeal to the female viewer”

‘Masculinity and Popular television’ – Rebecca Feasey (2007)

- Is this evident and how is this presented to the audience?

Research

Purpose of a Trailer Multi-Platform promotion Textual Analysis – Coronation Street and Hollyoaks

Deadlines – Production Work Filming Dates: Edited Trailer – Complete: Promotional Poster – Complete: Promotional Magazine Cover – Complete: Evaluation – Complete:

Production Work

Director – Roles & Responsibilities? Producer – Roles & Responsibilities? Institution research – BBC Two

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Soap Opera Codes & Conventions – Lesson 2 1) What are some of the Codes & Conventions of this genre?

‘Repertoire Of

Elements’ (Steve Neale)

Setting Pub Housing estate/ street Market Café Central meeting points Houses

Narrative: Relationships Murder/ death Adultery Flash back Family issues Sexuality Continuous

storyline Plots Sub plots

Characters: Manipulative Killers Famm fatale Bully Range of active and

passive Gossip Caring Religious

Icons: Community Regional identity Theme tune Over arking

storyline Plots and sub plots Christmas specials Sudo realism

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2) Codes & Conventions of the Soap Opera Genre The Soap Opera genre can be categorized by the ‘repeated’ (S teve Neale ) elements of:

1. Romance 2. Family relationships / conflict 3. Focus on working class 4. Antagonism and conflict within community 5. Fixed regional identity

Eastenders (1985 – Present)

Key information regarding this text: EastEnders is a British soap opera; the first broadcast was in the United Kingdom on BBC 1 on 19 February 1985. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London. The series primarily centres on the residents of Albert Square, a Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighboring streets, namely Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street. The area encompasses a pub, street market, night club, community center, charity shop, café, a wine bar and various small businesses, in addition to a park and allotments. Runs on week days excluding Wednesdays. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastEnders Textual Analysis Task http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye51O8WBVVM&feature=related -

YOU MUST complete the Table below whilst watching the TWO promotional trailers for the BBC Soap Opera Eastenders.

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YOU SHOULD aim to identify key examples (Verbal, Non-Verbal, Technical) from each trailer that demonstrates your understanding. Extension - YOU COULD apply relevant audience theory to explain what impact these key examples would have on the target demographic. In your opinion, according to Hartley’s Seven Subjectivities, what is the target audience for Eastenders?

Age

15 – 80+

Gender

Predominantly women

Nationality

British

Trailer 1) What is the Focus of this trailer? Theme of violence

Code &

Convention

Evidence

(Verbal, Non-Verbal, Technical)

Impact on the Audience

(Katz, Maslow, Hartley)

Romance

Roxy hugging a man This is a form of escapism for the audience as to see romance on a TV people aspire to it and want their lives to be like that.

Family relationships and/or conflict

Family- buys pub Tightly framed family raising glasses Dialogue ‘stay away from my sister’ ‘it was me’ conflict

Maslow – ‘social climbers’ The family buying a pub shows social climbers as they have wanted to own their own pub and have achieved it ‘raising glasses’

The conflict shown by Ronnie saying ‘stay away from my sister’ makes the audience interested as people like to watch soaps for escapism and they like the conflict.

Focus on working class communities

Accent ‘out me nut’ (nut meaning head) The new Family - Buying Queen Vic pub –

Nationality –speak using slang/ east ends London accent stereo typically working class people speak with an east end accent. The new family buying the Vic denotes working class communities because the Vic is seen as a working class icon. Also the new family buying the Queen Vic have some young characters involved (Hartley characters) aged between 18- 40 this can make the soap appeal more to the

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younger audience as they can relate to the characters that are of a similar age group.

“Multi-Stranded Narrative”

Carter’s Buy pub Ronnie tries to

protect Roxy from her new boyfriend as he is not a nice man

Killed husband –Money

This trailer is a conventional multi-stranded narrative as it has multiple story lines running alongside each other at the same time. This makes the soap more interesting to the audience as if it were only one story line running at one time the soap could become very boring as the storylines tend to run entwined with each other for long periods of time.

‘Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)

New owner of the pub – The new owner of the pub creates a ‘disequilibrium’ as the Queen Victoria pub is an iconic part of the soap and has been owned for a long period of time by the ‘Mitchell’s’ a new owner creates a disturbance in this and poses the questions of :are they going to change the pub? Are people going to like them? Etc.

Trailer 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qbVKqCojoY What is the Focus of this trailer? Find the cheater

Code &

Convention

Evidence

(Verbal, Non-Verbal, Technical)

Impact on the Audience

(Katz, Maslow, Hartley)

Romance

Kat and Alfie relationship Kissing close up

Maslow’s ‘care givers’ –the audience sympathize with the situation because Kat and Alfie’s relationship has been on screen for a long period of time and most people in the audience can sympathize with the feeling of mistrust. The audience create a ‘personal relationship’ with Alfie as they feel sorry for him through the close ups of his face showing his emotion.

Family relationships and/or conflict

Quick pace, slow angle Dialogue “I trusted you” Conflict- Branning brothers –one cheated with Kat but who? Burning paper

Katz interaction and escapism –people watch soaps as a form of escapism and to get out of their own life and look at and relate to someone else’s life.

Focus on working class communities

Markets Christmas fair Queen Vic pub

Hartley- class (working class) Class is shown through the Soap to be working class for example the ‘markets Christmas fair’ is run and is for the working class market traders on the square. Also the Queen Vic pub is a working class symbol as

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to have a regular pub that you drink at every day is a working class trait.

“Multi-Stranded Narrative”

One story line, which challenges the usual expectation of multiple narrative strands.

The trailer only uses one story line of Kat and Alfie’s relationship however it includes many of the other characters within this one story line. The normal convention of a soap opera is to have a multi-stranded narrative (meaning lots of story’s running alongside each other at one time)

Multi-stranded narrative A Multi-stranded narrative can be defined as…..

1. Telling a story from more than one person’s point of view. 2. Telling multiple stories about multiple characters in an open narrative

episode for example YOU MUST deconstruct the 10-minute extract from Eastenders and identify where the following elements are presented to the audience:

Multi-stranded narrative Family relationships and/or conflict Focus on working class communities ‘Disequilibrium’ (Todorov) Romance

YOU SHOULD write down x1-2 examples for EACH of the elements above that are presented. Code & Convention Evidence Impact on the audience

Multi-stranded narrative

Girls having fun – long shot Boys having fun Phil and jack locked in at the club

It is a multi-stranded narrative as they are part of the same story however there are two different things going on in different places (Hartley – gender roles) as the males and females are separated for a stag/hen night the men are in the pub (stereotypically more of a male place to be.) And the women are in the club.

Family relationships

Carol kissing her daughters

The bright lighting on Max and his girlfriend could be

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and/or conflict

probation worker – conflict

Max’s girlfriend pregnant

Bright lighting compared to dark in Phil and Jack

because pregnancy is a happy thing (Maslow’s care givers) however audience may question well-being of the baby within this relationship. Phil and Jack being locked in together is to entertain the audience and create humor as they are locked in on a stag night.

Focus on working class communities

Queen Vic heart of community Team football – mid shots

(Katz –escapism ) Vic is portrayed to feel like a family /community place through the warm colours and homely feel.(working class ideal to have a ‘Local’ and be a ‘regular’ in the pub)

Romance

Lauren texting someone Dialogue ‘can you stop texting your men!’ close ups.

Audience interested in who Lauren is texting. Also (escapism) as the audience look on someone else’s life rather than their own.

Soap Opera Codes & Conventions continued – Lesson 3 Textual Analysis According to Rebecca Feasey in ‘Masculinity and Popular television’ (2007), the Soap Opera genre tends to focus on: “the home, the family, domestic tribulation and the strong women, and as such, it has long been said to appeal to the female viewer” - Personal identity - Stereotypes

1) – Do you agree? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8_ApPT6isY (First 5 minutes)

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Next Page - YOU MUST deconstruct the opening 5 minutes of a sequence from the popular ITV Soap Opera Coronation Street (1960 – Present) to identify examples of where this ideology is presented to the target audience. YOU SHOULD also try and identify, to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the genre, any Codes & Conventions associated to the Soap Opera genre. Code & Convention Evidence Impact on the audience Rebecca Feasey (2007) Ideology: 1.Woman cleaning

- men not helping - Yellow gloves.

2.Mother thinking she is better than the other woman - Sarcastic comments.

3. Girl wants to go out for a meal - ‘Swanky’ and ‘slap up meal’.

4. Women putting on their make-up before going to the shops. 5. Girl is a strong independent woman

- She doesn’t think romance is all that great.

“Multi-Stranded Narrative”

Multi- stranded narrative is when two or more story lines run entwined with each other or at the same time.

Family relationships and/or conflict

Mum cleaning – dad looking after child Mum thinking she’s better than the other woman

Focus on working class communities

‘slap up meal’ gives the connotations of a working class community as the use of slang is stereotypically seen to be

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working class. Also doing your makeup before going to the shops is seen as a working class (stereotypically ‘chavy’) thing to do.

Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)

Conflicts of arguments between mother and grandmother is a disequilibrium because it disturbs the peace however conflict is expected within soaps.

Romance

Marries couples Honeymoons

Soap Opera Codes & Conventions continued – Lesson 4 Textual Analysis

1) What is the purpose of a trailer? To build hype, gain larger audience, display that show, appeal to a larger variety of people, promote the show and to get people talking.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________2What are the benefits of Multi-Platform promotion of a media text?

Can reach larger amounts of people

More advertising

Ultimately, some form of convergence is important when promoting a text to the target audience.

Textual Analysis –

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Next Page - YOU MUST make notes on the following areas when deconstructing this sequence from Coronation Street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NtpTSYZhIM

Multi-stranded narrative Character dilemmas ‘Personal Identification’ (Katz)

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hollyoaks/4od

The above link will take you to some of the latest episodes of Hollyoaks.

1. What are the connotations of the identity for the popular Channel Four Teen

Soap Opera Hollyoaks (1995 – Present)? Hollyoaks is seen to be for a younger age group then the typical soap operas such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street this could be due to the age group of the characters for example most of the characters ages range from 10- 35 meaning the audience would be similar age ranges as they are more likely to be able to relate to character of a similar age group. Also the characters are all very attractive and ‘sexy’ the female characters especially therefore a younger audience would aspire to be like this. The storylines in Hollyoaks may appeal to a younger audience more as issues raised link more to the younger generations for example ‘sexuality’ storylines are often shown on Hollyoaks and

The trailer starts with a non-diegetic sound track, the song is quite creepy feel to it the lyrics are ‘we’re going to the chapel and we’re going to get married.’ At the same time we see a mid-close up of a woman in a white wedding dress with Low key lighting on her this gives connotations that she may be making a mistake and the verbal code may represent that things are not going to run smoothly. The camera pans to the right throughout the trailer changing to different people and different scenes however still continuously moving giving connotations that things are happening quickly and that maybe she is trapped in the relationship. Diegetic dialogue of ‘evil, pathetic vile little man’ also gives this representation. Throughout the trailer there is a voice over of the wedding vows also giving the connotations of being rushed and entrapment.

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for a younger audience they can relate to this as an individual and others around them may be going through similar experiences shown on Hollyoaks. Next Page - Hollyoaks – “White Wedding Trailer” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2sW-r9Vb4

2. YOU MUST make notes on the following areas when deconstructing this sequence from Hollyoaks:

Binary opposition of the non-diegetic music Symbolism of the non-verbal code of the tear Representation of Pregnancy Any other examples that would impact the audience

The binary opposition (Levi Strauss) of the music with the verbal code of ‘it’s a great day for a white wedding’ and the colours and lighting gives connotations that the wedding is bad and there is a deeper darker purpose to the wedding rather than love. The symbolic code of a black tear looks like blood this could represent that the character has done something wrong or is about to do something wrong the non- diegetic voice over also gives this representation as it says: ‘to love, honor and betray.’ The representation of pregnancy is also seen as dark due to the symbolic costume as she is wearing black clothing and has her hand placed on her stomach the cut to a china doll smashing on the floor may represent that the baby is doomed and will not have a good life.

Production Work 1) What is the role of a Producer?

Decision making, oversees production, organized, consider target audience, finance and budget, building up production and contacts.

What is the role of a Director? Visualization of scene, they are the audience, rate acting skills, leader, calm, focused and strict

3) Institution research – YOU MUST research the institution that your trailer will be exhibited on. Tips: Programming, Target audience, Audience figures, History of the channel. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more "highbrow" programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore commercial-free. It is a comparatively well-funded public service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public service networks worldwide.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Two