Minutes for Seventh group meeting

General filming Discussions

Group members present: Elena Christodoulou, Natalie Michael and Natalie Nicolaides

Tuesday 15th December 2009

Start Time: 10.57

• Organising next filming date for trailer
• Discussed why our last filming date was not as successful as hoped due to lack of planning and preperation
• Organise a filming date that everyone can meet
• Oraganise a editing date that everyone can meet
• Discussed website plan ( what is done what needs to be done and how)
• Discussed blog entries ( both individual and group blog)
• How blog entries can be more effective

Written by Natalie Nicolaides

Reflection on Focus Group

As a group we completed our final focus group. This was more successful than our pilot focus group, however, it wasn't as useful as we had hoped. Our group consisted of about 5 people aged between 17 and 18. They were of both genders. We chose this age group as they are our primary target audience. We began by giving them our pitch, followed by our treatment, then an outline of our trailer and the main points of our website. We then asked them some questions. These were (including the majority of responses);

• Does the different approach we have, in terms of the trailer being based on one individual character and storyline, affect your perception of our soap?
  - no, it makes you want to watch it more, it wont confuse the audience
  
• Does the trailer sound like a typical soap opera trailer, would you be inclined to watch this soap over another, already existing trailer?
  - it sounds more like a drama
  
• With the time of the soap being 8pm, Tuesday to Thursday, would you watch this?
  - yes
  
• How does the fact that we have a huge storyline in our first episode affect you?
  - it gets straight to the point
  
• Are there any other comments regarding our soap?
  - no

The responses we got were not as useful as we had hoped. We are planning on re-doing this activity with a different group of people.

Analysis of Radio Times

My group has decided to base our T.V guide on the current successful TV listings magazine the Radio Times. Through researching this magazine, we noted that it usually features a TV drama on the cover instead of a soap. We are challenging this by basing our magazine on the Radio Times but advertising our soap on the cover. This is a successful magazine was first published on the 28th September 1923 and has been successful ever since.


first edition 1936



War-time edition 1939

one of the first colour editons 1967




Christmas 1988

It is easy to see the development of the covers through the years and what has remained the same (house style). The covers have always had one main image and the title has always been written straight across the top.

Filming - Day 1

Sunday 15th November 2009

Today we began filming for our opening to the episode which we have decided to put onto our website. Before we started filming we discussed the part of storyline we would be focusing on and decided what type of shots we would use and how we wanted the scene to end up looking. Thegla was our actress and the rest of us (me, Elena and Natalie N) all took turns with the filming and the holding of the microphone and the listening to through the headphones to make sure the sound was ok.
We started filming the main character 'Andrea' having her breakfast in the kitchen when she gets a text saying 'Are you in school today?', her mum then walks past and tells her to hurry up otherwise she is going to be late. We used a variety of shots, including:

• close-up shots
• over the shoulder shots
• panning shots
• wide shots
• a shot which included thegla in the foreground and her 'mum' in the background and each one going into focus as they speak/react to the other one
• reaction shots

We filmed a variety of these shots so that when we go to edit it, we have a large selection of shots to chose from.

Ater filming this scene, we decided to begin filming the interview of the cast which we are also going to include on our website. It was my job to act as the interviewer and i was asking the other group members questions about our soap, such as, why the name I.V, whether the meaning behind the title reflects back on the lives' of the characters and a bit about the characters in general.

After filming these, we went out and took some more practice photos for our magazine cover and for our website. We took these outside so that we could get the length of the road in behind us giving the photo more depth.

The camera we filmed with.

Elena and Natalie N using the camera

The microphone we used.

Me and Natalie N using the camera, and on the table is a white piece of card that we used to reflect the light onto Thegla.

I think we are up to date on our work so far and we are working well. We managed to fix the lighting problems we came across and completed all the filming we plannned to do. We had originally hoped to film a different part of the soap but due to the wether we had to change our plans.

Recce Forms

These are the location recces for all the possible locations. The date we will be filming will be added at a later date when they have all been fully decided upon.

LOCATION:
Street

DATE:


TIME:
Morning/day

WHAT WE WILL FILM HERE:
Students making their journey to school. The main girl (Andrea) is bunking from school, smoking and a group of girls from her school walk past and one of them asks for a cigarette.

WHAT WE LOOKED AT:
The location is suitable for filming as there is enough space for the whole group to work effectively. The lighting outside should be suitable, just depending on the weather. There may be a variety of hazards and things to think of such as:
· If the weather is bad, people might slip on the pavement
· Making sure the road is not too busy with cars and us not standing in the road.
This will be suitable to use any time of the day, but we are choosing during the day when it is light outside.



LOCATION:
Bedroom

DATE:


TIME:
Morning/day

WHAT WE WILL FILM HERE:
The main character Andrea looking at the notes she was getting and then having the flashbacks. The letters coming in through the post box.

WHAT WE LOOKED AT:
The location is suitable for filming as there is enough space for the whole group to work effectively. The lighting will be suitable as we can use lights. There may be a variety of hazards and things to think of such as:
· People tripping over wires
We do not need to get permission to film here as it is one of our bedrooms and it is available all day.


LOCATION:
Garden

DATE:


TIME:
Morning/day

WHAT WE WILL FILM HERE:
The dead body

WHAT WE LOOKED AT:
The location is suitable for filming as there is enough space for the whole group to work effectively. The lighting outside should be suitable, just depending on the weather. There may be a variety of hazards and things to think of such as:
· If the weather is bad, people might slip
· Keeping the equipment dry


LOCATION:
Cafe

DATE:


TIME:
Day

WHAT WE WILL FILM HERE:
The main character (Andrea) gaining another note

WHAT WE LOOKED AT:
The location is suitable for filming as there is enough space for the whole group to work effectively. The lighting should be suitable. There may be a variety of hazards and things to think of such as:
· Tripping over wires
· The layout and size of the Cafe
We need to get permission to film in this location and find out from the manager when will be suitable times to film there.


LOCATION:
Kitchen

DATE:
Sunday 15th November 2009

TIME:
Any

WHAT WE WILL FILM HERE:
The main girl Andrea, having her breakfast, her mum comes in and tells her to hurry up because she will be late for school; Andrea walks out and slams the door behind her.
A boy cooking his breakfast, he gets a phone call and tells the person he is going to be late for school.

WHAT WE LOOKED AT:
The location is suitable for filming as there is enough space for the whole group to work effectively. The lighting should be suitable and if it gets too dark, we can use lights. There may be a variety of hazards and things to think of such as:
· Tripping over wires
· Possible fire hazard while the breakfast is being cooked
We do not need to get permission to film here.

Refection on Pilot Focus Group

Prior to the pilot focus group, we discussed what sort of questions we would ask and what we hoped to gain from the experience. Our pilot group consisted of people from our class who have a knowledge of Soap Operas and the conventions needed to make them successful. We realised that when we carry out our real focus group, the participants will not have the same background knowledge.
As a group, we learnt that we need to be well prepared when pitching our idea to the group in order to make the group understand what we are planning on carrying out.
We came to the conclusion that we need to keep our questions broad and our pitch and treatment clear to understand.

Minutes for fifth group meeting

General filming discussions

Friday 30th October 2009

Start time: 7:30pm

People present: Natalie Michael, Thegla Savvides and Natalie Nicolaides

We began by deciding we wanted to make a start with our TV guide magazine front cover.

• We then decided we wanted who would take on the role as the main character – we decided on Thegla.
• Next was the discussion about how we wanted the main picture on our cover to look. We decided on the victim as the main image in the foreground and the possible murderers in the background. It was settled that Natalie Michael would be the Victim and she would be dressed in white (to symbolise innocence or a coat to symbolise closure). The suspects in the background will be wearing something red to represent the danger.
• We selected a day that we would take a photo. We decided we would take these photos in school as we are going to be using photoshop to change the background of them.
• Our next main discussion was as to who would be filling out which pre-production forms we would each be completing.
• Next on the agenda were the locations we would be filming in. These included; -the house (Natalie M’s house), the cafe, a supermarket, the streets, the place where the girl bunks, a park and a kitchen.
• We finally discussed possible people who could act as the extra people.

Finish time: 8:05pm

Written by Natalie Michael

Minutes for fourth group meeting

Discussing our Tv guide cover

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Start time: 2:10pm

People present: Natalie Michael, Thegla Savvides and Natalie Nicolaides

• We began by drawing out a draft of how we want our cover to look.
  We planned where we wanted everything to be placed and how we wanted out title. We decided we wanted out title to be in the top left corner and we wanted it to be placed inside a TV.
• We then discussed possible titles for our cover. These included:
  -Teleh
  -Just TV
  -TV Rush
  -Ultimate TV
  -TV Revealed
  -TV World
  -Big Mouth

Finish time: 2:40

Written by Natalie Michael

Written Storyboard for Trailer

We have drawn up our storyboard for our trailer (names of characters still to be decided). We decided we wanted our trailer to be unconventional using the recent Eastenders trailer with Peggy and Archies wedding and Hollyoaks trailers as inspiration. It will go as follows:

• Close up of girl 1 crying with make up running down her face
• She closes her eyes to a heartbeat sound
• Close up of the first note on the floor 'We'
• Scene fades to letters coming through the letter box
• The note with 'We' falls out from in between the letters.
• Close up of girl 1 with her hands on her head. she closes her eyes to a heartbeat
• Close up of the second note on the floor 'Know'
• Girl 1 sitting in a cafe
• A waitress brings her a drink and hands her a note from someone
• Girl 1 reads the note but audience do not see it.
• She looks around in the hope of seeing who it is from but the cafe is empty
• Close up of her hands covering more of her face and the sound of her whimpering
• Close up of the third note on the floor 'What'
• When girl 1 gets home from the cafe she looks in her bag and sees the third note
• Close up of the girls face, tears rolling down
• Close up of the 4th note on the floor 'You'
• Girl 1 sitting on her floor doing homework, as she lifts up a folder, the fourth note falls out from it.
• Close up of the girl crying
• Fifth note on the floor 'Did'
• Girl 1 in supermarket she gets her purse out to pay and the 5th note falls from it.
• Girl in her bedroom putting the notes together
  'WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID'
• The tempo/pace of the music increases as she puts the notes in order one by one. The music stops as they are put in order and a cardiac arrest beep comes on.
• The scene flashes to a dead body
• I.V appears on screen with the days and time the soap is on - 'Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm
• Final sound of a heart beat then silence as the trailer ends.

Group effort. Written by Natalie Michael drawn by Thegla Savvides

Written Storyboard for Episode 1

We have drawn our storyboard for part of our first episode (names of characters still to be decided). It will go as follows:

Scene 1

• Girl 1 in kitchen eating breakfast. She gets a text saying 'Are you in today? x'
• Her mum appears in the doorway saying 'hurry up or you are going to be late'
• Girl 1 walks out and slams the front door whilst her mum is still talking
• Girl 1 walking down the road

Scene 2

• Girlfriend and boyfriend walking down the street together talking
• close up of the girlfriend looking uneasy whilst the boyfriend is still talking to her
• close up of the boyfriend looking down at his girlfriend with a smile on his face

Scene 3

• Boy 1 cooking his breakfast, his phone rings
• He talks on the phone saying 'yeah I'm going to be late again'

Scene 4

• Girl 1 smoking in the street
• A group of girls walk past her, they say hi, one asks girl 1 for a cigarette
• She passes her one
• Girls say thanks and walk on
• Close up of girl 1 smiling
  

Group effort. Written by Natalie Michael. Drawn by Natalie Michael and Thegla Savvides

Final draft of Treatment

Our soap opera will have a mixture of short and long term storylines which will all run concurrently with each other. This will allow the audience to get to know the variety of characters. Some of the less important storylines will be short term, only lasting for the period of one episode. The long-term storylines will run for perhaps two episodes with the effects of it lasting for the episodes to come. This will allow the audience to possibly connect to the characters that are having similar life events to them and may possible use the way the characters react to it to influence the way they deal with their own problems.

The characters in our soap are going to be mainly teenagers of both genders. We also hope to include the families of the teenagers and some of the teachers working at the school. The characters we are hoping to focus on include a “gossip”, a “dodgy geezer” who supplies drugs to others, a group who have parties and do not focus on school, “geeks” who focus on school work, “lower class” people who may be considered “chavs”, good-looking males who all the girls fancy and a mysterious new character who is known as an outcast to the others as they are new to the setting. They will be new only at the start but will not completely fit in as all the groups have already been formed between the characters that have been together for a longer period of time. This “new” character will be picked on and included into groups for particular reasons and then will be shut out. The main characters in the soap will change as the storyline does, one story will evolve around one group/character whilst in a different week it will change.

Our soap opera will be based in a school setting, including the classrooms, library, staff room and the playground. We will also include the homes of the characters and their local areas. The homes will be used so the audience can get an insight into the lives of the characters and the homes may also be used to hold parties. We will have a meeting place where all the characters go; this may possibly be a café. We may also include the park as many teenagers hang around in the park.

Our target audience is going to be teenagers and young adults of both genders as our characters are mainly of this age group too. By having teenagers as our target audience and as the main characters, we hope the audience will be able to connect with the characters and possibly relate their own lives to the characters. We also hope that our soap will appeal to an older group of people and that they will be attracted to the issues we will be dealing with.

As our soap is aimed at teenagers and we will have moral and educational content.
Our media product will follow the expected and unexpected elements of a soap opera. It will include all the necessary conventions of a soap opera such as narrative enigmas, a sense of realism, concurrent storylines, social representations, and a central meeting point and will deal with real life issues. Each episode will end with a big cliff-hanger and the storylines can sometimes end with smaller cliff-hangers. We will also challenge everyday conventions of soaps by having events such as a lesbian wedding, a teacher getting in trouble instead of a student and a person not fitting into a tight community.

We decided on the name I.V for our soap. This will stand for Independent Variable. We believe this fits into the nature of our soap as the definition of an independent variable is a variable that gets manipulated in order for the outcome to be different each time. The lives of the characters will get manipulated by other characters and by social factors in order for outcomes of the soap to be interesting and to keep audiences watching.

Group Effort. Written by Natalie Michael with contributions from Thegla Savvides and Elena Christodoulou

Analysis of Neighbours website

Analyising a website will allow us, as a group, to base our website on successful soap websites taking the good points of it and developing the negative.

http://www.neighbours.com/
Entering this website you are given the option as to whether you want to enter the 'official Australian' site or the 'official UK' site, both leading to website about the soap. This page has a few pictures of the characters which are seen during the opening credits. There is also an image of a landscape of Australia with a Ramsey Street scene name sticking up from it. The welcome sign gives the site a friendly feel to it.

The Australian site:
The home page has the 'Ramsey Street' street sign in the top left hand corner. This flowed from the same sign we saw on the first page we were taken to. There are 9 options on the home page along the bar at the top. This includes:

• home
• video
• episodes
• characters
• forums
• music
• photos
• interact
• competitions

Under these options is a slide show showing events that are happening in the soap and to the characters' lives. this includes photos from:

• last episode
• next episode
• news
• declans diary
• photo gallery
• video
• E.P corner (executive producer)

Each section has an image and text, clicking on the image takes you to that page on the site where you can read/ see more.

Under the 'favourite' section visitors to the site can choose from a selection of links:

• most recent/most popular episodes
• latest fans
• characters by residence
• neighbours quiz
• latest news
• vote here
• hot forum topics
• download own wallpaper

There is also a section called 'tour and merchandise. This gives people the chance to tour the Neighbours set and meet the characters. A selection of tours can be chosen each with different prices and the option to take a free tour. This will draw in visitors to the site. There are images of people, who have taken the tour, with the characters and they are holding the 'Ramsey Street' road sign. There is an image of the tour bus with times of departure.


From each of the links at the top of the page a number of fun and interesting sections can be revealed.

VIDEO:
This section allows the audience to feel part of the Neighbours world and see the characters in a different way to how they would see them during the show. The videos are not available to UK viewers. This is an advantage to the Australian viewers.

EPISODES:
This has a selection of previous episodes and the next episode. This makes sure the audience cant miss out.


CHARACTERS:
When the audience select a character from the scrolling bar at the top, the audience are taken to the page of that character. This page gives information about the character. The audience can read up on the life of that character and possibly feel as thought they are getting to know the character.

FORUMS:
'Welcome to the Neighbours community' is written above the forum topics. This is friendly for the audience.

MUSIC:
'Songs from Neighbours classic episodes and your favourite stars!'. Clicking on this takes you to a page with the words:
'After an overwhelming number of requests from "Neighbours" fans, Grundy Television in collaboration with Sony Music have put together this fantastic collection of music from the show.'
The fact that this shows that the fans are listened to would make them feel special and they will still remain faithful to Neighbours as a soap as they would feel part of the 'family'.

PHOTOS:
There is a slide show and a choice of groups of episodes to see the pictures from. This will allow the audience to see memorable moments from the episodes of their favourite characters.


INTERACT:
There are 4 main sections on this page; trivia, timeline, fan messaging and wallpapers. These all allow the audience to feel part of the nieghbours community even more.

COMPETITIONS:
'Lots of promotions and great prizes can be found with the click of a button! Good luck'
These words are found when you first enter the competition page. They are friendly and it does not sound too formal which would let the audience feel comfortable on the site.

= In my opinion, the Australian site is very successful as it is friendly, easy to use and has enough links and things to do so that the visitor to it does not get bored. A true Neighbours fan would enjoy this site. I hope that within my group we can take examples from this successful site in order to make ours successful too.

THE UK SITE:
This site takes us to the holysoap website which gives information on all the soap operas, British and Australian. This has a similar layout to the Australian one and has similar features for the UK audience to enjoy. It includes:

• full episodes
• clips
• news and gossip
• pictures
• cast
• extras

These links all have similar things as the Australian site does. Again, I believe this site is as successful as the Australian one.

In order for our website to be successful too it has to be easy to use, friendly and have enough aspects of it which will keep the visitor interested.

Newspaper article on Neighbours

I found this article about Neighbours which talks about how the change from BBC1 to Channel 5 has secured more viewers and has been more successful than people originally thought it would be. This article was written in 2008.

Channel Five's £300m "big bet" on the "Neighbours effect" is showing signs of paying off with the Australian soap helping boost the network's adult audience share by 13% in the three weeks since it switched from BBC1.
Five, which had a 5.2% audience share in the first six weeks of the year, has seen its share climb to an average of 5.9% since the show launched on February 11.
Gerhard Zeiler, the chief executive of Channel Five's parent company RTL, admitted today that the acquisition of the show - pinched from the BBC last year in a 10-year £300m deal - was a gambit to help halt a decline in adult audience share from 5.9% in 2006.
"It was a big bet to secure Neighbours for Five. It seems the bet management took has really paid off," Zeiler said.
Five, which has secured Weight Watchers as the first-ever sponsor of Neighbours, recorded an adult audience share boost of one percentage point to 6.2% in the first week the show aired.
The launch of the show helped Five pull in its best weekly ratings in over a year.
In the subsequent two weeks Five's share has slipped back slightly to 5.8% and 5.7% respectively.
However, in the three weeks following the launch of Neighbours, Five has enjoyed a healthy boost to an average 5.9% share of audience, a 13% increase compared to the six weeks prior to the debut of the show.
Five executives will be hoping the slight slip in audience share in the weeks since Neighbours launched is not an indication that the novelty factor may have worn off and that a significant audience boost will slip away.
Zeiler said he expected Five's audience share would end up being "up significantly" this year and that there would be "further significant growth" in digital services Five Life and Five US.
He added that despite the current economic climate there was "no reason to be pessimistic" about advertising sales, although the company "remained cautious".

• From this I have learnt that the channel in which a soap is aired upon is very important as this will determine how many viewers it will get.

Minutes for third group meeting

Discussing locations and the treatment

Thursday 8th October 2009

Start time: 2:10pm

People present: Natalie Michael, Elena Christodoulou, Thegla Savvides and Natalie Nicolaides

• We began by discussing what types of locations we would need for the specific moments we want to film for our trailer.
• We decided upon a school which led to us needing corridors and a classroom.
• A bedroom
• A central meeting point which we then decided we wanted to be a cafe.
• We then discussed the advantages and disadvantages of these locations
• Included in the advantages were; a school is easily accessible for us to film in as we have access to classrooms and corridors and included in the disadvantages was whether we would be able to film in a cafe and we then discussed that we would have to get permission from a cafe owner before filming there.
• To overcome the cafe problem we decided that we could create a cafe in one of our gardens and get people to pose as a waitress and customers.
• We then went through our treatment together as a group and discussed what we could include in each section.
• We also went through the tasks we had set each other from our previous meeting and gave new ones to each other.
• We discussed having to complete location recce forms, risk assessments, production schedules, shooting schedules and scripts and any booking forms for equipment and rooms

Finish time: 2:50

Written by Natalie Michael

Minutes for second group meeting

Discussing character types, ideas for trailer and story boarding first episode.

Tuesday 6th October

Start Time: 11:06am

People Present: Elena Christodoulou, Thegla Savvides, Natalie Michael, Natalie Nicolaides

• As a group we first discussed different character types that we think would appeal to our target audiences, We began mapping out different characteristics that individually appealed to us.
• Some ideas where a posh character that doesnt look posh, bad looking characters who are very well behaved, The popular girls and the misfits.
• We discussed numerous ideas for the trailer, one of us comes up with an idea and by the end we all have had an input.
• Some of the ideas for our trailer, we've elaborated upon and decided it for the first episode, allowing us to leave numerous cliff hangers in the trailer and prolong them onto the episode.
• We asked ourselves many questions like...Is the trailer going to be a spoiler of an unrealistic scene-e.g. like at the beginning of Hollyoaks with the supernatural and flashbacks etc.
• We also set each other targets in order for things to all be completed in time and in order, keeping us up to date.
• We discussed a few locations, and the advantages and disadvantages of these.
• Some of the ideas we came up with, where more of a challenge than others we discussed how we would work around certain problems and in some cases lack of required props, i.e. recording in a shop-copyrighting issues- and our main idea of having a clear board for characters thoughts.

Finish Time: 12:20pm

Group Effort. Written by Elena Christodoulou

Review of Neighbours

Reviews about soaps can allow people to form opinions without even watching it. People have mixed views about a soap including criticisms and positive feedback

• 'Neighbors' features poor acting and bad storylines'
  
• Neighbours is my life along with home and away. They are fake but yet so real. Once you start watching neighbours you just can't stop it is additive,in a good way. Thy way it is directed is incredible it makes you feel that the events happening in the episode are happening right beside you,it is very believable. The actors and actresses in it know just how to play the roll of the character they are playing and make it very believable and realistic. Neighbours is a show that can get your attention very easily and I would recommend it to anyone at anytime.'
  
• 'This show is the best. It makes you cry and be sad but it also makes you happy in some ways. This is a awesome show and everyone knows it is the best. I end by saying the only words that can describe this show "The best show ever made on Earth."'
  
• This show (without doubt) is popular, and why is it popular? I intend to argue that it is the sheer quality that has brought this show to its extreme popular standing which it now holds in many nations. One only has to do a quick scan of a neighbours forum to see just how many and how extremely intent the viewers are. There are many intense forums which are both criticising and proving that this show is so great.'
  
• 'Neighbors is definitely the only soap that i allow myself to watch. The show is quite dramatic and a lot of stuff happens in such short periods of time. But then again that is what a soap is. Neighbors is one of those shows that you get hooked to and i have been watching it for the past 3-5 years. The actors and actresses aren't spectacular but there have definitely been some pretty talented people come out of the show. Take Kylie Minogue for example. To all those soapie lovers out there choose Neighbors over Home & Away and you will not regret it.'
  
• 'It's a great drama, helped by the fact that it has a huge cast, meaning there are always a lot of different, varied storylines going on at the same time, so you'll never get bored with what's going on. The great thing about the show is that it mixes drama with some light-hearted comedy every now again. The dramatic storylines are truly enthralling (like the fire in Lassiters), while the comical scenes can be quite amusing too (think of some the more recent episodes!).Overall, it's a fantastic show, and definitely worth watching!'
  
• 'Neighbours is a great show, full of drama'
  
• 'Getting worse'

From these reviews, it is easy to see what most viewers enjoy from a soap. They enjoy drama, good storylines that are believable and realistic so we can take this and incorporate it into our planning for our soap to ensure it will be successful.

Analysis of an episode of Neighbours

Analysing an episode will be beneficial as within my group, we have decided to put an opening to a first episode on our website. The episode will allow us to see how the soap begins and what is successful in terms of attracting the target audience and keeping them interested.

The episode I watched involved a main character who was loved by all pass away. She was wife to Declan and mother to India. Bridget is around 17 years old.

Plot:
The episode I analysed was all focused upon the one dilemma (Bridget’s death). She had been in a car accident. Whilst she is having an operation, she has a dream where she is in the park with Declan (her husband) and India (their daughter). They are having a fun time together as a family. She later has another dream after waking up from the operation. In this dream, she is all alone in the park looking for Declan. She comes across a grandfather clock. The hands on it spin to and chime on 12:00. Bridget then wakes up and asks for the time. After this dream, the audience keep seeing the clock and what time it is, the audience are fully aware that Bridget is preparing for her death to be at 12. At 5 to 12, Bridget has another dream where she and Declan tell each other they love one another and they wave goodbye. Bridget walks away from Declan who is holding India and she ‘walks into the light’ just after she blows a kiss to Declan and India. The dreams are all ‘fazey’ and ‘glowy’. It gives the impression of being heavenly, which fits into the story of Bridget dying.
During the time between the dreams, Bridget’s friends pull together to support her and Donna says a prayer for Bridget.
At 12:00 Bridget dies and when the family get told, they break down into tears.

Lifestyle:
It was hard to analyse the lifestyle of the characters in this episode as it was only set in the hospital over the one storyline. However, from what I saw, the teenagers live life together, supporting each other and generally being there for one another. Bridget’s family spent the whole time either by her side or worrying about her. This shows that family is a big thing in their lives.

Relationships:
In the episode I watched, the relationships explored included:

• Parent/child: Steve and Miranda’s daughter Bridget is in hospital due to a car accident they were involved in. Bridget’s dad begins to blame himself for the extent of Bridget’s injuries and after walking off, he talks to Toadie about the moment they first met Bridget to adopt her. He says “big blue eyes, curly brown locks of hair...fell in love with her then and there”. This shows that Bridget means a lot to them and that they love her as if she was their own.
  Another parent and child relationship is between Bridget and Declan towards their daughter India. At the start of the episode, whilst Bridget is having her operation, she has a dream where her, Declan and India are in the park together. They are having a fun. Later on in the episode, Bridget and Declan are talking and Bridget makes Declan promise to look after India if anything happens to her “love her; give her the best life you can”. This shows that Bridget is making sure her family is safe and remains together when she goes. At 11:55, Bridget tells Declan about the first of the dreams she had when they were in the park. She says they were celebrating India’s first birthday. Together they set a picturesque image of that day “the sky will be the bluest it has ever been. There’ll be birds, a warm breeze, sunshine”.
• Husband and wife: Declan worries about Bridget the whole time she is in the hospital. This shows that they are in love with each other. Bridget and Declan support each other and Bridget makes Declan promise to look after India when she dies. This shows that she trusts him, as husband and wife should.
• Friendships: Bridget and Declan’s friends stay at the hospital to support them. The friends also support each other. Donna says a prayer for Bridget “...asking you to help our friend Bridget, we need her and so does India...totally pull out all the stops to make her better...”
• Godparents: Bridget and Declan chose Donna and Ringo to be India’s godparents. She does this at 11.25. Bridget knows she will be dying soon and is making sure her family will be ok and that her daughter’s life will be the best it can.

This episode differs from the most common episodes of neighbours and other soaps because it focused over the one storyline and had the dream scenes which are not common in soaps.

Analysing the episode was useful as it allowed me to see what the positive and negative points are to it. Within our group, we have decided to base our trailer on one storyline. by analysing an episode which has been based on one storyline, i have been able to identify the ways in which the producers have managed to keep the audience attracted and the episode interesting.

Analysis of Neighbours Trailers

As a group we have decided to analyse trailers from our allocated soaps (Natalie M=Neighbours, Natalie N=Emmerdale and Coronation Street, Elena=Home and Away and Thegla=Hollyoaks). These soaps are from both the UK and abroad. We are hoping this will benefit us when we go on to deciding how we want our trailer to be. We hope to use these trailers as inspiration and as a guide as to how to make our trailer successful.

As the main part of our coursework is to create a trailer for a soap opera, we thought it would be necessary to analyse existing soap opera trailers. This would allow us to see what conventions are necessary for the trailer to be successful.

I decided to compare a recent trailer to an old trailer as the comparison would allow me to see how trailers have developed over time or whether there are aspects of them that have remained the same. Through comparing the trailers, I would also be able to see what the necessary conventions of trailers are.

New trailer (2009): http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/a176195/trailer-death-of-a-neighbour.html#article_continue

• Song played throughout – ‘Beloved’ by Wendy Matthews.
  This is a slow sad song which links to the trailer as the viewer guesses there will be a death of one of the characters, someone who was loved by all.
• The trailer begins with people hugging. It looks like they are saying goodbye to each other or using each other for support. The characters are crying and generally seem sad.
• The trailer then cuts to a rescue scene with police and ambulance. The audience know something bad has happened.
• Words appear on screen. For example; “the show we grew up with...will lose someone we love.”The words fade onto the screen with an image of a character looking sad. The words then fade out.Various letters remain on screen to form a new set of words.
• The trailer gives possibilities of 4 characters who could be the ones leaving. ‘Libby’, ‘Bridget’, ‘Toadie’ or ‘Paul’.
• “A moment you’ll never forget” appears on screen.
  Cuts to a character at a graveyard laying flowers. Powerful moment.
• Blank screen showing channel (5), time (5:30pm), sponsors (Ladbrokesbingo.com) and the website written in white – this stands out. This is a good way of advertising the soap.

Old trailer: http://www.perfectblend-media.co.uk/troyuploads/1986-2.wmv

• 7pm tomorrow written on screen
• ‘Tomorrow on neighbours’ narrated
• Scene from show
• Narration – “but he’s fighting losing battle on both sides of the fence”
• Scene linking to narration – man looking through a hole in the fence at his neighbour.
• Words ‘7pm tomorrow’ remain on the bottom of the screen throughout the trailer.
• Monkey peering through curtain and window ends the trailer. The way the monkey looks through the curtain is how people look through their windows at their neighbours,
• Theme tune of neighbours played quietly in background throughout.
• ‘Neighbours 7’o clock tomorrow on 10” is narrated at the end of trailer.
  

Comparing trailers:

• Definite differences, 2009 trailer much more modern. Trailers are according to their time periods.
• Both trailers have non-diegetic music. 2009 trailer has a song matching the mood of the trailer, old trailer neighbours soundtrack.
• Old trailer – block letters on screen throughout. Very basic.
• 2009 trailer – words fade in and out
• 2009 trailer advertises the show more. It shows the channel, the sponsors and the time it is played.

By doing this, I have realised that trailers need to advertise when the show will be aired, at the end. I believe that the 2009 trailer did this in a better way. However, this may be because it is more modern and this is what we are used to when watching trailers. Trailers need to have scenes from the show and a soundtrack that fits in to the mood of the trailer. However, if the trailer is advertising a new soap, then I think the soundtrack for the opening credits will be more successful to use as it will allow the viewers to hear it and they will eventually begin to recognise it when hearing the trailer and then when hearing the show itself.

Written by Natalie Michael

Analysis of Questionnaire responses

Questionnaire

1) What is your gender?
Male female

2) What age group are you in?
10-14 15-19 20-24 25+

3) Do you watch soap operas? If so, which ones?

4) How often do you watch soap operas?

5) Where do you watch these soaps?
TV Internet

6) When do you watch these soaps?
During the week omnibus on the Internet

7) What do you think makes a good soap opera?

8) What type of characters appeal to you?

This is an example of the questionnaire we sent out to a randomly selected group of people.
The results showed that:

• Mostly females of all ages tend to watch soap operas.
• The most watched soap was Eastenders which was viewed on TV during the week.
• Most people wanted to see good storylines and appealing characters they could relate to.

We are going to use these findings to make sure we include what audiences want from soap operas in order to make to our work as successful as it can be.

Group effort: written by Natalie Michael and Thegla Savvides

Minutes for 1st Group Meeting

Discussing general ideas, pitch and treatment
Tuesday 15th September
Start Time: 11:37am
People Present: Elena Christodoulou, Thegla Savvides, Natalie Michael, Natalie Nicolaides

• As a group we decided to involve our soap around a teenage lifestyle, involving school, relationships and typical teenage problems.
• We discussed various locations and central meeting points like school, home and cafes.
  Characters we decided are based around a stereotypical teenager. leaving the audience the ability to relate to them.
• Heirachy:
  -Popularity Vs Geeks
  -Rich Vs Poor
• Popularity/Rich/Education
• Relationships/Jealousy/Revenge
• We also discussed targets for the week and allocated each other different assignments to complete. e.g research (questionnaires, TV soap analysis, trailer analysis evaluation of questionnaire etc.)

Finish Time: 12:26pm
Group effort: by Elena Christodoulou

Analysis of opening credits for Neighbours

As a group we have decided to analyse opening title sequences from a few popular soaps, both UK and abroad. We feel this will benefit us when deciding on our own opening sequence. We hope to take ideas both positive and negative and apply them to ours to make it the best it can be. Things like music type, colours, pictures and even the length of it.

Analysing the opening credits for soaps is helpful as it allows us to see which types of openings are successful and what of them is necessary in order for them to be successful.

• Images of the characters


• Theme song with ‘neighbours’ in lyrics
  “that’s when good neighbours become good friends”
  shows that it is a tight community where everyone gets along and supports each other. They are all friends.


• Audience watch and remember previous episodes and possibly what happened to specific characters as they see their pictures.


• Theme song is well known which allows people to recognise it.


• Bright colours are used and characters in images have smiles on their faces and they are having a good time. Shows that life on Ramsey Street is fun.


• Images are in a photo booth. Could show that life is picture perfect. But is this reality?

This analysis allows us to take the good points from the opening credits and use them to influence the decisions we make as to what music and layout we want for our opening credits.

Eastenders- General information

Viewership:
In 2003, market research was carried out by the BBC. They found that Eastenders is most watched by 16-24 year olds, closely followed by 25-34 year olds. An average Eastenders episode attracts a total audience share between 45% and 50%. The 10pm repeat show on BBC Three attracts an average of 500,000 viewers, whilst the Sunday omnibus attracts a further 3million.
Eastenders has achieved some of the highest audiences in British television history since it began on mainstream BBC One.
The launch show attracted 17 million viewers in the 1980s. This was perhaps helped by the amount of press attention it received, something which continues today.
For the Christmas episode, in 1986, just under two years since it had been on air, Eastenders attracted 30.15 million viewers. This figure would be its largest audience ever, as well as the largest amount of viewers for a soap episode. In comparison, the smallest amount for an Eastenders episode was around 6.2 million in 2004, somewhat lower than its rivals Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

Scheduling:
For the past 20 years, Eastenders has remained at the centre of BBC One's prime time schedule. There are currently four episodes per week , five including the omnibus.
Originally Eastenders was shown twice weekly, this then increased to thrice after Coronation Street added an extra episode - in response to competition from Eastenders. Eastenders then added it's forth episode on August 10th 2001. This caused controversy as it clashed with Coronation Street, which at the time, moved to 8pm.

Social Realism and Representation:
Eastenders was created during Thatcher Britain, at a time of high unemployment, and where crime rates rocketed. Eastenders tried to represent this in the social realist tradition.
In the eighties, Eastenders featured gritty story lines involving drugs and murder, somewhat reflecting a time in Britain where societies and communities had broken down. Such story lines included homosexuality, drug dealing, rape, shoplifting, sexism, divorce and muggings.
As the show entered the nineties, it moved with society, whilst the issues that existed in the eighties still existed, there was much less attention to them. However, Eastenders still features hard hitting issues such as murder, adoption, domestic violence and alcoholism.