Soap Trailer Draft 2

This is our improved version of our soap trailer. Taking on board our teacher's and the audience's feedback from Facebook,YouTube and classmates we have shortened the trailer and generally improved it, including a faster pace and improved audio quality like our feedback emphasized.

Soap Theroist: Tzvetan Todorov II

Todorov's theory probably can apply to more than Propp's theory due to the fact Todorov's theroy is specialised to one genre such as 'fairy tales', he explains that all narrative has five stages.

 Stage 1: Equilibrium ( everything is fine)

Stage 2: A disruption of  this order

Stage 3: The disruption realised

Stage 4: An attempt to repair the disruption

Stage 5: The story is resolved

I tried to try to include these stages in my soap trailer when i show the characters narrative, however not all will be included as the clips will only be introductions to stories as a whole story would likely not fit in a trailer meaning only the first 2-3 stages will be included due to the fact the story is a trailer. All soaps are serial so stories never end meaning stage 5 is dis-proven in soap, due to the fact their serials characters can come and go so stories are never fully resolved in soap. Todorov's theory can be seen in my soap with the two gay men whom are happy (equilibrium) the drunken thug character distorts this and this is realised where one of the men begins to have doubts on their relationship stating "I wonder is our love worth the abuse".





 

Soap theorists: Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp was a Russian theorist who analysed folk stories, for their characters in particular, he found that although these stories may of differed they had underlying similar characters, which included:

.An antagonist,
.A protagonist or as he called 'the hero'
.The donor (whom provides a key object in the story)
.A helper for the hero
.'A princess' which may not even be a maiden, for example it may be any prize that the hero wishes to obtain and/or the source of the antagonists evil deeds.
.A fake hero
.A dispatcher
.The father/person whom rewards the hero for his efforts.

Although not all can specifically can apply to modern stories there are a lot of similar aspects of Propp's theory that relate to modern stories, soap drama included. An example can be seen in the recent Eastenders Christmas special 2011 where Masood (the protagonist) and his helper (Jane)  try to rescue  Masood's ex-wife Zainab (the princess) from the clutches of her abusive and murderous husband 'Yusef Khan' (the antagonist). Similarities do not end there as Masood also has to get his son from a different woman. The child was used over Zainab so she did what she was told, so this other woman could be seen as 'the donor' whom provides the essential object which is her son. Yusef prior to this acted as 'a false hero'. It seems that a lot of Propp's theory can be applied to modern day texts as shown here and I will take this on board when constructing my own soap trailer. Although my soap trailer will feature a range of stories not just one, meaning this theory wont fully apply I will apply it to the trailer if its both possible and necessary.

Youtube video feedback

After releasing our first draft we had a some feedback from 'Youtube' to where it was uploaded, although the majority of our feedback came from our classmates,other media students as well as Facebook I though id include some of the feedback we had from YouTube nevertheless.

• "thaaats goooooood ;D"
  
• "Really good. It looks like skins or something :L"
  
• "Nice."
  
  Although not the most detailed or formal feedback it was still helpful as we saw these people from our age range enjoyed it and that we seem to have matched what we originally aimed for as dramas like 'skins' and soaps like 'Hollyoaks' are what we got our inspiration for in terms of characters and story- lines. The video itself also received 8 'thumbs up' which is YouTube's new rating system.
  

Ancillary text: TV Listings magazine front cover for media product Avenue



This is my TV-Listings magazine featuring characters from my fictional soap 'Avenue'. I used the conventions of of other TV-listings magazines. It is a revised version of my original magazine but this time I've improved it and incorporated pictures from my soap trailer and cast into it. My magazine centrals around the soap characters and mentions other stories as well which relate to a range of age groups such as 'Scares' for younger children and families and comedy show 'Nonsense' aims at a more savvy audience. My soap itself aims at a 16-25 audience but also has touches of older age group story lines so it can be enjoyed by 30-40 year old's partially also. 


As this ancillary text is a revised version of my original TV Listings magazine (found earlier on in my blog) as they are very similar a detailed analysis of this magazine front cover can be found there. Slight changes that Ive included above however can be seen with two new programs, a DIY show which will likely attract middle aged men and a comedy about Teens to attract teenagers and younger parents.I also used a holiday as my pug to attract more buyers and the main difference is that the magazine now features a prominent story shown in my soap trailer showing synergy which relates to the conventional love triangle plot. The strap line that I used also has the word 'betrayed' which is emotive,it is also shocking and attracts an audience to read on and to buy the magazine.To show emphasis it is the largest sized writing on the page, is in a vibrant red as well as sans-serif font to emphasize it's importance.


 

Friends and Family feedback from watching our trailers on DVD

After completing our trailer we were all given dvd copies of our trailers, the purpose to show friends and family what we achieved and to gain feedback from them, on the last week before half term we showed the trailer to some friends and our cast in a school computer room, the cast laughed about seeing themselves in the scene and so did the others, the feedback was very positive aswell, practically everyone liked it.

I later showed the DVD to my family at home who also agreed that it was good, complementing its structure, and that the telling of the story was fluid and logical despite having a large range of different characters/ stories. They said the story was good and that the trailer looked quite professional, complimenting the camera work and editing.

A few opinions from the cast, friends and family

Jonathon Fromant (played the jack-the-lad character)
"I think that the music of the trailer set the scene well, matching the emotions of a scene."

Alex Doyle (friend)
"The editing and lighting creates a good atmosphere"

Soap Trailer 'Avenue' Draft 1

This is our first draft for our soap trailer 'Avenue' which I worked on with my fellow group member 'Josh Spoelstra'. This is only our first draft and is liable to change here and there with audience feedback. Enjoy:

Editing The 'Avenue' trailer

We filmed the 'Avenue' trailer in a chronological order so most of the editing we needed to do was cut the length in some clips to make the be more fluent. The footage needed to fit with the music also so wed edited accordingly to highlight poignant moments in the soap through different times in the music for example a more dramatic tune coming through in the 'drug' scene for example. Besides that we just put voice overs in relating to each character and put small titles to sum up each scene as well.

We did use some effects and also enhanced the quality/lighting at times to represent the particular scene as well as put in a few title sequences. Below are some screen shots of the editing process:

Day 2 of filming our soap trailer (Sunday)

Our group member Michael who knew the owner of a pub had allowed us to film inside before it opened. We began filming at 9.30 using a glass of water to resemble a 'shot' the scene went well convincing the barmaid to take part meant we would have an extra female character to make our soap more varied in gender. After the scene we did one of the final scenes,'the love triangle' it was confusing at first and difficult to film as wed had to film between a road, a man allowed us to use his car's window reflection for our film so it would stick to the storyboard and we managed to buy some flowers for the scene and overall it went well despite a number of re-shoots.

Our cast member Harry arrived to join David Bangs who we used for the pub scene. Although the whole cast couldn't make it on the day we went with the original idea of the group standing around the sign, this showed the name of the soap and also showed the setting (a conventional urban environment). Although we did not have the whole group with us it perhaps helped us in the long term as more people likely wouldn't of fit into the shot so in the long term it was perhaps beneficial that we did not have everyone, although this meant there was less age variation on our posters I still believe the final shot went well and ended the soap trailer in a conventional manner.

After Sunday we had completed our footage and began preparing for editing.

Day 1 of filming our soap trailer (Thursday)

After I completed the storyboard for our soap we arranged a day where the majority of the cast could film, this was Thursday which was an academic tutoring day so this meant the majority of our cast could film most times in the day.

I arrived at 11.30 by the dry cleaners shop to meet the rest of the group. One member of the group 'Emily' bought her two grandparents, little brother and dog whom we planned to use for an 'extras' scene. We choose to use them to show a range of different ages/genders in our soap. Not teenagers alone, despite them being our target audience. Although we managed to obtain a range of different ages we could not get a anyone from a different ethnic background.

We filmed their section then the scene with the thug when he bashed into the 'business man' Michael's father. for this scene we had to switch 'Michael' for the original thug character 'David Bangs' as he couldn't make it at the time. It worked out better Michael being the thug in this scene however. Michael having two parts works well as he is difficult to recognise due to the different attire he wears in each scene. After filming this scene we had a few hours to spare so we made the prop drugs (a bag of flour) for one of our later scenes.

After filling the time by going about the town and watching the footage back it looked promising. Soon enough the group returned, Michael (fellow group member) along with our two other cast members (David Bang's and Anthony Whitfield) Anthony was being part of the 'gay couple' but as his co-star wasn't present I had to play the second character. The scene went well and the rest of the group arrived so we filmed the drug hold up scene by a driveway we found, which seemed appropriate and conventional. After some debates after what camera angles to use the scene went as planned using the bag of flour prop.

As planned on the schedule we finished filming for the day and planned to film the rest Sunday morning to stay with consistent lighting etc.

'Theres two sides to every story'

The tag-line for our soap trailer "There's two sides to every story" originally came from an earlier idea where we saw two sides two every character, one good one evil. The trailer was similar to our current trailer however it differed slightly. In the original idea we would see one evil and one good personality to every character, one example of this was a happy character walking along then we see her reflection in a puddle and she is nasty, this would continue in various of ways throughout the trailer and the tag line would be stated near the end. We decided to keep it for our newest idea however as we thought it was a good tag line which still fitted the trailer as we see different characters taking situations different ways, it also relates to the audience how one person may have a different opinion to their friend on one of the storyline imaginative soap, so we also promote discussion from the audience with such a tag line, it doesn't just have one meaning.

Storyboard extract

This is part of our storyboard:

'Avenue' shot list

When planning the storyboard for the soap, I wanted conventional angles like mid-shots and fly-on-the-wall shots but as it was a trailer I also had the opportunity to use a range of different shots also.

1.mid shot
2.over the shoulder close up
3.mid shot
4.long shot (tracking)
5.long shot
6.long shot
7.(Tilted) Long shot
8.mid shot
9.long shot
10.dutch tilt
11.long shot
12.close up
13.mid shot
14.long shot
15.mid shot
16. close up
17.long shot
18.close up
19.mid shot
20.long shot
21.close up (high angle)
22.long shot into close up
23.low angle mid shot
24.long shot
25.long shot
26. (title sequence)