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St. Andrew’s Catholic School

Center Number: 64135

Candidate Number: 4131

Candidate Name: Keir Speirs

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 – 1980) Setting: Pub Houses Market Strong regional identity Narrative: Relationships Death Adultery Flashbacks Family issues Sexuality Character: Manipulative characters Killer Geezer Voyeuristic Active and passive Icons: Community Regional identity Theme tune Over arcing storyline Plots and subplots Gossip Special episodes Verisimilitude – attempt at creating realism

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

1. Romance

2. Family relationships and/or conflict

3. Working class community

4. Antagonism and conflict within community

5. Fixed representation of regional identity

Eastenders (1985 – Present)

Key information regarding this text:

Exhibited – BBC 1 – repeated on BBC 3

UK’s highest rated program

Set in Watford 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. YOU SHOULD aim to identify key examples (Verbal, Non-Verbal, Technical) from each trailer that demonstrates your understanding.

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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 – 45

Gender

Women

Nationality

British

Trailer 1) What is the Focus of this trailer? The theme of violence – taking over the ‘Queen Vic’

Code &

Convention

Evidence

(Verbal, Non-Verbal, Technical)

Impact on the Audience

(Katz, Maslow, Hartley)

Romance

Hugging – between man and woman

Hartley – characters 20-40 appeals to those of the same ages. This appeals to the audience as they can relate to this sort of relationship.

Family relationships and/or conflict

“stay away from my brother” “it was me” Mid shots – people standing in pub ( working class)

Maslow – ‘caregivers’ This theory Appeals to audiences that identify themselves as caregivers and can sympathize with them, trauma is represented in the scene.

Focus on working class communities

The Pub ( Queen Vic) Working class sense of community

Hartley –accent Location appeals to the audience as they can recognize with the characters.

“Multi-Stranded Narrative”

New Owner of the Working Class Queen Vic Money and Greed

This relates to the audience as this gives them a sense of community as this is where all the characters go to meet.

‘Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)

New owner of Vic , replaces other character

The audience wonder what the new owners of the Queen Vic will be like.

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Trailer 2) 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

Kissing Hartley – characters 20-40 appeals to 20-40. This appeals to the audience as they can relate to this sort of relationship.

Family relationships and/or conflict

Kat and Alfie fighting Three brothers together Pace - fast

‘Personal relationship’ (Katz) – This appeals to the audience as they feel sorry for Alfie due to Kat cheating on him.

Focus on working class communities

The location of the Queen Vic Pub and market.

‘Personal identity’ – Katz Region - Hartley The audience can relate to this as they get a sense of community.

“Multi-Stranded Narrative”

One story line of Kat and Alfie fighting.

Audience can focus more on the one story rather than lots of different ones. Katz – personal identity – audience can relate to multiple stories at once.

‘Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)

Kat and Alfie fight over her cheating.

Audience feel sympathy for the characters as they are fighting. Katz – personal identity – audience relate to the characters who are in distress.

Multi-stranded narrative A Multi-stranded narrative can be defined as….. Telling a story from more than one person’s POV Telling multiple stories about multiple characters in a 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.

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Code & Convention Evidence Impact on the audience

Multi-stranded narrative

max and girl fighting stag and hen Phil Ronnie ring jack

Audience can focus one lots of different storylines making it more interesting for the audience.

Family relationships and/or conflict

Max and girl argue Phil and jack argue

Audience can relate to the characters if they have had family/relationship problems.

Focus on working class communities

The Vic/club This relates to the audience as it is a working class place.

Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)

Ronnie ringing jack Adds another story. Which lets the audience follow more than one story at once. This means the audience won’t get bored as they have to concentrate on more than one story.

Romance

Woman kissing man Audience can relate to romance. This gives the audience a sense of personal identity.

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

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: beliefs and values

1. Woman cleaning doing house work however this challenges Feasey (2007) as this connotes that this female isn’t being shown in a dominant way.

2. Domestic tribulations: the family where sitting down together having a

conversation.

3. Man taking kid to school – this conforms to Feasey (2007) as it connotes that the man is doing the work rather than the woman doing everything.

“Multi-Stranded Narrative”

Granddad talking about kids mother Man leaving and honeymoon This appeals to the audience as it allows the audience to follow other story lines and find out more information.

Family relationships and/or conflict

Family sitting down eating together Couples This appeal to the audience as they can relate to the same sort of relationships.

Focus on working class communities

Setting “going out for a slap up meal”# This appeals to the audience as the majority of viewers are from the working class. This means they can relate to the same language.

Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)

Arguments between the mother and grandmother. This connotes to the audience that something bad has happened between the two characters.

Romance

Man and woman kissing Man and woman – “honeymoon”

Other Themes & Issues represented:

N/A

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Soap Opera Codes & Conventions continued – Lesson 4 Textual Analysis

1) What is the purpose of a trailer?

To gain the audiences interest.

2) What are the benefits of Multi-Platform promotion of a media text?

Get to a wider audience using platforms.

More advertising. Ultimately, some form of Convergence is important when promoting a text to the target audience. 3)

Textual Analysis –

Next Page - YOU MUST make notes on the following areas when deconstructing this sequence from Coronation Street:

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

Coronation Street: 50th Anniversary Multi-stranded narrative:

One narrative throughout the whole trailer. This was of all the characters effected by a train crash, which created a massive fire trapping a lot of characters.

Character dilemmas: All the characters were affected by the crash and fire. These lead characters to go

and search for those trapped inside the fire causing other problems between characters.

‘Personal Identity’ (Katz) The audience can relate to something like this if they have been in a similar

situation. This makes the audience feel sympathy for all the characters affected by this disaster.

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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 ident for the popular Channel Four Teen

Soap Opera Hollyoaks (1995 – Present)? Gender signs – appeal to both, colour – pink and blue – gender stereotype 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 Music – white wedding – good contrast to black costume of the characters. Binary opposite white and black – good and bad. The verbal code of the non-diegetic lyric “nice day” is a binary opposite (Levi Strauss) to the costume, where everyone is wearing all black. This connotes that something bad is going happen to one of the characters. Tear – black – the black tear connotes no one is happy about the wedding and also could be a symbol for something bad about to happen. Petals – black – the black petals connote death or end of something Pregnancy – who is the father? Forced smile from the other characters – this connotes they don’t like what is happening and also connotes a sense of hatred between characters.

Production Work

1) What is the role of a Producer? Decision making, oversee the production, organization, consideration of target audience, successful, finance and budget.

2) What is the role of a Director? The visualization of the scene – action, leader on set, calm, focus, on the spot decisions.

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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.

Total population covered - 53,502,000 adults (15+)

The average age of the BBC listeners are 32.

The launch of a second channel in April 1964 saw the creation of BBC 1 and BBC 2 brands, with the distinctive horizontal stripes across the screen. A big publicity campaign was mounted to launch the new channel, using the rather playful symbol of a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch, with the even more unlikely names of Hullabaloo and Custard (visuals drawn by artist Desmond Marwood). The evening of the launch was famously marred by a power failure in West London, and at one point candles even appeared on the screen.