Q1 transcript:

What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of a soap trailer?
Use:
My media product uses similar conventional characters that are featured in a
soap trailer. For example, my trailer includes a bad boy archetype character
called Jamie who causes destruction and likes to seek revenge on people that do
him wrong. This is similar to characters featured in soaps like Hollyoaks Trevor
and Coronation Streets David. These characters can be used to incorporate
narrative with darker storylines like drug taking and murder. We also feature
characters like the chavvy, cheeky character Ben in our trailer that is based
around characters like Fatboy from Eastenders. This character brings some
humour and light heartedness to the soap as well as helps to include different
stereotypical classes. In contrast to this, I used other conventional characters like
Sophie, the young determined character that reminds me of soap characters like
Esther from Hollyoaks and Abbie from Eastenders. I also featured a younger
character Tilly, who appears very vulnerable and caring. These characters can be
used to show the more positive characters in life which brings more of a range of
storylines and characters and enables the audience to marvel in the success of
these characters as well as empathise with the negative storylines. By using
conventional characters the audience can recognise them and understand the
sides of their personality as they have a base from other soaps, meaning that the
history of characters can be formed by the audience and not featured in the
soap, keeping them actively involved in the soap world of Memory Lane as it is
very personal to them.
Other conventional features that I have used in my soap trailer are settings.
Based on my research, I found out that it is conventional for soap trailers to be
filmed in one location, usually a neighbourhood or domestic setting like a kitchen
or bedroom. This can be seen in soaps like Eastenders, where all of the
characters live in a square, and Emmerdale. In my soap, I filmed down one long
road and in a house and school, which are all locations that my audience will be
familiar with as they are of school leaving age and still living at home with their
parents. By using these locations I can tailor my trailer to be more appealing to
my target audience as they will be used to being in settings like this every day,
so it will enhance the realism which the soap genre focuses on.
Develop:
In my soap trailer I developed conventional narrative themes such as alcoholism,
drug taking and murder. Usually these narratives are portrayed using characters
in their 20s and 30s, but I developed the narrative so that it was based around a
much younger age of 16-25. In soaps like Eastenders and Coronation Street it is
normal for the characters to go to the pub to meet up, and there is only one or
two storylines that feature alcohol abuse, like Lauren Branning in Eastenders. In
my soap I decided to develop this storyline to show alcohol abuse as one big
problem with young people, which sends out a negative message to the
audience as they are of a similar age, so will be able to watch and understand
the issues of underage drinking instead of being subjected to see it as a social
gathering place. I decided to develop this narrative theme in particular as I feel

that young people do not understand the consequences of underage drinking

and many of them are pressured to do it, so they will be able to understand and
learn from my trailer as well as be entertained, making it more socially accepted.
Another conventional feature of a soap trailer I developed was the genre. Soaps
are very dramatic by nature, so we used this and developed it to make it more
relatable to younger people. The semantic elements were featured but we
adapted the syntactic elements to make sure that the relationships between
characters and the enigmas were more understanding and appealing to our
target audience. We also developed the age of the characters that are used in a
conventional soap trailer. Usually, younger people are featured but they are not
always used as a main storyline, whereas in our trailer we decided to make them
the centre, and we decided not to feature any older parental characters. We have
featured drugs, relationships with both couples and families, murder, crime and
alcoholism, which are usual elements involved in a the soap genre, and
developed them to show how they are an issue with younger people. By
developing the genre we have created a soap that is more appealing to our
audience as they are more likely to have felt the way the characters have or
experience similar things, so can use the soap as a way of escapism because
they feel like they are involved.
Challenge:
I challenged the camerawork and editing in my soap trailer, making the trailer
less conventional but more effective. I have used conventional shots like over the
shoulder shots, close ups and wide shots to show the setting and characters
facial expressions which are conventional for a soap trailer, but I have also
challenged the conventions by including POV shots and long shots as well as a
freeze effect. During the party sequence, I used a POV shot throughout to make
the audience feel as though they are seeing the party from their eyes, making
them feel more involved. I made the shots faster so that it looked like the
character was becoming more intoxicated, and added a dip to black and blur to
show the end of the night before and the morning after. This differs from usual
soap trailers as they rarely use POV shots and are more likely to use wide shots
and long shots to establish the setting and act as though they are an onlooker to
the town of characters, which can ruin the verisimilitude that the soap genre is
based on.
The way we introduced the characters in the soap also differs from those
featured in a conventional soap trailer. To introduce the characters in the first
scene of the trailer, we used a range of different shots to show Jamies
movement, and then moved around the actors using the 180 degree rule using
one long take which then sees Ben walking away, which then moves on to his
drama that is in the trailer where he is seen lying to his girlfriend about going to
a party. This is different from the way conventional soaps like Hollyoaks and
Eastenders introduce characters, as they usually use jump cuts from one
storyline to the next and then introduce the characters as they appear, like the
return of Stacey or the arrival of the Lomax family where the first few shots of
Tegan are seen when she is in labour. These are big debuts for new characters,
whereas we have taken a much smoother approach and used long takes to move
from storyline to storyline, making it easier for our audience to relate. By using
an original way to introduce characters the audience can understand them a lot

better as they are able to follow the character and view the world from their eyes
instead of as an onlooker.