4. Origins of Melodrama
• Term originated from the 19th century French
word (Melodrame)
• The word Melo means music in Greek
• Drame is French for drama
• Melodrama is a combination of spoken pieces
and short pieces of music
• In ancient Greek times, they used to mime.
5. Camera work
• Free hand camera work to make the scene more
realistic.
• Coronation street uses a range of different camera
techniques from zooming out to panning across the
tops of houses, to a slight birds eye view.
• All these shots are done slowly and blend together.
• Where as Hollyoaks use of camera angles and shots are
very short and quick, creating a fast feel which matches
the music.
• Hollyoaks uses lots of close ups of the characters
faces, in contrast to Coronation street, which doesn't
use any close ups.
6. Mise en scene
• The mise-en-scene in each opening are very different.
• Coronation street is filmed in an urban setting, in an
old part of town, somewhere up North. There are no
characters shown, it is about about the location which
reflects a slow pace of life, which matches to music.
• They use the day light to film in. It is all very
naturalistic.
• Nearly all the characters seem to be young, all under
the age of 40, which contrasts with the old, slow pace
of the coronation street theme.
7. • Plots based on human crises and emotions
• Everything is over-exaggerated
8. Sound
• Dramatic music to cause suspense.
• Non-Diegetic and Diegetic sound depending
on scene or soap.
• Non-Diegetic sound in scenes where it’s
needed to cause tension.
• Diegetic sounds in bar/club/shop/restaurant
scenes.
9. Editing
• Hollyoaks is edited together, to reflect a
fast, lively feel with lots of crazy effects to give
a young and fun feel.
• Coronation street has slow and smooth
transitions, where the shots blend nicely into
each other. No effects are added.
10. Lighting
• The lighting is all from the studio and no
natural light is used in Coronation street.
• Hollyoaks uses nearly all natural light within
their shooting, apart from help from reflectors
or flash.
11. Scenes
• Coronation street is half an hour normally, with a break
generally leaving on a cliff hanger.
• Hollyoaks is the same with more breaks.
• In each episode there is normally three or four
different storylines.
• Each storyline begins with a establishing shot and
before cutting off to another story there is a cliff
hanger.
• Because each episode contains a variety of stories the
audience feel they have to watch every episode to
understand, if they miss one they wont.
