1. 1
St. Paul’s Catholic College
Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media
Locations
1.) Cedars Park, Sunbury
Cedars Park has a large, open plan space, and typically
connotes a sense of happiness and freedom for anybody
who uses it, giving users ‘diversion’ (Katz) from their
daily lives and enjoying themselves. However, this will
be used, as a ‘binary opposite’ (Levi Strauss) in our
trailer, as the female protagonist Lily will be followed by
male antagonist Ace, before being seemingly murdered.
There will be an incrementum as Lily is walking through
the park as more of her face is revealed in the shot.
Additionally, the bright colors will not be present, as the
setting will be filmed at during the night, connoting a
dystopian setting, which could be perceived as scary or
mysterious to challenge general soap opera conventions
and engage our target audience (16-25 year olds.)
The establishing shot for our trailer will open with a
long shot of a set of baby swings. As a group we
decided that swings ‘signify’ (De Saussure) a
dystopian effect on the audience because of the
onomatopoeia of the ambient sound from the swings
‘creaking’ giving it a haunted feel. It also goes against
the ‘Soap Opera’ genre focus of the ‘family’ (Rebecca
Feasey) providing a ‘binary opposite’ (Levi Strauss) to
the audience; making it appeal not only to the female
gender, but male gender as well. The swings also
connote that the trailer is for typical working class
families (Hartley’s seven subjective) and the location
of the park supports this.
We will use this part of the shot to portray Lilly
walking down the park while on the phone. We would
like our character to do this in order to represent a
sense of her “age” (Hartley’s Seven Subjectives). A
teenager is most likely to be seen with their mobile
device and so this also gives off a sense of
“caregivers”(Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs), in order
for our intended audience to relate to the protagonist.
We will most likely pan her motion in order to keep
(Lilly) in focus. The antagonist following the Lily,
demonstrates her as a ‘damsel in distress’ (Propp)
that needs rescuing from this nightmare.
2. 2
2.) The Admiral Hawke, Sunbury
The ‘Admiral Hawke’ pub acts as a familiar setting that
the audience can ‘personally identify’ (Katz) with due to
the typical ‘working class setting.’ It also ‘repeats’
(Steve Neale) the codes and conventions of the soap
opera genre as most Soap Opera’s have the ‘pub’ as one
of their main locations of filming for example,
‘EastEnders’ and ‘Coronation Street. This adds to the
drama within the Soap Opera genre like relationship
and family problems that are generally situated in pubs.
Our trailer repeats (Steve Neale) these conventions as
we see the ‘love triangle’ between Ace, Lily and Hayden
develop as Ace is seen having a drink while envying Lily
and Hayden’s relationship.’ Additionally, The ‘working
class’ (Hartley’s seven subjectivities) will be
demonstrated here and two of our characters (Lilly and
Hayden) will be flirting with one another, so an element
of ‘male gaze’ (Laura Mulvey) is formed.
This was also chosen as one of our prime locations to
give-off an element of “caregivers”(Maslow’s Hierarchy of
needs) to convey the pub as a regular social occasion. The
connotations of the pub represent a sense of celebration
and liveliness, which provides a utopian atmosphere. It is
the place in which the characters celebrate significant
events, such as weddings and the birth of a child. The
setting itself connotes a warm, friendly atmosphere and is
used in a happier scene of the trailer. The connotations of
the name ‘Hawke’ gives the audience a sense of the ‘all
seeing’ which links in well with our trailer, giving it a
more mysterious vibe.
Our “working-cl Our trailer will create a parallel between the utopian
setting of the pub and the dystopian setting of the
park. The introduction of the pubs establishing shot
will have synchronous uplifting music that shifts from
the low-key lighting and non-diegetic sound of the
music to a more ‘happy’ utopian part of the song to fit
with the connotations of the pub as a location. We
decided to have an element of ‘difference’ (Steve
Neale) by having the Villain (Propp) look jealous in
Lily’s dream instead of the being happy for the couple
to signify (De Saussure) an element of tension to the
audience making them engage with the trailer as they
wonder why Ace is jealous of their relationship.
3. 3
3.) Chapel, Sunbury, St. Pauls Catholic College
Weddings are another common convention in Soap
operas; hence we will use the Chapel in school as our
prime location for the wedding. Our original aspirations
were to use the church in St. Ignatius because it was more
authentic than the school chapel. However, we did have a
change of heart after a few complications with using the
church so we decided to use our local school chapel in St.
Paul’s Catholic College. We wanted to use a church setting
because it connotes a romantic and emotional atmosphere
for a wedding day. From putting research into soap
opera’s we found out that a wedding is the perfect
strategy in creating that happy atmosphere for it to be
potentially destroyed later on by the antagonist. We
wanted to repeat (Steve Neale) this element of the
‘wedding’ in our trailer to give the audience a back story
to what they will expect in the episode by revealing it
through the theme of ‘Lily’s dream.’
At the very back we will have the antagonist
standing fixated at the two characters in
matrimony. This will signify “misogyny” against
Lilly, which is what the aim of Ace’s appearance
will be in the trailer. We will have him wearing a
black coat in order to conceal his identity, which
also connotes ‘evil.’
We will also use this space for two of our characters
to get married. We would have to move a few objects
across the room to make everything clear and focused
on them. The theme of the wedding will focus on
both characters being happy with the antagonist of
Ace at the back waiting to ruin their couple’s happy
day.
We will use the chairs in the chapel for our audience
to watch the marriage. Since the location is a chapel
we thought that this was the perfect location for the
marriage to take place. In this scene, we will most
likely collect staff as well students from the sixth form
to help fill up spaces and make the wedding look
naturalistic as possible. As we had a problem
gathering students and teachers for permission, we
decided to film the wedding scene without having any
audience in the scene.
4. 4
4.) Bedroom
We will use this location to represent the final scene
of our trailer when Lilly wakes up from her dream. We
possibly need a nightgown and the antagonist to be
sleeping next to her to further the plot of the trailer.
This location is where the audience realise the trailer
was a dream as we reveal Ace in bed with Lily instead
of Hayden, leaving the audience surprised and
confused. Leaving the audience on a cliffhanger
enables them to want to tune in to watch the first
episode.
We used the house of another group member and most
specifically the bedroom of that house. We did this
because we wanted to portray our character Lilly as
actually waking up from a dream to make our trailer look
more realistic; more specifically we wanted to do this
because it was easier for all groups to film at one persons
house if needed. The bed was the most key imagery out of
all the other shots so we put all our energy into making
this footageperfectly presented.
