Unit 6 - My Soap - Task 1

1. Unit 6 Needwood Task 1
Setting and main meeting place
It is centred around the village pub, church, school, shop and a row of houses on the main road
where all the characters meet on a daily basis. The narrative is the daily lives of the village.
Characters
Needwood shall be diverse and represent all ethnics, ages, gender, sexual orientation and
diversity through all the characters within the soap. It shall allow the audience to talk and give their
opinions on each character and story. Although the characters shall be mainly middle class,
viewers shall see the problems that the characters face in friendship, betrayal, men, work, school
and even body related issues to ensure it is relatable to everyone, irrespective of their social class,
as these phases in life always occur. My main characters shall be as follows:
Howard and Jane Kingsley
They are an older white British couple in their early sixties that own and run the Shoulder of
Mutton public house in the heart of the village. Jane is an endearing woman that loves to organise
village fetes, shows, pub quizzes and likes to get the community involved. She is always smartly
dressed and takes pride in her appearance. Howard is a gentle soul that is kind and thoughtful and
likes to help people. He is also smartly dressed and slightly hen-pecked by Jane but he secretly
likes the way she fusses over him.
Jess and Toby Braxton
Grandchildren to Howard and Jane Kingsley and live with them at the public house whilst their
parents travel with their jobs. They are both white British teenagers and attend the local school.
Jess is fifteen and Toby is seventeen. Toby is studying for his A-levels and has started to mix with
a bad crowd at his school. Jess is easily impressionable and has no ambition at the start of the
soap, but throughout the soap and with mixing with different people and having different life
lessons, she becomes ambitious and ends with wanting to be a doctor.
Ernest Roland Cromwell
He is an eccentric white British male in his fifties that lives in the large house in the village that is in
the opening titles of the soap. He wears checked trousers, shirt and bowtie and is a retired
surgeon/consultant. He has written countless books in his medical field. He loves to drink, chat to
people and is the life and soul of the village. He is a happy go lucky, highly intelligent, kind and
chatty, wealthy man that loves telling everyone he meets his stories and people don’t know
whether to believe or not.

2. Anna Harding
She is the owner of the local shop which is the hub of the community. She is a black British widow
in her early thirties that has a homely, neighbour next door appeal to her. She is dressed smart
casual in jeans, boots and tops and takes pride in her appearance. She was married to her
childhood sweetheart but he died in a tragic accident. It was their dream to own this shop, so when
it became available, she sold their home and bought it. She mainly runs the shop herself but has
part-time help and lives above the shop.
Colin McNeil
He is the head teacher at the school and is a white British male in his early forties who is
homosexual. He is smartly dressed and always wears a suit at work. He knows all the children’s
names off by heart and wants them to achieve the best that they can. He is easy to get along with
and has a casual attitude towards the children but is respected and well-liked by everyone.
Location
It is located in a small village in Staffordshire and is based on a real village. It is going to portray
the lives of the people within the village on a daily basis, although the soap itself shall be only
shown over two days a week. The socioeconomic status of the village is mainly middle class with
a few lower and upper middle class. It is grouped as ABC1 in the classification scheme.
Clothes
Most characters will be dressed as smart casual wear with one character, Ernest, dressed
eccentrically with checked trousers, shirt and bowtie. Symbolic items such as a bowtie on an
individual character and different clothing on various other characters informs viewers of their
personality. And normally fashion and appearance triggers people into giving an opinion on what

3. they think of the individuals. Hopefully they shall like the characters and continue to watch the
soap.
Target Audience
Needwood is Emmerdale meets Waterloo Road and is aimed at the mass market as it will be
mainstream and easily accessible. It shall have a mixture of youth, adult and senior characters
within the soap to give an all-round balance of village life. It will mainly be targeted at females but
due to the countryside views, luxury family cars, mainly above average houses and the local public
house it would also be suited to the older male population. It will have a mild element of religion as
it will show the local church but would not focus on this, so as not to offend anyone. It will be more
of a background conversation within the soap. It shall include social problems that the viewers can
relate to, for example relationships and family life. According to YouGov website below, the target
audience for Emmerdale is female aged 55 or over and for Waterloo Road its females aged 18-24
years old. In both cases these soaps are taking females.
Emmerdale
Waterloo Road

4. Budget
£100,000 per episode as Emmerdale costs £125,000 per episode.
This would equate to £200,000 per week as it is showing for two episodes. Total production costs
would be £10.4 million per year.
Advertising
Emmerdale receives £400 million per year in advertising, so I would estimate Needwood to
receive around £200 million in advertising revenue. Emmerdale receives £8 million over two years
for McCain chips sponsor.
Profit
Total profit per year for Needwood soap would be:-
Production Cost – Advertising = profit
£10.4 million - £200 million = £189.6 million per year
Visual style
The outside shots for the soap shall be shot on location outside the public house, school, church,
houses on the main road and the shop. All the inside shots shall be in the studio. It shall have a
chocolate box, country style theme to it with a main road centred in the soap with all the symbolic
buildings stemming from it.
Narrative style
A narrative is when a story has a start, middle and end to it but not necessary in that order.
Narratives also rely on non-technical features that give structure to the story by establishing a

5. setting, a story that enables the characters to develop because of a good storyline and
relationships each character have with one another, and an engaging plot and climaxes for the
characters. Technical features are also important when creating a soap because the story would
not reach its full potential without features such as good camera shots, the correct lighting for each
scene to enhance the mood, good use of sound for dialogue and music throughout the soap, as
well as the ability to edit the soap correctly in order to see the end vision. I shall be using these
narratives in my soap.
Sequential/Linear
This is when the story is in chronological order. This means that events happen in the order to
which the characters experience them. Because everything is seen in order, it is easier for the
viewer to understand the storyline, but they can become predictable and boring. Sequential/linear
features follow a set format of Equilibrium, Disruption, and Equilibrium, i.e. a balanced, calm
storyline, then the story changes to allow for the chaos to start, a solution is found to rectify the
chaos and then a balanced, calm storyline again.
I would use this narrative for my soap with flashbacks and voiceovers on the bigger stories to give
the viewer a more comprehensive backstory on each character, so that the viewer can follow each
character and get to know them. Soaps like EastEnders and Coronation Street use sequential
narratives as they have a storyline between two characters (Equilibrium), then the story builds and
shows the characters having an affair, the affair is discovered and causes chaos (Disruption),
before they finish their affair or one character leaves to end this storyline (Equilibrium). Much like
in this EastEnders clip and how it builds up to the reveal by having an audience present.
https://youtu.be/f949uafKpCc
Needwood shall be like Emmerdale meets Waterloo Road and have familiar storylines to bring the
whole audience together regardless of social class. The language is formal as its reflecting on day
to day life mainly focusing on female viewers and the dialogue is presented to ensure the viewers
are there to watch. An example for the younger viewers would be that some young women
characters within the soap would love hair, jewellery, make up, clothes and to gossip with their
friends, this shall then make them relatable to other women watching the programme.
The Shoulder of Mutton public house, the local shop and the school shall all be the main symbolic
buildings within the soap, to bring the viewers together from the different communities watching
the soap, as they can relate to a public house, school and shop, as they probably have one nearby
to them.

6. The title sequence is homely and portrays the countryside with opening shots of the trees and the
use of panning in and out of shots for the road and houses, which invites the viewers to tune in. A
variety of camera shots are used especially close ups and point of view shots in soaps, so the
viewers can sense emotion and the body language from the characters.
It shall also have open endings at the end of each episode and the storyline shall ensure they are
left open, so the next episode can continue on with the narrative of where the previous episode
has left from.
Genre
Entertainment, Soap
Length
It shall be shown twice a week for 30 minutes.
Slot
Having the best timeslot is essential to establish when my audience is available to watch the soap.
Women who have children or are working, tend to be busy throughout the day, but from around
7:00pm to 9:00pm they tend to have more spare time, as their children have settled down or
normally in bed. The parents will then look to the television in order to select something to watch.
Even though lots of genre is available to watch, I believe most females and some males would
choose to watch a soap programme at that time over a film or comedy as they are easier to watch
when they want to unwind. My programme shall not contain any violent scenes, murder or scenes
of a sexual nature, so I believe the best timeslot for my soap would be at 7:00 p.m.
Programmes in that timeslot were:-
 BBC1 The One Show which was on daily at 7pm and then at 7.30 pm was either
Fake Britain or EastEnders
 BBC2 Sport all week from 7pm
 BBC4 News all week from 7pm
 ITV1 Showed Emmerdale at 7pm followed by Coronation Street
 ITV2 Love Island, a romantic reality show daily from 7pm
 Channel 4 News all week from 7pm
 Channel 5 All programmes on 7pm were:-
 Sport on Monday,
 Police Interceptors, a reality series on Tuesdays,

7.  Secrets of Great British Castles documentary on Wednesday,
 Eamon & Ruth reality show on Thursday,
 Travel documentary called Alex Polizzi Italian Island on Friday.
 Sky1 The Simpsons all week from 7pm
ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 had commercials, so if I were to use these channels, then each
episode would be 30 minutes including 5 minutes of breaks.
On BBC1, The One Show could be moved to another timeslot to accommodate my soap, so that it
is healthy competition to Emmerdale on ITV1 at the same time. On the remainder of the channels
above it consisted of news, sport, Simpsons or reality television shows. I don’t think any of the
audience that watch these programmes would watch my soap, so it doesn’t detract from my
viewings or affect my soap in anyway by having my soap scheduled for the same time as them.
Therefore by studying the channels above and considering all the main channels and slot times in
order to establish where my soap would work best and fit in with the other programmes
surrounding it, I believe the best channel for Needwood would be BBC1.
Main competitors
Netflix don’t really have soaps on their channel, so I don’t think Needwood would be suited to
Netflix. My soap could be shown on Sky or websites such as TV.com, but they don’t really have
any soap programmes on their channels either that I could find that were similar. If my soap was
shown on these channels to test the audience response, I feel that using Sky’s paid subscription
channels or ‘pay for what you watch’ websites like TV.com may reduce the audience, as not
everyone has these television services. If my soap was shown on non-subscription channels like
BBC, ITV, Channel 4 or Channel 5, then hopefully it would be seen by a wider audience.
The only soaps that are currently on television at a similar time are; Emmerdale on ITV1 at 7pm,
EastEnders on BBC1 at 7.30-8.30pm, depending on which night it is shown and Hollyoaks on
Channel 4 at 6.30pm. The only similar soap to mine would be Emmerdale. Therefore, due to a gap
in the market on BBC1 for soaps such as mine, I concluded that BBC1 would be the best fit for my
soap and because I want to show it at the same time as Emmerdale, it would be good competition
for it.
Furthermore, another reason for choosing BBC1 was to avoid the unnecessary time of cutting
each episode down to 25 minutes to accommodate for the commercials on ITV1. Because my
soap will be an Emmerdale meets Waterloo Road soap, it shall have some teenage characters
shown at the local school; so would appeal to the younger audience more.

8. Bibliography
 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), (2016), Available from: www.bbc.co.uk [Accessed
28th June 2016]
 Broadcaster’s audience research board (BARB), (2016), ‘Weekly viewing data. Available
from: http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-viewing-summary [Accessed 27th June
2016]
 Campaign Live, (2016), ‘Emmerdale’ Available from:
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/mccain-signs-8m-deal-sponsor-emmerdale/1285310#
[Accessed 28th June 2016]
 Channel 4, (2016), Available from: www.channel4.com [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 Channel 5, (2016), Available from: www.channel5.com [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 ITV.com, (2016), Available from: www.itv.com [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 Netflix, (2016), Available from: https://www.netflix.com/browse [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 Radio Times, (2016), ‘Emmerdale’Available from: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-
05-14/how-much-do-soap-stars-earn [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 Sky, (2016), Available from: www.sky.com [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 TV.com, (2016), Available from: www.tv.com [Accessed 28th June 2016]
 Wikipedia, (2016) ‘NRS social grade’ Available from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade [Accessed 27th June 2016]
 YouTube, (2016) ‘EastEnders Christmas scene’ Available from:
https://youtu.be/f949uafKpCc [Accessed 28th June 2016]