1. St. Andrew’s Catholic School
Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media
“Mind Map” – Pre-Production Planning
Name of the show (Connotations)
• Hanging Hill Lane
• A Day in the Life
• Bad Moon Rising
• Just Another Day
• Not Coming Back
• *Location*
Protagonists & Antagonists (Names, appeal
to the audience, Gender)
• Mary:
• Jess:
• TJ:
• Jack:
• Potentially more characters
Social Issues represented
(Relevance to the Zeitgeist, why
they will be shown –
• Crime
• Relationships
• Drugs
• Disorders
Target audience (Katz, Maslow, Hartley) –
The general target audience favors the female gender
over the male, mainly due to the themes of realism and
drama in the majority of soap operas. In terms of age, the
stereotypical viewer would be aged 35 years and above as
soap operas tend to focus on more mature themes such as
explicit language and that wouldn’t be suitable for
children. As soap operas generally revolve around the life
of low/ middle class characters, audiences of the same
class and background will find it easier to relate to their
situations and problems. This links with Rebecca Feasey’s
ideology of The ‘Charmed’ Audience (2007) in which she
identifies the meanings and pleasures for female viewers
from the popular soap opera genre.
Competition in the Genre?
As for competition, BBC One features some of the UK’s
leading soap operas such as EastEnders which shows
on weekdays, alternating between 19:30 and 20:00.
River City, a lesser known soap opera which actually
only shows on BBC One & Two Scotland, goes on air at
19:00 or 20:00 on both weekends and weekdays.
Although River City has a smaller audience than
EastEnders, it still has potential to draw viewers in,
particularly audiences from Scotland.
Steve Neale – “Genres are instances of
repetition and difference”
Steve Neale’s theory follows the idea that
there is a system of expectation in genres
and that by using knowledge and applying
conventions of that genre the audience
should be able to infer the media’s storyline
as it conforms to the stereotype, however,
competition is important to the economy of a
genre as too much repetition will not attract
the audience as the same events will occur
over and over again. In terms of our own
soap opera, a few repetitions we would
consider is the general setting, a small
community with a storyline that connects all
characters together.
Channel (BBC Two) and Scheduling (8pm – Weekdays) –
• As 8pm is 1 hour before watershed, this gives programs the opportunity to appeal to both young
and old audiences; programs shown post watershed will be limited to more mature viewers as
this is during the time in which more explicit material will be featured. Programs featuring
themes such as violence, strong language, sexual nature or drug use are all examples of shows
that may be aired post watershed.
• Airing a soap opera on weekday evenings will allow the viewer to fit the show into their daily life.
During the later evenings of the week the general viewer would want to unwind after a day of
work, hence they look to soap operas as a means of relaxation and entertainment.
Locations
• In school
• Near school
• Small community such as Epsom,
Ashtead Village. Focusing on
local shops in the background.
• Isolated areas such as Epsom
Downs, alleys and empty parks.
