The document discusses how the creator of a soap opera trailer used, developed, and challenged conventions of real media through their project. They based their trailer on conventions of the genre, including shot types and lighting seen in the Skins trailer. Feedback was received on the draft trailer, noting the abrupt music changes were cheesy and background music should be removed. The creator learned to improve the audio quality by dipping dialogue volumes and adding dramatic title cards to provide context, as is conventional. They removed the opening music track as suggested.

1. Q1: How did you USE, DEVELOP or
CHALLENGE codes and conventions
of real media products?

2. The trailer is for a soap opera, with the sub-genre of melodrama.
The trailer was based on mixing our ideas of what we believed a
teen soap would be like with the conventions of a trailer. I really
wanted to make my piece feel like a skins trailer, as this is something
that attracts teenage audiences (with our market audience being
teenagers). To research for this trailer I watched several trailers but
found a brilliant one showing lots of footage from Skins series one;
this really helped me study the conventions and feel to what I
wanted to make.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uGcgp9Jd0M

3. • If I was to compare my soap to the skins trailer I would say shot type and
positioning looks extremely real soap like. I tried to follow conventions
with the positioning of my camera. If you look at the screenshot below of
a café scene in skins, and on our Nangreave trailer you will see that the
shots look extremely similar in the way they are framed with the shot
reverse shot over the shoulder. I did this because I thought it would make
the trailer look a lot more real. The other thing you will notice from those
shots is the fact the faces of the characters are extremely well lit, I really
wanted to have accent light, which would make the concentrate on the
character. I noticed that in most soap trailers and clips that people’s faces
are lit very well so this was a convention I really wanted to portray.
As you can see
both of these
images the
framing and shot
type is very
similar.

4. As you can see I have used the convention of a high angle POV
looking down at something shot. This was used on the Skins
trailer (Left) and my Nangreave trailer (Right). The shot is used a
lot in soaps, especially melodramas as it highlights a certain
(Usually important) object to the audience to make it more
dramatic to the storyline. As you can see both of these images
are very dramatic as you would associate a lot of money like that
as something to do with crime and obviously a pregnancy test
symbolises a baby which is very important.

5. The one thing I challenged the skins trailer on is that I shot my trailer in 16:9
whereas the skins trailer was shot in 4:3, this was important for me to do
because the Skins trailer isn’t very modern and I wanted to follow the forms
of more Recent soaps By shooting in widescreen, this in my eyes may have
been challenging the forms and conventions of the skins trailer but it is also
following the conventions of today’s soap trailers. As you can see form the
two screenshots of my trailer and a very recent Skins trailer is that they are
both in widescreen.
From the left is a very old Skins trailer shot in 4:3, whereas next to it you can
see my trailer on the far right a very modern skins trailer shot in 16:9.

6. The next convention I used was the use of a soundtrack, the one thing I
did differently (challenging conventions) compared to that of a real media
trailer for teenagers was to not use and upbeat party track, but instead
use a song what everybody knew, I truthfully using “Keane – somewhere
only we know” was a clever choice as it really expressed the mood of
what I wanted to portray from the trailer. After making my trailer I did
find a trailer for Skins in 2013
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQPHjGseENw) which did use a
piece of music that sounded very similar to the song I used, this shows
that although I wasn’t originally following conventions of the trailer I was
originally looking at, the trailer I made has fitted into conventions of
another trailer. The one thing I did what you don’t find on many soap
trailers is I used a copy-righted piece of music – this is something that I
shouldn’t have done as if the soap was the feature on TV this would be
illegal without permission, but as the soap was for my own person use I
thought it would be okay to use the song, next time I will consider using a
non-copyrighted piece though.

7. Just like most trailers that use Music the song I used had to
be cut together very well for it to match the shots, if you
listen very carefully to the trailer I made you can hear the
song change to different parts, this was to make the song fit
in with the shots but to also cut it down by a lot, as the
trailer couldn’t be too long, unlike a real media trailer, if you
listen well enough you can hear the song changing, this is
something I could have changed if given more time, but in
the end I couldn’t which I was extremely gutted about, but
meeting deadlines is a convention when working in media.
Just like most trailers we had to dip the soundtrack when a
person is talking, this was key to letting the audience here
them talk; this was something in the end that I was
complimented on when getting feedback about my trailer.
This is a big convention in real media and it was important
that I followed this.

8. The next thing I use which is used in real media is an ident. This was not
produced by me, but was borrowed from the college media technician; I
did add it in and change the time and positioning of it. I placed the ident
in the bottom corner; you usually find this with most E4 trailers (As I
decided that my trailer should be shown on E4 is that is where most teen
soaps are shown). The ident features the date and time, we decided to go
against the typical use of putting the name in as we thought it would be
more suitable to put the name in the background as you can see with the
Nangreave sign. One thing I don’t like about the ident is that ours isn’t big
enough and that really annoys me when comparing it to a real media
piece like the screenshot of the skins piece next to the screenshot of my
trailer.

9. This shows a CU of two people side on. Both characters
are in a state of muse looking into the distance. The close
up is used to express and dramatize the emotion of the
characters face. CU are used a lot in Melodramas as they
are a great way of making someone's emotions seen to
the audience, and this then creates a lot more drama. The
lighting is very different in these shots as the shot on the
right is lit so that it is clear they are outside, whereas the
one on the right is very dim (Not as bright as usual). This
is probably to represent the emotion of the character.

10. Our poster has had its original colour altered like the one on the left. As you can
see they are both a lot darker than what the image would look like. This is a
common convention for melodrama posters as this then represents the dramatic
darkness of them. The other thing constant in both of these is the use of the E4
ident, this is slightly different on each as it appears the Skins poster have actually
altered theirs to look like scrunched up paper whereas ours is the same. The use
of the information on the idents is also different as we were advertising a start
date whereas the one on the left was just a promotional image to say the already
successful skins was starting again. The use of a girl surrounded by boys is obvious
on both which could mean a love triangle which is highly common in melodramas.
We challenged this poster a bit and used the picture of Manchester in the
background, this was because we wanted to create a strong regional identity in
ours, you don’t get this much in Skins as they focus more on the story (This was
slightly out of convention for a melodrama for us and we should of changed this).

11. • Both theses images look very different but both have very similar
conventions. Firstly they both have the title of the show over placed
in big letters so the audience knows the name of the show. The fact
the name is in big letters expresses the drama of it, which is what a
melodrama is going for. Both use names of a place as the names of
their soap, and both use background images of the place their soap
is based. There is also a company ident on both, on the Dallas one
there is a warner ident and on the Nangreave poster there is a E4
ident. Just like the Dallas poster the characters in the Nangreave
poster are all placed specially so that the image can show the
interaction between the characters, for example Max is placed
behind as he is looked as a stalker and you would expect him
behind people. The Dallas image shows something similar in the
fact JR and his brother are facing different ways.

12. • Both theses images look very different but both have very similar
conventions. Firstly they both have the title of the show over placed
in big letters so the audience knows the name of the show. The fact
the name is in big letters expresses the drama of it, which is what a
melodrama is going for. Both use names of a place as the names of
their soap, and both use background images of the place their soap
is based. There is also a company ident on both, on the Dallas one
there is a warner ident and on the Nangreave poster there is a E4
ident. Just like the Dallas poster the characters in the Nangreave
poster are all placed specially so that the image can show the
interaction between the characters, for example Max is placed
behind as he is looked as a stalker and you would expect him
behind people. The Dallas image shows something similar in the
fact JR and his brother are facing different ways.

13. (Also can be applied to Q2)
Here is a comparison between
my website and the Skins
website. As you can see they
both have a dramatic single
person header photo. On this
photo there are links to
twitter and to 4od. Another
comparison between the
websites is the use of the
colour purple, this is quite
signature with the E4 shows.
The three columns under the
header are laid out very
similar on both pieces. The
use of the E4 sign in the
background is also the same.
The use of the channel 4
synergy banner is also key at
the top. These are all
conventions from the real
media website.

14. • These are two title cards used in
two different melodramas, one
of them being my Nangreave
trailer and the other being a
trailer for the return of Dallas.
The trailers feature these title
cards to add to the “drama”, as
you can see with the word
“drama” on the bottom Dallas
card.
• Title cards a re a huge
convention in a lot of soap
trailers. Mine was added last
minute and really adds tot the
effect of the piece.

15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p
KzdP0qres
• This is a link to a short voice over of my soap
discussing technology (Question 4) and
conventions of soaps, which is part of this
question.

16. Q2. How effective is the
COMBINATION of your main and
ancillary texts?
As you can see my ancillary task and my main task feature the same characters, same
story and also the same place. This really builds the strong identity we are going for and
also looks professional as you would expect to see the stars of the soap in the poster.

17. My main piece (The trailer)
features on the ancillary
product of the website
several times. The use of
synergising products
together on a soap website
are very common, this is a
convention you would
expect. As you can see the
trailers are the same
meaning I’m bringing the two
media technologies together.
The trailer features the same
characters that are use on
the website in photos and
biographies. The
combination is very effective
as it really makes my website
look like a piece of real
media.

18. This is the poster for Nangreave. It
features all the characters features
in the trailer. As you can see there
is my character, Robyn’s, Alice’s,
Max’s and Chester’s. The
characters are also trying to re-act
the way the characters are feeling.
In the soap Robyn is the main
character and this is present in the
trailer. As you can see we are all
looking at Robyn to represent her
being the centre of attention. The
use of Max being over Alice is to
show him as a stalker to her, which
he is in the soap. The fact the
acting and emotion is there really
makes it look like a professional
effective set of well linked tasks
towards the soap.

19. Each on of these tasks have on e
major thing in common which is the
use of the E4 ident. The ident is used
to show that all these products come
from the same channel. The ident is
one the main conventions of a soap
product and makes sure that all the
tasks are all linked together. The
colour purple is also present through
these products as it links back to
them all being on the same channel.

20. All together the tasks link together really well, they use
the same characters, colours, story and name. As you
can see below they all look very similar to each other
and this is what you would expect from a professional
soap.

21. Q3: What have you LEARNED from
audience feedback?

22. • The age question was asked so I could learn about what ages
watches what soaps, so I could find out a target audience and aim
my soap for them. We then wanted to find out what channel was
watched most by teens so that we could aim our soap for the
people who watch that channel, we found out that the majority of
people watched E4 which is for teenagers. This helped us in figuring
out what kind of trailer/soap we would try and make.

23. This is to show me what the most popular soaps are so I could
get a better idea into the demographic I would be aiming for. The
audience I noticed that watched the most were teens watching
Skins, this is something that I really took on board when picking
a soap.

24. • This gave me an idea into how much the soap should be shown
each week, it is clear that the soap shouldn’t be shown for too
long as people didn’t watch their favoured soap for too long, as
you can see it is mostly less than 2 hours. I then found out that all
my participants were from college, this was brilliant as this was
my target audience.

25. This is where we all started to get confused as the audience suggested
they didn’t like melodrama when they all liked Skins, we then realised
that they probably didn’t understand what melodrama meant.
Everyone suggested that getting drunk and partying was part of there
weekend so we wanted to include this.

26. Name of
Reviewer: Mike
Name of soap trailer I've
reviewed: Nangreave
Name of person who's film I'm
reviewing: Nangreave
Here is a piece of Feedback given to me for my
Draft version.
Positive Feedback:
The clip of the bullet falling in slow motion is very dramatic and
in-keeping
with the mood.
Good transitions into different clips which fit well with the music.
Areas for Improvement:
Abrupt stop of music where it changes to a different track is cheesy. Sound
effect is not needed.
Background music at beginning needs
removing.

27. Name of
Reviewer: Michael Delaney
Name of soap trailer
I've reviewed: Nangreave
Name of person who's
film I'm reviewing:
Harrison
Here is another piece of Feedback given to me for
my Draft version.
Positive Feedback:
Good use of different camera angles, especially the bullet cartridge
scene
Great music choice, it really links and adds to the
emotions of the
trailer.
Areas for improvement:
The speech sound needs to be clearer, the music could be quieter at parts or
add
the speech afterward
Hard to understand what the storyline is,
add some title cards which
help the audience understand certain themes.

28. I took the feedback on board and changed quite a few things. I
realised that the trailer had very bad sound quality before my
feedback, but my feedback confirmed this, I then decided to
use my technical skills on iMovie and change the audio
settings so that the trailer was clearer to understand. This
meant “Dipping” the audio at points and strengthening the
diegetic dialogue by making it louder and boosting the sound.
The next thing I took on board was the use of title cards to
give a theme and message to the trailer. This worked out very
well afterwards and looked very good and conventional
compared to normal soap conventions. The title cards were
very dramatic as well to fit in with the convention of a
melodrama being dramatic. (I also used the E4 font as a little
extra so that they looked like they were from E$ and not just
some crummy college student piece). The biggest change of
all was the removal of the opening backing track. This was
hard to do as the original track was specifically picked and the
clips were moved around specifically to fit that music, but we
changed it to more Keane and it worked brilliantly.

29. Overall Feedback of Final Piece
• Up to now everybody has said that the final version of the trailer is
brilliant and looks very realistic like a real soap trailer. A lot of
people are complimenting the choice in music as well, although
risky at first this really paid of. One person said that “The use of
Keane added to the drama lots”. This was perfect feedback as we
were trying to go for the dramatic feel in which you would expect
from a melodrama. It seems to be the teenagers which prefer the
trailer, this could be down to the fact that the soap was made with
a teenage audience in mind. This means that we have achieved our
goal of impressing our target audience.
• The use of the slow motion bullet drop has been complimented an
awful lot with people saying “The bullet dropping was so cool and
added loads of drama and mystery”.
• My own personal feedback is that the way the story progresses
through such short dialogue and not many shots is really
impressive.

30. Q4: How did you use TECHNOLOGIES
in the research and planning,
construction and evaluation stages?

31. Comparison of real media technology
to the technology I used.
• The first comparison I notice between the piece I made and the
skins piece I researched was the quality of the shot. I was really
interested in getting the shots as clear and as High Definition as
possible as that is one of the main conventions of a soap on TV
(And most things on TV). I really thought this would help make my
piece look professional and follow forms and conventions so I
managed to get hold of DSLR and condenser microphone so I could
make it look and sound brilliant. If you were to watch my trailer and
a skins trailer you would notice a big comparison in the clarity of
shot and sound One of main areas of good feedback was that the
clip looked extremely clear and realistic and that it looked a lot like
a real media trailer which I was really proud of. Expressing the
clarity of sound was something that also had to be played about
with in editing like most soap operas would do, as edited sound is a
convention of real media soaps.

32. • One of the first pieces of technology I used was
“Youtube.com”. This one of the biggest websites with
one of the biggest collection of videos in the world. The
website gave me the opportunity to explore and research
different clips regarding different types of soaps
• The story boards was made form a template on
Microsoft word, which is a document application for
computers. Microsoft word is used by pretty much every
media production company as a form of writing
scripts/screen directions etc. We also used Microsoft
office to produce a manuscript as well. Microsoft office is
a technology!
• DSLR –This one of the main pieces of technology I used.
This a HD camera that gave a very clear image. It made
my soap look very professional.

33. • Another technology I used was a YouTube converting
site. I used this to get the Keane song, as I was only
using the song for personal use and not for the use of
profits it is theoretically legal for me to use. To
download the video you have to firstly insert the video
link into the YouTube converting site then chose a
format you would like to use, I used an MP4 for my
video when converting that. This works well with
iMovie. I then chose an area where to save it on the
mac, this is a very important process so my file wont go
missing once I have downloaded it. I then inserted this
into iMovie when I was done.

34. • iMovie was the next piece of media technology I used. This was key
to making the piece look as professional and sharp as possible. The
first thing I did was import my clips into the software, I did this by
clipping file and import. The next thing I did was to import the clips
onto my movie timeline in order of how I want them to play. The
one thing I like to do lots when using editing software is to make
the clips very short and sharp, this is to get rid of the awkward
silence at the beginning of them. To do this I zoom right into the clip
and crop it where I think the sound changes. This is a very good
thing that iMovie allows you to do. iMovie also allows me to import
the videos and sound I downloaded earlier. I added these to the
video and then made a few adjustments to them by adding music
fades out etc. this made the clip look a lot more professional.

35. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKzdP0q
res
• This is a link to the documentary voice over I
made to talk about technologies (As well as
conventions).