Production log for research

1. 1
St. Andrew’s Catholic School
Center Number:
64135
___________________
Candidate Number:
4149
_____________________________________
Candidate Name:
Asuka Young
_______________________________________________________________________
A2 Media Studies
Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio in
Media –
Production Log

2. 2
Evidence of Planning & Research
Aims and Objectives
· AO2 – Assess candidates’ application of knowledge
and understanding in evaluating their own work,
showing how meanings and responses are created.
· AO3 – Assess candidates’ ability to plan and
construct media products using appropriate
technical and creative skills.
· AO4 – Assess candidates’ ability to undertake,
apply and present appropriate research.
Brief Chosen
A 45 second – 1 minute 30 second trailer for a NEW
Soap Opera that will be exhibited on at 8:30pm
(after Eastenders) that will appeal to a Male and Female
audience.

3. 3
YOU SHOULD research when Eastenders is scheduled
(Day – Time)
7:30 / 8:00 on Weekdays
Not aired on Weekends.
Contents
Textual Analysis
· Eastenders
- Soap Opera Codes & Conventions
- Multi Strand Narrative
· Coronation Street
“..the home, the family, domestic tribulations and the strong woman,
and as such, it has long been said to appeal to the female viewer”
‘Masculinity and Popular television’ – Rebecca Feasey (2007)
- Is this evident and how is this presented to the audience?
Research
· Purpose of a Trailer
· Multi-Platform promotion
· Textual Analysis – Coronation Street and Hollyoaks
Deadlines – Production Work
Filming Dates: (after October half term)
Edited Trailer – Complete:
Promotional Poster – Complete:
Promotional Magazine Cover – Complete:
Evaluation – Complete:

4. 4
Production Work
· Director – Roles & Responsibilities?
· Producer – Roles & Responsibilities?
· Institution research – BBC Two
Soap Opera Codes & Conventions – Lesson 2
1) What are some of the Codes & Conventions of this genre?
YOU MUST demonstrate what you already know by completing
a “Spider Diagram” of what you know about OR expect from
this genre:
Repetoire of
elements
SETTING:
Conventional soap settings:
-a pub
-local housing
-local market
NARRATIVE:
-Relationships and family
issues
-Death
-Adultery
-Flashbacks
-Sexuality
-Overarching storylines
-realism
-social issues
-several stories running at the
same time (multi-stranded)
-sudo (fake), verisimilitude
(attempt at realism).
CHARACTER:
-manipulative characters
-killer
-geezer
-femme, fetale
-nosy
-bullies
-active/passive
-figures for the audiences to
relate to.
ICONS:
-community
-regional identity
-Theme tunes
-Plots/sub-plots
-Gossips

5. 5
2) Codes & Conventions of the Soap Opera Genre
The Soap Opera genre can be categorized by the ‘repeated’
(S teve N eale) elements of:
1. __________________________________________________________
Family relationships/conflict
2. __________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Focus on working class communities
3. 4. __________________________________________________________
Antagonism and conflict within the community
Long, overarching narrative / fixed representation of regionality
5. __________________________________________________________
Eastenders (1985 – Present)
Romance
Key information regarding this text:

6. 6
One of the UK’s highest rated programmes
· ____________________________________________________________
· ____________________________________________________________
Exhibited on BBC1 / repeated on BBC3
Textual Analysis Task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye51O8WBVVM&feature=related -
YOU MUST complete the Table below whilst watching the TWO
promotional trailers for the BBC Soap Opera Eastenders.
YOU SHOULD aim to identify key examples (Verbal, Non-Verbal,
Technical) from each trailer that demonstrates your understanding.
Extension - YOU COULD apply relevant audience theory to explain
what impact these key examples would have on the target
demographic.
In your opinion, according to Hartley’s Seven Subjectivities, what
is the target audience for Eastenders?
Age Adults (40’s, 50’s?)/ teen- similar
lifestyles.
Gender Both Men and Women – dominant
women
Nationality English with strong accents.
Set in the kitchen sink setting of fictional Walford, East London.
Trailer 1)
What is the Focus of this trailer?
A narrative of Taking over of the vic, death, violence themes.

7. 7
Code
&
Convention
Evidence
(Verbal, Non-
Verbal, Technical)
Impact on the Audience
(Katz, Maslow, Hartley)
Romance
- -
Family
relationships
and/or
conflict
-action of man pushing
woman(NV)
-‘It was me!’: argument(V)
-‘stay away from my
sister’ (V)
-violence: actions with
furious facial expressions.
-Katz: escapism, entertainment.(K)
Informing about characters, (K)
-Care givers (M)
-Gender: Male-enjoy /familiar with violence? (H)
Focus on
working class
communities
-mid-shot, tightly framed
-new owner of the vic:
leader of a community
-‘250 a grand’ sounds a
lot according to people’s
reactions.
-Personal identity within working class (K)
-Age: for young people (20’s etc), 250 grand
sounds a lot of value. (Hart)
-Social climbers- have reaction to money.(M)
“Multi-
Stranded
Narrative”
-Money, relationships of
different characters shown
simultaneously.
-Katz: it is more entertaining to have more
stories going on at once, rather than one
constant narrative.
Disruption in
storyline
‘Disequilibriu
m’ (Todorov)
-New owner of the vic
disrupts the overarching
storyline?
-Community Drivers/Explorers- agree/disagree
with it?
-Personal identity to the storyline?
Trailer 2)
What is the Focus of this trailer?
Finding the cheater to a relationship (marriage).

8. 8
Code
&
Convention
Evidence
(Verbal, Non-
Verbal, Technical)
Impact on the Audience
(Katz, Maslow, Hartley)
Romance
Shouting ‘it does to me!’ –
conventional couple
argument?
-action of kissing
-Entertainment & Personal identity (K)
-Care givers feeling sorry (M)
Family
relationships
and/or
conflict
-shouting, burning paper
-lots of cuts
-violence (pushing woman
against wall)
-background?
-class-mid: lots of arguments (H)
-Entertaining? (K)
-Creating social interaction between people
-making people feel better about themselves
Focus on
working class
communities
-The market- when he
was stalking her-conventional
shop for this
class.
-funfair brings the
community sense to a
location
-working class audiences can identify
themselves (H)
-Country: typical British market? (H)
-Social climbers? As they like status symbols
and cares about money- they will think that
either they are higher up in authority than the
characters, or lower and be competitave.
“Multi-
Stranded
Narrative”
It is one story line but with
lots of shots of multiple
characters.
-It may mean that many different kinds of
people can identify themselves (K)
‘Disequilibriu
m’ (Todorov)
7 people cut in the same
way- seems like a
different narrative.
-perhaps, people with different regional
identity, age groups etc can identify with the
different characters (H),(K).
Multi-stranded narrative
A Multi-stranded narrative can be defined as…..
telling a story from more than one person’s point of view.
_____________________________________________________________________________

9. 9
Telling multiple stories about multiple characters in an open narrative for
example.
_____________________________________________________________________________
YOU MUST deconstruct the 10-minute extract from Eastenders and
identify where the following elements are presented to the audience:
· Multi-stranded narrative
· Family relationships and/or conflict
· Focus on working class communities
· ‘Disequilibrium’ (Todorov)
· Romance
YOU SHOULD write down x1-2 examples for EACH of the elements above
that are presented.
Code & Convention Evidence Impact on the audience
· Multi-stranded
narrative
-boys in bar & girls on street
-2 adults stuck in a room
-focusing on different characters’
story
-entertainment- different genders
etc
-personally identifying
-educate- how different age
groups act and go through
different things.
· Family
relationships and/
or conflict
-a sense of a parent & child-drinking
together
-men and women fighting : ‘Im so
sorry’ ‘I’ll punch you in the face’
-making up with a friend
-self identity
-entertainment
-care givers may feel like resolving
the fights
-explorer may think how to
change bad attitudes?
· Focus on working
class communities
-The bar- setting -people with
dress: not appropriate
-lots of action scenes
-lots of beer scenes, medium
shot.
-bars etc are familiar to working
class audiences
-therefore can personally identify
with characters
Disequilibrium’
(Todorov)
-sound of knocking door changes
a constant situation.
-expecting something to happen:
entertaining
· Romance -kissing, room with a pinky
environment
-personal identification with their
current relationship
-survivors: conventional situation.
Soap Opera Codes & Conventions continued – Lesson 3
Textual Analysis
According to Rebecca Feasey in ‘Masculinity and Popular
television’ (2007), the Soap Opera genre tends to focus on:

10. 10
The home/family / domestic tribulations and strong women and the such.
They’re long been said to appeal to the female viewer. Personal identifying,
but also reinforcing stereotypes.
_____________________________________________________________________________
1) – Do you agree?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8_ApPT6isY (First 5 minutes)
Next Page - YOU MUST deconstruct the opening 5 minutes of a sequence
from the popular ITV Soap Opera Coronation Street (1960 – Present) to
identify examples of where this ideology is presented to the target
audience.
YOU SHOULD also try and identify, to demonstrate your knowledge and
understanding of the genre, any Codes & Conventions associated to the
Soap Opera genre.
Code & Convention Evidence Impact on the audience

11. 11
Rebecca Feasey (2007) Ideology:
1. Woman doing housework using gloves (Full shot)- traditional ideology.
Female audience identifying themselves, as care givers (K&M) / stereotypical.
2. Woman Arguing, where she stands is quite dominant compared to the man.
-Her taking boy to the hospital is a traditional role of a mother.
3. An old woman controlling the situation- ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m
the sort of woman that...’ -counter stereotyping traditional woman.
4. Traditional woman: need man- ‘He’s only gone for 5 days’ & ‘I miss ya’ in
response to him going- stereotypical women’s weakness in men.
5. Woman having a stereotypical family daily life as a mother- eating together
in a dining room.
“Multi-Stranded
-Two Families in both of family relationships sort of scenes.
Narrative”
-Marriages
· Family
relationships and/
or conflict
-Old woman dominant over everyone: about the red carpet
etc.
-family daily life presented.
· Focus on working
class communities
-Women doing housework
-setting in small rooms, conventional to the class.
Disequilibrium’
(Todorov)
-The introduction of the grandmother changes what was
constant inside the family’s life.
· Romance -Old & Young couple being presented.
· Other Themes &
Issues
represented:

12. 12
Soap Opera Codes & Conventions continued – Lesson 4
Textual Analysis
1) What is the purpose of a trailer?
To promote and to gain interest for mass audiences of a media product by:
informative cliffhangers, using multi-stranded narratives, clashing/
exaggerated imageries/clips, to keep previous audiences going with the
product (if it’s a series), social audiences can spread the words.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2) What are the benefits of Multi-Platform promotion of a media text?
· _Maximising audiences- getting more views on the text
_______________________________________________________________________
· Can reach those who doesn’t use certain platforms (Radio, TV,
magazines, internet...etc.
_______________________________________________________________________
Ultimately, some form of Convergence is important when promoting a
text to the target audience.
3)
Textual Analysis –
Next Page - YOU MUST make notes on the following areas when
deconstructing this sequence from Coronation Street:
· Multi-stranded narrative
· Character dilemmas
· ‘Personal Identification’ (Katz)

13. 13
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hollyoaks/4od
The above link will take you to some of the latest episodes of Hollyoaks.
1. What are the connotations of the ident for the popular Channel Four
Teen Soap Opera Hollyoaks (1995 – Present)?
the soap appeals to both genders, shown in the colours (Pink = female, blue =
male), and the gender symbols in the O’s which are non-verbal codes. These
also connote that there are stereotypical gender issues involved in this soap.
_____________________________________________________________________________

14. 14
Next Page - Hollyoaks – “White Wedding Trailer” - http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2sW-r9Vb4
2. YOU MUST make notes on the following areas when deconstructing
this sequence from Hollyoaks:
· Binary opposition of the non-diegetic music
· Symbolism of the non-verbal code of the tear
· Representation of Pregnancy
· Any other examples that would impact the audience
Music: - Not the sort of music that would appeal to women in wedding. It was
a dark, mellow music. The lyrics says: ‘White wedding’, but the setting is all
black themed. Telling the audiences that the story is going to be about a sad /
unhappy wedding?
The Tear: - represents unhappiness, pain- however because the tear is
reddish black, it may represent fake emotions within the soap.
Pregnancy: - who’s the father? Situation: The doll being smashed on the floor
representing troubles involving children/babies? (Abortion etc).
Women with the vail: personally identifiable with people who are already
married? Black vail representing the dark married life ahead of her?
Production Work
1) What is the role of a Producer?
The Decision making: Productions/logistic side.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Overseeing production: consideration of target audience, profits etc.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Build up contracts, financing, budgeting.
_____________________________________________________________________________

15. 15
2) What is the role of a Director?
Decide the ideas / visualisation of stories
_____________________________________________________________________________
See what everything is like through the eyes of the audiences
_____________________________________________________________________________
A leader, calm, focused, decisive.
_____________________________________________________________________________
3) Institution research –
YOU MUST research the institution that your trailer will be exhibited on.
Tips: Programming, Target audience, Audience figures, History of the
channel.
· Home of ‘serious’ television. It delivers content that is not so main
stream.
· Targets everyday working class people with national average incomes.
· Average audience figures: 5.7% share, 53% weekly reach, 19.7% daily
reach.
· Founding part of BBC2 was to provide educational and community
programming to the UK public. Founded in 1964 to compete with the
ITV network.