The document discusses how the creator used, developed, and challenged existing codes and conventions of soap operas and melodrama genres when creating their own soap opera trailer. They researched conventions of genres like social realism and melodrama to ensure their trailer followed expectations. Scenes and shots from Hollyoaks were analyzed and used as inspiration. Existing front covers and billboards were also examined to incorporate standard design elements while also adding new creative elements to conventions.

1. How have you USED, DEVELOPED or
CHALLENGED existing codes and conventions?

2. Research
 For my research, I looked at GENRE and SUB-GENRE’s of
SOAP OPERA’S to follow the conventions of social realism
and make sure that I didn’t create a hybrid soap by
crossing too far into other soap opera’s codes and
conventions.

3. What is a soap opera?
 A soap opera is a drama series typically dealing with daily
events in the lives of the characters.
 To begin with, our group had to choose a genre to do for
our trailer, and so we chose to do a MELODRAMA with a
sub genre of SOCIAL REALISM.

4. •This is a genre that has plot driven elaborate storylines characterized by exaggurated
emotions, raging conflicts and even fights and stereotypical caracters such as an
atagonist, a hero and a villain and often the local promiscious female character and often
a damsel in distress storyline.
•The beginning of meleodramas start with non-diegetic music which is the soundtrack
that would be recognisable to the audience of the melodrama.
•Melodrama’s are created not only for entainment purposes but also so that the
audience can have escapism from their every day lives. Melodrama’s also act as a
catharasis as the audience, by watching a character go through a certain storyline may
relieve themselves of emotional tensions that they themselves are suffering from.
•An example of a melodrama is Hollyoaks and Days of Our Lives and Downton Abbey

5. •This is a genre that has typical people dealing with everyday situations such as money
problems, affairs and even substance abuse such as alcohol and drugs. Social realism
soaps are set in woring class environmets and areas. have a older target audience such
as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Eastenders.
•Social Realism soaps are often filmed using low lighting conditions and often use
natural light e.g. From a window or when a scene is being filmed outside, then real light
will be used instead of artificial lighting. This to keep the soap looking realistic to te
audience.
•The mise en scene of social realism soaps is usually in places like a pub, school,
workplace or a cafe.

6. Matching Conventions
 As our group consisted of males and females aged 17
and 18, we decided to have the genre melodrama with
the sub-genre of social realism. We also decided to
make our products similar to that of the melodrama
Hollyoaks. Hollyoaks has the same target audience as
my group and also because the characters in the show
are a similar age to the people in our group. We
decided do research into Hollyoaks storylines.

7. Hollyoaks
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9bJ1emfhjo
 My group all watched scenes from popular melodrama
and social realism soaps for inspiration for our own
trailer. This scene is from the TV soap Hollyoaks.
 We decided that this was a good scene to cut parts
from and use for our own storyline, which is centered
around an affair and a pregnancy.

8. Codes and Conventions of Characters
We decided to make Jade and Mark like the
Hollyoaks couple Calvin and Louise as they
had a similar pregnancy/ unsure about who
the father was storyline
We decided to
make the character
Joe a lot like the
character Warren
from Hollyoaks as
they are both
similar characters

9. Deconstructing a scene from Hollyoaks

10. Deconstructing a scene from Hollyoaks

11. Deconstructing a scene from Hollyoaks

12. Deconstructing a scene from Hollyoaks

13. Deconstructing a scene from Hollyoaks
By deconstructing a scene from Hollyoaks, it helped me to understand storylines of the show.

14. All of these trailers are very
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK8bt7 theatrical and have expensive and
M74lA over the top mise en scene. They
are trailers that are done only
when an important event is going
to happen on Hollyoaks such as a
wedding or a fire. These trailers
are too difficult for our groups to
stage as they are very expensive to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO3Vla film and may even require some
uXYLA incredibly advanced camera
tricks, for example, in the second
trailer ‘enjoy the ride’ the
characters are in mid-air in one
shot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4vjic_
smow

15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAp0Z3
_fyfU These trailers use a less dramatic
mise en scene and advertise typical
weeks in hollyoaks and what is
going to happen, they still use
dramatic soundtrack but it is less
dynamic than the theatrical trailers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wwk25
H-Ki4 Our group decided that a trailer in
this style would be much better and
much more cost-effective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoUz5b
0YoIc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVt3On
FcBuA

16. Shot Types
North Grove Hollyoaks
Two shot
Two shots are used so that both characters can be seen on the screen. These
shots normally happen at the start of a scene to show the audience who the
characters are talking to and at the end of the scene to remind the audience
who the characters were talking to. Also, they can sometimes be shown in
the middle of a scene to remind the audience who the characters are
speaking to.
By USING the same shot types of those featured in a Hollyoaks trailer, I saw what types of
shots were used in melodramas.

17. Shot Types
Reaction shot
Reaction shots are used to show the audience the facial expression of the
character when they find out something surprising/disturbing. They also
add suspense.
Point of view shot
POV shots are used so that the audience can see through the eyes of the character and then the audience can put
themselves in the shoes of the character.

18. Shot Types
North Grove Hollyoaks
Over the shoulder shot
Over the shoulder shots are used so that it looks as though the camera is a
character or there is someone standing nearby. They can also be used when
a character is talking to another character who is unseen. This creates an
element of mystery and intrigues the audience.
By USING the same shot types of those featured in a Hollyoaks trailer, I saw what types of
shots were used in melodramas.

19. Shot Types
Long shot
Long shots are used to show the mise en scene of an area. This can be for
reasons to do with regional identity and so that the audience can see where
the characters are located at that time.
By USING the same shot types of those featured in a Hollyoaks trailer, I saw what types of
shots were used in melodramas.

20. Shot Types
BCU
BCU shots are used to emphasise the characters face as they are shown at
intense points in a scene.
By USING the same shot types of those featured in a Hollyoaks trailer, I saw what types of
shots were used in melodramas.

21. The title card for North Grove id
very different to the Hollyoaks
one. The Hollyoaks one is in a
lighter colour scheme
suggesting that the Hollyoaks
trailer has lighter storylines and
is perhaps a lighter soap than
North Grove is. However, the
bright colour used in the
Hollyoaks title card could just
be a marketing ploy to address
young/teenage audience as they
think the show will be
entertaining and deal with light
topics.

22. Fights are often in social realism and melodrama soaps. They normally are
between two girls although they can be between males and females. I am
going to analyse the slap scenes in my trailer with one from Hollyoaks.
This is a controversial scene as it takes place in a
church and takes place between two girls. The girl
being slapped is wearing red as red is a colour of
danger, it can be argued that the character
slapped the other character (wearing red)
because of what the other character had done to
make her do it, could she have been having an
affair with the character slapping the other
character wearing red.
This slap is to show the climax of the trailer. The
female character is slapping the main character as
she thinks he is going to attack her. As both
characters are in dark clothing(costume) and the
fact the mise en scene is in an alleyway it suggests
that both are villainous characters.

23. My ancillary front cover Existing front cover

24. How did I USE codes and conventions of my front cover?
For my front cover of a TV magazine, I
used TV and Satellite Week as a guide for
creating my front cover as I needed to see
what codes and conventions TV and
Satellite Week used. Before I started, I
also deconstructed a Radio Times TV
guide and a Soap Life magazine front
cover. I decided to go for a TV and
Satellite and Radio Times type of front
cover as the Soap Life front cover looked
trashy. I decided to use Jade as my front
cover star as she is the main character in
my trailer and is therefore majorly
involved in the main storyline.

25. How did I USE codes and conventions of my front cover?
This is showing how I USED the codes and conventions of TV and Satellite week
when I was creating my front cover. The points I have made are the things that are
te same on both front covers.
Strap for Sky and Virgin
and over 200 channels
Mast head is in the
same colour and in
the same place on
the page
Circle for a new TV
show. NEW is in
black with an
oragnge/gold
background
Rectangular box to
show a new season
or a new show
Website adress
hidden in the
masthead

26. How did I DEVELOPcodes and conventions of my front cover?
I developed my
product from an
existing product
as I chose to add
a barcode to
make the
product look
more
professional and
also I put ‘NEW
SEASON’ in a
box as it makes it
stand out more
to the audience.

27. How did I CHALLENGE codes and
conventions of my front cover?
I challeneged the codes and conventions of my
front cover as I put the magazine’s price in a star
shape. This was a star shape as it appeals to the
audeince and makes them think that the
magazine is a bargain! This is challenging the
codes and conventions of the TV and Satellite
week front cover because the price in a star is
something you would see on a trashy magazine
such as soap life. I also challenged the codes and
conventions as I did not put any other categories
of televison such as cookery programmes like
Masterchef, as my magazine only appeals to soap
viewers, hence the magazine’s name ‘SOAP TV’.

29. How did I USE codes and conventions of my billboard?
This is showing how I USED the codes and conventions of SKINS on E4 billboard.
The points I have made are the things that are te same on both front covers.
E4 logo is at the same
place on both
billboards. This is a
convention every E4
billboard has as it
creates brand identity.
This can be seen also in
the Inbetweeners
billboard.
There are three characters in both billboards. The
couple is on the left side of each of the billboards. This
is because couples LOVE each other and love begins
with the letter L as does the left. Also, the audience is
more likely to look at the left of the billboard first so
they will see the couple first.
The purple colouring is also for
brand recognition as E4’s main
colouring is purple.

30. How did I CHALLENGE codes and conventions of my
#northgrove is so that viewers can interact front cover?
with other fans of the show and discuss Mark Jade Joe
topics of the show on twitter. This helps
the audience to stay connected.
The billboard/poster shows the
characters showing their emotion by
using their facial expression. Mark is
happy and is blissfully unaware that Jade
has been having an affair with Joe and is
unsure of who the Father of her unborn
baby is. Jade is scared and shocked by her
baby news and is looking at Joe with a
terrified look, hinting that her secret
relationship is soon to come out and her
lies will be exposed. Joe is annoyed that
Jade is still playing ‘happy famalies’ with
Mark. Because the characters emotions
are clear in the facial expressions and
body language, the audience can create “Who’s the Daddy?!” Is a popular question used in tv soaps and in
an understanding of each character and other media. It is often used to imply that there is more than one
create an impression of their personality. possibility of who the baby’s Father is. I felt that this was the most
appropriate title as the main storyline for my soap is an affair and a
pregnancy.

31. How did I DEVELOP codes and conventions of my billboard?
This is showing how I USED the codes and conventions of SKINS on E4 billboard.
The points I have made are the things that are developed from the SKINS billboard
I developed my billboard further from
that of the SKINS billboard as I made the
scene between all three of the characters
on my billboard more intense. In the
Skins billboard, the character on the
right is seeming to not be that bothered
by the couple, whereas the character on
the left in the North Grove billboard is
obviously bothered by the couple and as
the female character in North Grove is
connected to both of the male characters
as she is holding onto one character but
is making eye contact with the other
character.