Potential Soap Ideas – Planning (only certain elements used)
Setting: Town, and also potentially using a more rural setting alongside this – such as the outskirts. The soap will be set in modern day society.
Characters:
Character 1 – Male, a potential murder suspect. He’s believed to be a troubled teen due to personal, family issues. Due to this he appears extremely jaded.
Character 2 – Female, town’s gossip. She knows the ins and outs of the town, yet that doesn’t mean her information gets exaggerated or bleary from time to time.
Character 3 – Female, slightly ditzy and paranoid. Believes that everyone thinks she’s the murderer even though that’s simply not the case. Even begins to leave ‘clues’ for the police as if she herself is the murderer yet writes the notes/messages in a different style to her own. This is just an attempt by herself to reassure her that people don’t suspect she’s the murderer. – Schizophrenic.
Character 4 – Male, extreme countertype. A weak character physically and appears placid. Yet is he? Looks can be deceiving.
Character 6 – Female, anti-social. Leaning towards a more goth/emo nature yet it isn’t quite made clear. She’s also being drawn towards self-harm. Becoming slightly schizophrenic; could a voice inside her head push her into murder?
Character 7 – Male, murder victim. Alive for part of the trailer, he was loathed by mainly everyone within the previously idyllic town.
Storyline Synopsis
A previously private town is rocked by a murder, but the question on everyone’s’ lips is who dun’ it? And with only the towns gossip’s words to go on, who’s to say she’s reliable? Seven Characters from across the spectrum are now embroiled in a huge scandal, but who’s innocent and who’s sinister? There’s sure to be surprises lurking around each and every corner.
Locations:
Town Centre Sundial – Exact centre of the town, a meeting place for characters – place where most storylines are started or explored in further detail.
House - Different rooms can be used depending on the character to represent different homes. Here is where they feel they can act ‘themselves’.
Desolate Woodlands – Place where the murder was committed. Isolated location portrays feelings of the unknown.
Whilest our actual trailer does not follow this exact storyline, we have included certain character profiles and ideas from it. The main character that is within our actual trailer is a combination of numbers 3 and 6; Keaira and her schizoprenia. We also opted to base our soap trailer mainly outsdie as opposed to interior.
Video: Names and Their Etmology
For the creation of our soap we considered the devlopment of names and their meaning. All the female names used within the soap have dark and often destructive connotations to represent their broken lives. The character of Lilith who is used on both our magazine and poster means "of the night" giving her a jaded, mysterious effect. This further relates to the conflicts ongoing within her mind - should she stay with Corbin (her boyfriend) or is a lesbian relationship with Bellona the only way forth?
Furthermore, Bellona itself means "to fight" and this links to her ongoing battle to woo Lilith over from a lesbian fling to a full blown relationship. On the surface she is a well-rounded girl, yet scratch a bit deeper and she's filled with inner-turmoil and murders her boyfriend in cold blood.
One thing that quickly becomes apparent to the viewer is of how Bellona (the murderer) has a twin sister who acts as her somewhat alter-ego (different as she is unable to hide her problems) and is represented with her different hair colour. Her name Keaira means "dark" and this is vividly shown with her obvious signs of schizophrenia.
Video/Magazine: Costume and Mise En Scene
Costume and Mise En Scene were extremely important in adding a new depth to our soap. Lilith, the main protagonist is seen wearing a T-shirt that states "Passion" and we believe this quote embodies the main storyline of our trailer. Various other plots entwined feed off this central theme of love/lust and therefore Lilith's costume emphasizes this. One scene depicted on our poster shows Lilith holding her mobile phone and an empty bottle that we can assume previously held alchohol; both of these objects are something that can often be stereotyped to British youth culture. Furthermore, the depressed character of Keaira is shown in a sequence with her hood up. One effect of this is attempting to hide her true emotion (even if she does do a poor job of it). In general we chose to try and keep the clothing quite dark as a reflection of the episodes theme, yet this has been broke occasionally to allow for more depth.
Magazine: Comparison of Two Existing Texts
The ‘We Love Telly’ magazine cover breaks the typical T.V. magazine convention of having the title towards the side, and the picture underneath it; this can be seen in my next cover analysis. Instead this format seems to concentrate far more on the feature image, as opposed to the Magazine title or the price. The colour pink is utilized frequently on this front cover, pink often has female connotations and this would link with the stereotype of ‘most’ soap watchers being of this gender. We also see pink as a less violent version of red, and this in turn perhaps represents the softened version of real life events we see on tv – for example, a murder shown on Eastenders is likely to be shown in dark areas, and a way in which even a young audience can differ soap land from reality. The blue used however often links to males, and perhaps this is why it’s used for sections such as, “Great week of comedy” and “Plus Real Life, Soap News, Listings, Movies” as aside from “soap news” the other areas mentioned could easily be applied to a stereotypical male personality; the magazine is trying to appear gender neutral. Finally, the colour choice of green to use on “I’m a celeb’s back” is extremely clever as it links the T.V. show to its natural setting.
The magazine seems to currently be printed within its’ Christmas week - this can be inferred by the holly placed at the bottom, and the bauble shape character portraits. If this is the case, then this further highlights how soaps and other programmes have become less about Christmas, but more about the drama revolving around it.
Often when we see magazine covers the only thing that distinguishes a personality is the facial expressions displayed. On this one, for example, the male is shown to have a sinister look on his face – portraying the current storyline being broadcast, whilst the female has a look of deep concern; this is reinforced with the sub-heading: “Where’s Sean when Roxy needs him? Archie knows...”
The lexical choice of “Plus” acts as a device to insinuate that their front page ‘gossip’ is the main feature of the magazine, however there is also much more inside to entertain a broader audience.
In comparison to the prior magazine we can see this one takes more care with displaying its’ logo and price. “33p” is shown in black, bold text that would stand out extremely well on a shop’s shelf. Furthermore, the lexical choice of “only” in capitals tries to persuade its reader that it is in fact a bargain that is actually worth so much more. It is displayed on an orange background that has numerous vibrant connotations; something which is perhaps even more interesting is the fact that orange is comprised of the colours orange, and red – which are the most prominent colours on the magazine’s cover. Red itself has connotations of love, and this links in with the wedding theme and pictures displayed on the front cover. The colour purple has connotations of royalty, and perhaps hints that this is one of soaps ‘royal’ weddings... one not to miss.
One thing which I found extremely interesting was the Eastenders sub-heading of: “Bradley to quit Walford?” They have taken his characters name yet somewhat twisted it with his real life persona by saying that he is to ‘quit’; their seems to be a big blur of distinction between reality and soap, and this may allude that his character lives on within a different town, regardless of leaving Walford.
Aside from the Coronation street storylines, the rest of the soaps/programmes are contained within frames. In my opinion, this is done to clearly define the different soaps... yet it may also be to add ‘realism’ in the fact that they appear as photo frames.
The colour blue used for the background is quite calming and relaxing which juxtaposes it with the storylines. It will also look far more eye catching to a potential reader, and even much more ‘friendly’. Finally, the stars used around the price make the magazine look like something ‘special’ or even brand new.
Our Magazine Plan
For our magazine cover we chose to have a light-blue background due to its soft, relaxing connotations. Blue itself is becoming more gender neutral then before, and thus attracts a far wider audience. Two magazines by the names of 'TV Choice' and 'TV Mag' utilize the colour but far more brightly, therfore we felt that the different shade/tone would aide our Media individuality whilest also drawing upon the common elements from the various Magazines.
Furthermore, most magazines analysed before producing our own featured the usage of red text, and we decided to do the same. Connotations of the colour can often spout different interpretations dependent on storylines and personal interpretations. For some, the colour can mean love or lust, for other however it can be a sign of deciet/betrayl or even as far as hatred.
Just above this we have the caption "Gossip... T.V... Listings...Crosswords... Puzzles" as these are common features found within T.V. magazines and attract readers far more. All of this is done on a dark-orange, with a slight hint of read; many people often link this to the idea of fire - heat, and warmth. We want our magazine to appear inviting, and the colours we have used have enabled us to do this.
We also decided to include three boxes; one for a sub-story line of our main plot, and the other two dedicated to non-soap ideas. For this we also put a frame within a frame with a transparent white effect to add more depth to our Magazine.
The colour scheme of red, white, and blue has patriotic links to Britain and its' commonwealth heritage. Soap Operas are considered to be iconic of the British image and therfore by reflecting these colours on our magazine cover we are aiding to retain this likeness.
