Script for soap opera trailer

Here is a copy of the script my group and I devised for our short soap opera trailer. This is just a rough draft, and may change slightly if we decide something else works better when it comes to the actual production. We decided not to have any dialogue as we thought that because it is a new soap opera, the audience would not know of any storylines and so we thought the focus should be on the footage and the music. However, we have included a small amount of dialogue if we should change our minds.

Affair scene-

Paige’s dad’s house-

Mid shot of a woman saying goodbye to her husband, see him in the back ground walking off and then she shuts the door.

Close up of her locking the door.

Long shot of women walking into the kitchen

Close up of her making tea

Long shot of a man knocking at the door

Mid shot of the woman looking up and turning her head

Long/mid shot of women walking and opening the door, then the man and women hug and kiss.

Drug scene-

Eaton Socon- Alley by Balfour

Mid shot of the first teenager standing in an alley, looking around suspiciously

Long shot of the second teenager walking

Mid shot of them meeting

Close up of the exchange of drugs and money

Poisoning scene- Paige’s Grandparents house

Close up of elderly women making a cup of tea, and adding some pills to it.

Long shot of women walking out of the kitchen

Mid shot of an elderly man sitting at a table when the women bring in the cup of tea

Mid shot of the elderly man drinking the tea

Underage drinking and peer pressure scene- Balfour park

Close up, shot reverse shot of three teenage girls standing
Emma- ‘go on have some’

Long shot of Emma pushing the bottle of alcohol into Meg- Megs facial expressions = scared

Close up of the bottle of alcohol falling to the ground

Close up/mid shot of the bottle rolling across the ground

Planning and research: Storyboards for my soap trailer

Once I had decided on things such as characters and settings, I set about creating a storyboard. This was so that I could get a more detailed idea of what I was definitely going to include in my trailer, and in what order. It also allowed me to decide what types of camera shots and angles that I wanted to use, what music and dialogue I wanted to include and where, and how long each frame should last.

This is the first page of the storyboard. It shows the group of characters sitting in the pub, just sitting down and having a good time. I thought of this idea because the location of a pub is a conventional setting of most soap operas. (For example, 'The Queen Vic in 'Eastenders') This is because it is a normal setting that normal people would go to, and it allows other characters to meet eachother and storylines develop. The storyboard then moves onto the 'peer pressure' storyline, which is set in a park. I wanted to include some dialogue in this storyline so I've written that the bully says 'Oi! Have some!' when trying to get the vitcim to drink the alcohol. I've also decided to have a music track playing throughout the trailer because this is a common convention of soap opera trailers.

This is storyboard 2, which carries on from storyboard 1 with the low-angle shot of the alcohol bottle hitting the floor. The next 4 frames are from the 'affairs' storyline. I have used an over the shoulder shot, a mid shot, a close up and a tracking shot to show the storyline. The over the shoulder shot is so that the audience can see what the female character sees, and so that they can see the male's face clearly. The close up shows the female locking the door, which is important because she is ensuring that her husband can't get back in. The mid shot is of the female so that you can see her character clearly, and then I want a tracking shot to follow her down the coridoor away from the front door, to greet her lover at the back door. I have included the dialogue 'Bye!' which is what the female says to her husband. Again, I want to have music playing throughout this sequence.

This is the 3rd part of my storyboard. The first two frames continue on from storyboard 2 and show a midshot of the 'other man' coming through the back door, and then a slight zoom of the other man and the female embracing. It then cuts to the 'poisoning' storyline. I have used a close up to show the elderly lady putting tablets into a cup of tea. The close up will emphasise this and make it clear to the audience. I then use a long shot of the elderly lady walking towards the camera carrying the cup of tea to her husband. This will cause suspense because the shot lasts 4 seconds, and the audience will wonder what she's going to do with the poisoned tea. It then cuts to a mid shot of an elderly man sitting at a table, and on the right hand side the elderly female comes in and places the tea in front of him. The use of a midshot is clear enough for the audience to see what is happening, and also allows me to have both the male and the female in the shot at the same time. There will be no dialogue in this sequence, simply because the elderly lady is secretly poisoning her husband, and so I think that by having no dialogue it will make it more obvious that she is doing wrong and her husband doesn't know about it. However, there will be music played throughout.

This is the fourth part of the storyboard. This is just the last shot of the poisoning storyline. It is a midshot of the elderly male drinking the poisoned tea. The use of the midshot allows the audience to see clearly what he is doing, but the shot only lasts 3 seconds so the suspense will make the audience want to watch the soap to find out what happens. Like the rest of the storyline, there will be no dialogue but there will be music played throughout, because this is a common convention of soap opera trailers.   

Planning and Research: Photographs of setting and characters

Throughout our planning and filming process, we took lots of photographs. Before we started filming, we had to consider the settings and location of our soap opera, so that we could include them within our trailers. Once we had planned out our individual storylines that we wanted to include, we began to look at settings. We needed to use a normal family home for the 'affair' storyline, and we wanted to include as much realism as possible so we decided to use my dad and step-mum's house. The house is a normal family home, and it is not unusual in any way, and it is of normal size and decor so we decided to use the kitchen, hallway and back door entrance.

 This is the backdoor entrance where 'the other man' enters

 This is the conservatory entrance where the woman enters to greet 'the other man'

 This is the kitchen where the woman makes a cup of tea for herself and 'the other man'

This is the front door entrance where the woman says goodbye to her husband

The next setting we decided on was a secluded outside area for the 'drug dealing' storyline. We drove around several areas of St Neots looking for alleyways and other secluded areas that would be appropriate. We needed to bare in mind that because it was winter time, it was dark by half past 4 and so we needed an alleyway with a light to give us extra lighting in case it started to get dark during filming. Unfortunately, we could not find an alleyway that had a light in so we resorted in taking it in turns to wear a light on each of our heads. This was not the most practical of ideas, but it was quite funny and the light was fairly bright and so it gave us much needed extra lighting. We asked the two male actors to wear dark clothing, and tops with hoods on, as they are stereotypical clothing items for drug dealers as they can use the hood to hide thier faces.

This is the alley, it is just a stereotypical, obscure, long alleyway in between two houses

 This is one of the 'drug dealers' in the alley

 We made both of the 'drug dealer' characters stand in various places in the alleyway, to see where looked the most appropraite. We were looking for a place that was hidden, and so we opted for a corner.

This is another one of the 'drug dealer' characters, this time with the head light shining on him, so we could test out how brigh the light was.

The next setting we needed to decide on was for the 'poisoning' storyline, where an elderly woman is tired of looking after her elderly husband, and decides to eventually kill him. Again, we wanted to be as realistic as possible, so we used my grandparent's bungalow. We even managed to persuade my grandparent to act, which was an added bonus, because again this added to the realism.

This is the dining room, where the elderly male is sat reading the newspaper

This is one angle of the kitchen. After consideration, we decided to shoot the elderly woman from the other end of the kitchen, because there was more light and space.

The kettle is normally placed in quite a small and dark area in the kitchen, so we temporarily moved it to the worktop to ensure that there was enough light and space.



These are the actors (my grandparents!) we decided to use them as actors because they are the same age as the characters, and really look the part.

The next setting is a public park, which we used for the 'peer pressure storyline'. We wanted to use somewhere spacious, and a realistic place that teenagers would go, and we all agreed that a park was the best setting. 

 This is a photograph I took of the park we wanted to film the 'peer pressure' storyline in. We chose this park because it is large which gave us lots of space to work in, and also lots of different opporunities to experiement with camera shots and angles. We also decided to use it because it is not used very often and this allowed us to be more flexable with our filming schedule.

This is a photograph I took of the park which was more specific. We decided to film near to the slide for several reasons. One main reason is that it was the area that had the most space so that we could try lots of new things out. Another reason is that the floor was of a rubber material, which meant that we could drop the alchohol bottle without it smashing. However, we took along with us a dustpan and brush and a carrier bag just in case the bottle did smash!

Research of soap opera settings, lighting and mise-en-scene conventions

Although I am only creating a short trailer for my soap opera, I feel that it is important to look at conventional settings, lighting and mise-en-scene of other popular soaps.  I looked at Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks because I believe that these are by far the most popular soap operas in Britain. I watched two episodes of each soap opera, and took notes accordingly. I then looked for any similarities or differences that were relevant.

• The lighting is usually naturalistic, which emphasises the realism of soap operas. Out of all the episodes that I looked at, there were no usages of special effects according to the lighting. If it is day time, the lighting is bright and clear and even when it is night-time, the lighting may be darker but it is still easy to see the settings and characters.
• The settings consisted of realistic places that would appeal to the target audience. For example, the family home was a main setting in all of the soaps that I watched, particularly focusing on the more social rooms of the home such as the kitchen, dining room table or living room. This is so that the characters can socialise and therefore drive the plots forward by interacting.

Other popular settings throughout the soap operas that I watched included pubs, clubs and cafes. Again, these are all places that the audience would be familiar with, and are realistic settings. They also give the characters opportunitys to meet one another, therefore creating endless possibilities for storylines.

• I noticed that the soap operas all paid a lot of attention to the mise-en-scene. Every decision about costume, interior and exterior design, props and the layout of the shots had a purpose or meaning and even sometimes represented a particular character. For example, in the cafe in Emmerdale, there was a chalk board with the prices written on, real food and drinks and a cash register. In the pub in Hollyoaks there was fridges with drinks in, promotional posters and beer taps. In the Slaters' home in Eastenders there was a washing machine, bowls and cutlery, washing up liquid and a dish cloth. All of this attention to detail emphasises the realism of the settings, to make the soap operas more realistic and thus enjoyable for the audience. All of the pubs and cafes, corner shops or laundrettes in the soap operas had signs to show what they were, open/close signs andd things such as advertisements in the window. Again, this contributes to the realism of the entire soap opera, as they imitate real life settings. the characters all wore simple clothing that often represented their characters. For example, Kat Slater is a character from Eastenders who is promiscuous and often causing trouble. Therefore she was dressed in black leather high heels and a leopard print coat, with red lipstick, which all connote sexuality and promiscuity.

From looking at all of these conventions, I will try to imitate some of the ideas in my own soap opera trailer.

Research of soap opera characters, storylines and audiences

Now that I have a general idea of what I want to incorporate in my soap opera trailer, I have decided to do some research on soap opera characters, storylines and audiences so that I have a clearer view of soap opera conventions. This is what I found out:

• The characters are all realistic and 'normal', meaning that there is a variety of characters and they are easy for the audience to relate to - this is reflected mainly in their appearance, for example in Emmerdale, there are a range of character ages, from children to elderly people, in Hollyoaks there is a range of ethnicities amongst the characters and in Eastenders the characters all have varied social backgrounds

• They tend to have set roles within a certain storyline, however their roles can change when another storyline develops. For example, in one storyline, Eastenders' Phil Mitchell could play the 'villain' character, but in the next storyline he could play the 'hero' role

• The characters are all involved in storylines that deal with social issues. This could be anything from drugs, death, divorce, crime or murder. This is because soap operas deal with issues that may relate to the audience without being offensive. This also relates to the 'voyeurism' theory that audiences like to look and observe other people's lives, and soap operas allow them to do this

• Soap operas are often seen as a 'female genre', due to the large female audience that tend to watch soap operas. However, viewing figures show that male audiences are equally likely to watch and enjoy soap operas. To me, this information seems to suggest that soap operas appeal to a mass audience. Taylor (2000) suggested that, according to his psychology theory, women use gossip to relive stress. Women relieve stress by actively seeking social support from others. This could relate to watching soaps, as females watch the character's lives and all the drama associated and therefore could gossip about the characters.
• Soap operas have an open narrative, which has a casual reading without the sense of an ending. Soap operas proceed as though they could go on forever.
• Time in soap operas typically correspond to real world time. For example, there are often Christmas episodes of Eastenders on Christmas day, even though they would have been filmed weeks previously. Soap operas also often make reference to real life events, which contribute to the realism.
• Each episode tries to address both experienced and new viewers. This is because soap operas tend to end on a cliff hanger, and the multi-stranded storylines often run over several episodes.
• Apart from Hollyoaks, soap operas tend not to use non-diegetic sound. This again contributes to the realism of the soap opera. Hollyoaks often uses non-diegetic music, but this could be because it is relatively new and aimed at a younger audience who may enjoy the music more.