Answer to the evaluation, question one.

1. In what ways does your
media product use, develop
or challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
Jade Thompson

2. AIM
• The first stage of my planning was needing to come up with an idea that
I would base my soap opera round. I took a while to come up with my
final idea as I felt it was important to have an idea that was original and
unique but it also have to be popular to connect with the target
audience.
• In the planning process for creating my soap I wanted to follow current
soap conventions of being realistic meaning that it wouldn’t challenging
the verisimilitude. I felt this would help improve the popularity as
majority of soap only challenge the verisimilitude occasionally where as
it more likely for a TV drama to have an illogical verisimilitude.

3. INSTITUTIONS
• I also had to consider which institution that my soap opera would be
shown on. When making this decision I had to ensure that I chose an
institution that had a similar or same target audience that I was aiming
for.
• As the soap is a British soap opera I only looked into British intuitions
e.g. ITV, BBC and channel 4. I did research into each intuition to find out
which audience they appeal to and which current soaps current are on
each platform.
• The platform that I chose to present my soap opera is BBC One, the
reasoning for this is because they are one of the biggest broadcasting
companies which means that they are well-known and already have a
audience. This would massively benefit my soap due to being new it will
need gain an audience.
• Another reason is that the BBC also aired Waterloo Road which was a
very popular soap from 2006-2015 and has similar elements to my soap
due to both being based in a school.

4. BRITISH SOAP OPERAS
• One main trait which majority of British soap operas aim towards is to create social
realism. Soap operas in the UK base their characters living everyday lives in everyday
situations which the working class audience can relate to. They tend to avoid using
glamorous setting and wealthy character like melodrama instead they use working
class environment. British soap opera try to prevent idealizing reality and alternatively
show a realistic lifestyle. This is the reasoning why a large amount of the storyline are
seen as depressing and unfortunate.
• With my soap being targeted toward the British audience I felt it was important to use
social realism in my trailer. I did this in several way including the location, costume and
storylines. With the location be based in a state school and in trailer seeing a range of
classroom having ordinary school room objects and display board it will be realistic
and obvious to the target audience where the location is. The costume for the
character is smart/causal wear, this sows that they are in a school therefore needing to
look smart however, due to being middle class the smart wear could be seen a causal.
Two of the three storyline and one in particular fit social realism. The storyline that is
most realistic is the affair and this happens in many people lives and the other is drugs,
many people are effected by drugs and I felt this would be appropriate for a large
audience.

5. FILMING PROCESS
• From the doing my research I found out that I needed to ensure that I
included certain camera angles which are used actually used in soap
operas. These camera angle would be establishing shots, mid shots and
close up. I avoided using other types of camera such as canted angle,
aerial shot and hand-held shot, the reasoning for this is because they
aren’t as realistic which is not the effect I'm aiming for.
• This made my trailer conform with the conventions of professional and
popular media products and by having this it allows my products as
close to a real soap opera.

6. ANCILLARY TASK – MAGAZINE COVER
• As part of my promotional package I created a magazine cover, before starting the
planning or constructing I did research into current TV magazines. By doing this
allowed to become aware of which methods are used in successful magazine meaning
that I can use the similar structures and techniques in my work to help it be more
successful which would have an impact on the soap.
• The magazine cover that I have produced to help the promotion of my soap conforms
with convents in range of ways that include the main image having three of the
popular characters with feature in the trailer to have a focus of the cover and then in
addition to this there are four smaller images around the side with text which give
insight to each storyline. Also my use of bring colours, majority of TV magazine use a
range of bright colours throughout there magazine cover to grab the audience
attention. There are also other ways that my magazine has conformed with
conventions in smaller and less noticeable which is having a strap line, range of text
fonts and sizes and the date.

7. ANCILLARY TASK – POSTER
• Another part of the promotional package included creating a poster for the soap opera that I have
produced. Again before creating my poster I did research into successful soap operas posters, the
ones which I looked at was Hollyoaks and Coronation Street the reasoning why I wanted to look at
theses two more in depth is because Hollyoaks has a young target audience which my soap also is
aimed toward and Coronation is shown on ITV which has the same class audience as BBC One.
• The poster that I did produce again, conform with convention as it has a main character from each
storyline feature on the poster which real media product tend to do to allow the audience to be
aware which characters will be the focus. Another way that my poster conforms with conventions is
the location, I took this photo with the school behind due to the soap being based in the school I felt
it was important to show this in the advertising which many actual media products do for example in
the coronation street poster behind the character is the well-known pub the ’Rovers Return’. Also
the text which is added conform with conventions of real media as majority of successful soap opera
will have information of the show and promotion for example synergy, I did this by including a
hashtag. One way that I developed from convention is by editing in snakes, majority of of soaps
tend to either using special effect for the whole poster for example the Hollyoaks poster or none at
all however, I wanted to add more to my poster as before I thought it could be easily overlooked but
now I feel it will grab the audience attention