St. Paul’s Catholic College

Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media

Locations

1.) Cedars Park, Sunbury

Cedars Park has a large, open plan space, and typically connotes a sense of happiness and freedom for anybody who uses it, giving users ‘diversion’ (Katz) from their daily lives and enjoying themselves. However, this will be used, as a ‘binary opposite’ (Levi Strauss) in our trailer, as the female protagonist Lily will be followed by male antagonist Ace, before being seemingly murdered. There will be an incrementum as Lily is walking through the park as more of her face is revealed in the shot. Additionally, the bright colors will not be present, as the setting will be filmed at during the night, connoting a dystopian setting, which could be perceived as scary or mysterious to challenge general soap opera conventions and engage our target audience (16-25 year olds.)

The establishing shot for our trailer will open with a long shot of a set of baby swings. As a group we decided that swings ‘signify’ (De Saussure) a dystopian effect on the audience because of the onomatopoeia of the ambient sound from the swings ‘creaking’ giving it a haunted feel. It also goes against the ‘Soap Opera’ genre focus of the ‘family’ (Rebecca Feasey) providing a ‘binary opposite’ (Levi Strauss) to the audience; making it appeal not only to the female gender, but male gender as well. The swings also connote that the trailer is for typical working class families (Hartley’s seven subjective) and the location of the park supports this.

We will use this part of the shot to portray Lilly walking down the park while on the phone. We would like our character to do this in order to represent a sense of her “age” (Hartley’s Seven Subjectives). A teenager is most likely to be seen with their mobile device and so this also gives off a sense of “caregivers”(Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs), in order for our intended audience to relate to the protagonist. We will most likely pan her motion in order to keep (Lilly) in focus. The antagonist following the Lily, demonstrates her as a ‘damsel in distress’ (Propp) that needs rescuing from this nightmare.

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2.) The Admiral Hawke, Sunbury

The ‘Admiral Hawke’ pub acts as a familiar setting that the audience can ‘personally identify’ (Katz) with due to the typical ‘working class setting.’ It also ‘repeats’ (Steve Neale) the codes and conventions of the soap opera genre as most Soap Opera’s have the ‘pub’ as one of their main locations of filming for example, ‘EastEnders’ and ‘Coronation Street. This adds to the drama within the Soap Opera genre like relationship and family problems that are generally situated in pubs. Our trailer repeats (Steve Neale) these conventions as we see the ‘love triangle’ between Ace, Lily and Hayden develop as Ace is seen having a drink while envying Lily and Hayden’s relationship.’ Additionally, The ‘working class’ (Hartley’s seven subjectivities) will be demonstrated here and two of our characters (Lilly and Hayden) will be flirting with one another, so an element of ‘male gaze’ (Laura Mulvey) is formed.

This was also chosen as one of our prime locations to give-off an element of “caregivers”(Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs) to convey the pub as a regular social occasion. The connotations of the pub represent a sense of celebration and liveliness, which provides a utopian atmosphere. It is the place in which the characters celebrate significant events, such as weddings and the birth of a child. The setting itself connotes a warm, friendly atmosphere and is used in a happier scene of the trailer. The connotations of the name ‘Hawke’ gives the audience a sense of the ‘all seeing’ which links in well with our trailer, giving it a more mysterious vibe.

Our “working-cl Our trailer will create a parallel between the utopian setting of the pub and the dystopian setting of the park. The introduction of the pubs establishing shot will have synchronous uplifting music that shifts from the low-key lighting and non-diegetic sound of the music to a more ‘happy’ utopian part of the song to fit with the connotations of the pub as a location. We decided to have an element of ‘difference’ (Steve Neale) by having the Villain (Propp) look jealous in Lily’s dream instead of the being happy for the couple to signify (De Saussure) an element of tension to the audience making them engage with the trailer as they wonder why Ace is jealous of their relationship.

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3.) Chapel, Sunbury, St. Pauls Catholic College Weddings are another common convention in Soap operas; hence we will use the Chapel in school as our prime location for the wedding. Our original aspirations were to use the church in St. Ignatius because it was more authentic than the school chapel. However, we did have a change of heart after a few complications with using the church so we decided to use our local school chapel in St. Paul’s Catholic College. We wanted to use a church setting because it connotes a romantic and emotional atmosphere for a wedding day. From putting research into soap opera’s we found out that a wedding is the perfect strategy in creating that happy atmosphere for it to be potentially destroyed later on by the antagonist. We wanted to repeat (Steve Neale) this element of the ‘wedding’ in our trailer to give the audience a back story to what they will expect in the episode by revealing it through the theme of ‘Lily’s dream.’

At the very back we will have the antagonist standing fixated at the two characters in matrimony. This will signify “misogyny” against Lilly, which is what the aim of Ace’s appearance will be in the trailer. We will have him wearing a black coat in order to conceal his identity, which also connotes ‘evil.’

We will also use this space for two of our characters to get married. We would have to move a few objects across the room to make everything clear and focused on them. The theme of the wedding will focus on both characters being happy with the antagonist of Ace at the back waiting to ruin their couple’s happy day.

We will use the chairs in the chapel for our audience to watch the marriage. Since the location is a chapel we thought that this was the perfect location for the marriage to take place. In this scene, we will most likely collect staff as well students from the sixth form to help fill up spaces and make the wedding look naturalistic as possible. As we had a problem gathering students and teachers for permission, we decided to film the wedding scene without having any audience in the scene.

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4.) Bedroom

We will use this location to represent the final scene of our trailer when Lilly wakes up from her dream. We possibly need a nightgown and the antagonist to be sleeping next to her to further the plot of the trailer. This location is where the audience realise the trailer was a dream as we reveal Ace in bed with Lily instead of Hayden, leaving the audience surprised and confused. Leaving the audience on a cliffhanger enables them to want to tune in to watch the first episode.

We used the house of another group member and most specifically the bedroom of that house. We did this because we wanted to portray our character Lilly as actually waking up from a dream to make our trailer look more realistic; more specifically we wanted to do this because it was easier for all groups to film at one persons house if needed. The bed was the most key imagery out of all the other shots so we put all our energy into making this footage perfectly presented.

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