The brief given was to create a

promotional trailer for a soap opera as well as a

billboard advertisement and a front cover of a

soap magazine, here is what I have done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHjybtafETg

To start out using and becoming familiar with video camera, our first task was to film a edited comic strip trailer, after changing the words on the comic, using publisher, we filmed the screen, timed each slide to move on, then later recorded the sound and edited them together later using adobe premiere

Click to view

Click to view

Our next preliminary task was to model our scene on an existing scene then to duplicate what they did, during film I didn't realise that the continuity wasn't matching up that was something I later developed on as an actor and director in my final product.

Original mediaExisting media

I based my soap trailer on the glitz of American soaps like The Young and the Restless , Days of our lives or The Bold and the

Beautiful. I didn’t want to change the existing conventions of the soap genre, I researched into the genre I was mimicking, to make sure that my original product and the existing media would be similar as I wanted to create a homage to American soap in a

British environment.

I based my soap trailer on a promo for The Young and the Restless as well as the Young and Restless intros montage from YouTube.

Click to view

The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City First broadcast on March 26, 1973.

The Young and the Restless originally focuses on two core families, the wealthy Brooks family and the poor Foster family. Then, Bell replaced them with the new core families, the Abbotts and the Williams'. Over the years, other families such as the Newman's and the Winters were introduced. Despite these changes, one storyline that has endured through almost the show's entire run is the feud between Jill Foster Abbott and Katherine Chancellor, the longest rivalries on any American soap opera.

Rivalries between certain characters

Use of storylines which will still relate to a different class of audience

Conflict between friends and family

Similarities between the two soaps

Sets, costumes, locations

I used the idea of the montage and integrated it into my trailer, to establish the cast of my soap in a quick way.

I wanted to create similarities between my trailer and the montage/existing media , you can see this by the use of costume and performance

As I mention in my front cover, The Reckless is bringing American glitz to British soaps, to develop on the idea of American soaps, its over the top nature of storylines, use of an expensive costume department, close up camera angles but set in England, with the only differences being the accents, location and money and production behind the creation of the mise en scene.

As I said before as a group, we decided to use a similarscenes to the one in ‘The Young and theRestless’. I wanted a typical catfight between two women instead of in the Young and The Restless, where husband and wife fight. During the making of this scene, neither of them actually hit each other. I set up the scene to make it look like they did by having them slap past each others faces and my partner clapped off camera to make the slapping noise as well she was holding a lamp as the room wasn't well light enough (non-digenetic sound and artificial lighting).

Original Media

Existing Media

Most soaps don't use many different slide transtitions usually simple ones like Cuts, Fades so as I was keeping to existing conventions of American Soaps

simple cut transitions between each shot

For the final, ‘shocked looks montage’ I faded each shot to black

I went through lots of different ideas coming up with the name/the brand of my trailer, I wanted something similar to existing soap opera I was modelling mine on, The Young and the Restless, and by chance of a misspelling I created The Reckless, trying lots of different fonts and style of my logo, I had a simple idea it was just had finding the right font for the style of the soap, here are just a few I went through:

In the end, after creating my products, I didn't know where to put the final brand, I decide on the poster of my soap

Use for my Magazine front cover

Used for billboard

Positioning for Front Cover/billboard

Original idea of magazine logo

All these photo didn't work in the end for my products, either not the right look or someone was messing around, that the problem working with actors, its not there work and grade, so they don't mind

I created a clear soap genre between my main product and the ancillaries, linking them all together, I wanted to create escapism from the audience, all my products have a glamour about, like most American soaps/dramas have for example

One of the storylines in my soap is an affair, I wanted create a sexual tension between my characters, that why I wanted them close together, touching each because they are all involved with each other, with the man in the middle, he is torn between the woman, his wife and his lover

I took ideas from both medias to create my original media, having my three characters close together like that creates a narrative without any words, so whoever sees my billboard, can piece together there is something between the characters, the man caught between two women, my poster has narrative like my soap does, linking both products together

I picked Living TV, as my institution, as it is a very glamour based channel, most of the programmes are from America, and are very sexual based in the adverts, even thought they aren't soaps, I used the same marketing technique to sell my soap to the masses. Just some of the shows on Living:

Apart from my Magazine Front cover, I have used the Living Logo/brand on my products, I picked Living TV, because it hasn't got a soap of its own yet as well the channel embodies what my soap is all about, money, glamour, being over the top like most of Living’s show are, CSI has close ups and cheesy one liners, Grey’s Anatomy has over the top storylines that would never happen in the real world, so I have told all of this and created my soap.

The audience I was targeting is the typical soap opera audience, women, 20’s to 40’s, but because many soap is set in a glamorous world of England, younger audiences who watch Desperate Housewives and Hollyoaks which are below rather attractive soaps to watch, so depending on what age range would be cast in my soap, which I was think of 20-40, The Reckless might have a younger audience. As well I picked Herbal Essences to sponsor my show as my audience are typical woman based, like Desperate Housewives, I thought a product based around making yourself look, feel and smell better would fit in with the glam image I'm portraying with The Reckless. Also with my Front cover I used a colour palate of golds and yellows to make reference to expenses, riches, gold which my soap is all about, over the top life style, money and elegance. My actors are playing characters much older than themselves as these are the only actors I could get, they are portraying 20 to 30 year old, this can be seen by the clothes they wear, location and language used in the soap, they are teenage actors playing older businessmen, wives etc.

As I said in question 2, my audience is a typical for a soap opera, white woman 20’s, 30’s 40’s but because of it glamorous lifestyle the characters lead it opens markets into teens and gay men

Of course the genre is Soap but not the gritty and realistic British soaps like Eastenders or Corrie but more like the more over the top and grander soap opera of America like All my children and Days of our lives

Although this trailer has the conventions of an American soap opera, but with a English cast and local popular culture and British humour, this would be popular with an British market.

The differences between British soap and American soap are that this trailer we have created is more cheesy/light hearted, being more over dramatic than needed and less serious and blunt.

My soap would have traditionally been aimed at women, housewives to be exact.However it is now aimed at men too, although still primarily women.

I have created good, strong and multiple narratives which the soap genre can be recognized for, in a short space of time.

Costumes and locations are believable and strong to make the viewer believe that they are watching the daily workings of the rich and powerful.

Images are confusing as they are out of sequence with other, not keeping with the continuity (possible fix with title cars/voiceover to tell the views what happening.

Clear genre, I know I am watching a soap trailer .

At one point an actor breaks the fourth wall, which is not usual for the soap genre.

Simple but effective use of branding in the end of the trailer to tell the view when and where to watch the soap.

I have kept the drama and conflict realistic and believable which brings characters and the lifestyle down to earth which usually divides the class but this soap shows that even the have problems of adultery

Use of soundtrack creates tension and suspense till the end of the trailer to audience wanting to see and know more

These are the many forms of technology I used to create, film and evaluate my final products. To start off with I had to research soaps, I had

an idea in my mind to pay homage or parody American soap, so I used the internet, using sites such as Wikipedia then YouTube where I came

across a promo for The Young and the Restless which I have now model my trailer on. I used a mini DV Camcorder to film my final product as well as a my own digital camera to take pictures of the Front cover and billboard. After filming I need to review and edit my shots together so I used Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0 to produce the final trailer the for the ancillaries I used a combination of Microsoft Publisher and Photoshop to

create my final pieces. In the end I have used Microsoft PowerPoint to evaluate and show off my work in a clear and simple way which later will be upload to YouTube with then lets me upload it to my blog at

www.blogspot.com

Start new project and change your setting to fit your camera capability

Then get your shots by clicking Get Media then pick which sort of camera you have used Once uploaded

you can easily pick your shots then drag them down to timeline then you can begin to edit your shots into one long trailer

I used my fonts for my Ancillary products, especially my magazine front coverIt was simple to use my fonts but a bit long winded as you would need to find your font and colour pick your the words you want then print screen and remove the background on Microsoft publisher

After finishing my trailer, to upload finally to my blog, it was easier to upload it to YouTube first then upload straight from there, so you click Share in the top right hand corner

Click Online then on YouTube

Must possess a YouTube account to upload your video on there

Once you put your username etc in, it will upload and finalize to YouTube

Once the video is up and running and playing, you click embed, to get the technical codes for the clip to upload to your blog, copy and paste the information

Go to your blog and create a new post, paste the information down, name it and publish on the internet