Visit to CLC

Yesterday, 24/11, my entire media class took a trip to central enfield's city learning centre were our intention was to learn about how to create a website for our soap. Before this trip, we had to research in depth what other tv soap opera's consider on their website; the kind of things posted by the soaps that attracts the audience to revisit the website and also what makes it successful. My group and I decided to research into different websites; this decision was made because we strongly thought that if we get information from different sources, it would help boost our knowledge about soap websites and we could use some of the ideas from their websites ( not coping them but mixing the kind of elements published on the websites and giving it a twist with our own ideas) This process was quite successful as we all know what conventional elements are published on the websites of soap operas. But on the other hand, we could have improved this task well by discussing the results that we got after we analysed the websites.

The visit to the CLC thought me alot personally , it gave me the opportunity to attain the ability to use "Iweb" (application for creating a website). I also learnt about the features of "Iweb" and when and how to use it. Hopefully, this technique that I have learnt will benefit me and my group by making use more creative.
In addition, we was also thought how to create a flash game using images of characters in our soap; and many other games. This could perhaps be an option that we could use on our website. Me and my group also the chance to create a "draft" of our website; which was done in the process of learning how to use the software. This process was successful as we experimented with various functions of the software and finally concluded with a great outcome.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that the trip to the CLC help me and my group alot; it helped us boost our confidence on how to use the software, how to create the things that we wanted to use such as hyperlinks, import images form the internet to iphotos then iweb. Initially I found this procedure very difficult as I had never used Imac.
But the trip helped me acquire the basic skills that I need to help make my project successful.

Location Recce

Below I have listed all the locations that we have chosen as group to film our scenes. We choose to film at these locations because we feel these places are going to be suitable for our trailers.

School Hall: We feel that this is going to be a really good location to film our wedding scene because this place is spacious and it will definitely look like a wedding scene when we work on the mise en scene and have all the extras characters on set.

The school hall is a good location because it will be one of the places in the film where the wedding scene is going to be filmed as this scene is really important in our trailer it’s going to produce the dramatic actions, also we could use the piano for diagetic music.

We are also going to use on the classes in school and the science corridor stairs. The scene we are going to film in the class will lead to the revenge scene at the stairs were a student is going to be pushed down the stairs. We feel this location is suitable because filming in a school would interest our young audiences and the actions will be realistic and believable because the narratives we are working with are real and these things happen at least to some children in school.

There are a few more other locations which we had planned to film but due to short time we were unable to visit them to see the risks and how we could prevent those risks.



Written By Prince Gonzo

Risk Assessment

Location: School Assembly Hall

HAZARDS
Students and teachers walking by talking.
Visitors coming to observe the sight.

PROCEDURES
They could easily disturb our work as we only have limited time to film in that location.
They could delay and disrupt our schedule.

WAYS TO AVOID HAZARDS
Stop filming when students are changing lessons or if many people are walking in the corridor.

HAZARDS
Dangerous Steps We could easily fall down because there is a long distance between the steps to get to the actual stage which we will be filming on.

PRODUCERS
Be careful and watch our steps when walking to avoid tripping and possibly injure ourselves.

HAZARDS
Dropping The Camera

PRODUCERS
We can easily drop our equipment

WAYS TO AVOID HAZARDS
Make sure the camera and all filming equipment is held with care and is protected in its case.

HAZARDS
Extras not knowing what to do.

PRODUCERS
Ensure each person on the scene has a look at the storyboards or the scripts in order for each person to know exactly what we are aiming to show

WAYS TO AVOID
Include only characters that are going to be valid on the scene and no suspectors

Analysis of filming scenes

In the pic above, Barbara is Prince's mother, Displeased at the marriage
Prince in the middle is happy to be beside his bride, avoiding his mothers angry face
and hoping it can change.
I am more happy but yet serious at the same time because i am serious about getting through this wedding, but at the same time, i feel outcasted by Barbara.

By putting Prince in the middle, this enables him to be the main focus. Alongside with his mother and bride on both his sides, it almost gives the effect of a "make your decision now", tie where he cannot escape.



Above> Form we had to fill out to use the hall space.

We explored the backgrounds and when we eventually found a perfect setting we were pleased to use it and had to fill out a specific form in school to make sure that this date was only available for us. Below is another pic of the background alongside with Prince and Anna {best woman}, as you can see she is wearing black and red signifying the danger coming up. :)

COMMENTS NEEDED

Hey Prince & Barbara,

Im sorry I couldn't come today, I wasn't feeling well,
I think our wedding scene was successful but ive seen it twice now and we really do need to make A LOT of changes, many of the scenes the background was pretty bad and in some, the characters were laughing. We did have a lot of Outtakes :P
But apart from that. We need to initiate a date when we can start filming The Asian family at dinner and also set a date when we can start our editing process for the wedding scene because we need extra time to actually cut out and edit most of it. We need to understand the Mac's editing process and make sure that we make some scenes in slow motion, change the colours? or perhaps just add more emphasise and make sure that it comes out look extremely good.

Thanks for yesterday, was a good filming experience.
Speak soon

Script.

Priest:

Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together here in the sign of God – and in the face of this company – to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is commended to be honorable among all men;

Therefore – is not by any – to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly – but reverently, discreetly, advisedly and solemnly. Into this holy estate these two persons present now come to be joined. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together – let them speak now or forever hold their peace.

{When the last sentence is said, this is when Barbara makes an appearance}

However, alterations had to be made, Hassan made it shorter because as we were filming we realised that our scenes would be extremely short and his speech would be cut off

Barbara {Prince's Mother}


"I can't believe you chose that white trash. Your Father would be so ashamed of you"

Choosing Characters> Changed.

After our last list, some people could not make it therefore we had to improvise and find new characters. Those were here as follows:

* Me {Yana Kudrjashova}, Bride of Prince.

* Prince {Groom}

* Andreas & Rosie [Yana's Father & Mother}

* Barbara {Prince's Mother}

* Anna Philona-Runaway, who finds out she has a tumour/best friend of bride {yana}

*Dervish- Helped out with taking pictures and was partly a camerman.]

*Cameron, Mitesh, Bukky, Anna, Esther were all part of the audience

* Ali- is our driver for the end of our trailer/cameraman

* Pedro could not make it, so Hassan shown above, was our priest.

* Usman Priya {below}Usman and Priya starred in our wedding scene, they were in the background as the audience also are in this to be portrayed as the asian couple in this soap.

Also shown is Daniel standing near Prince {both in black suits}, He is Prince's BEST MAN.

Filming our Wedding Scene

We started our filming and invited many different people from the common room to enable it to to look like a "close" family wedding. The hall in school was a good option as it was the place were we could film without much noise, we did consider filming outside but the weather was really bad and the wind and rain would make it more difficult.

We did experience some difficulty with the background, Prince and I searched for a red rug to be symbolism of danger and passion as red is a good significance to something going wrong. Rushing around and finding resources was hard too but we found the mutlicoloured background so it could signify "the racism scene". It was also really hard to get the shots because mostly, the audiences were in fits of laughter and there were 3 in our group and we were all in the shots, therefore we had to improvise and ensure that we can get the shots we wanted.

Overall, after reviewing the video scenes we have a lot to work on, especially in cutting specific scenes to make sure that we make it short, so that it can contain elements of cliffhangers. We also need to ensure that we make these clips much slower because we did pace up a lot.

However, i really liked the contrast with the racism scene, our excellent use of costumes have added realism into it. Prince arrived, extremely suited with a fresh haircut and a few audiences to add. Barabara was there with an African wear costume, which emphasised her character in the story. I myself, had to dress in a wedding dress and get a bouquet of flowers. We told the other characters to come in formally.

Props were hard to pick out, because we wanted to make sure that somehow, we could portray a close family and friends wedding in a small space of the stage.



We used confetti to give it a sense of celebration and let the audiences be more involved within it.




The red carpet added emphasise to danger, I also asked my best woman-Anna to wear a black and red dress to the wedding, again to signify the danger.

We gave it the whole sense of "multi-coloured" to enable more precision into adding realism to the story and portraying the whole sense of a "colour-based" wedding.




Here we stuck a few decorations to the wall to add a little more realism to the colourful background. Our priest stand had to have some sort of highlights that would make him stand out, so we thought that this would be a great way of making sure that some attention is focused on him.

Review of the 'Marriage' Scene

Yesterday, 18/11, Me and my group filmed the marriage scene in the hall;which featured Prince as the groom, Yana as the bride, me as the mother of the groom who eventually stops the wedding. We also got other people from the 6th form to help be extras in our scene. This process was quiet stressful as most of the people who volenterred to help backed up includind Pedro, our priest for the day. However, as a group, we managed to get hold of a priest and other members of the congregation; which helped the setting look more realistic. I strongly think that the entire process went quite well.

Costume and Props


To make our scene look realistic, we agreed that everyone should dress formal to create a scene of a real wedding. The bride and the groom had to look very formal; and I think that was also done very well. Both of them create a real feel of a real wedding as audiences would believe it. Also, their body language and gestures also helped in making this scene realistic. Below is an image of them at the altar.

Nevertheless, Racism was still a highlight in this scene, as I (mother of groom) is dressed in african wear; this emphasises on the fact that I am disagreeing to this marriage. By wearing this costume, I think that it draws the atttention of the audiences to me, making them question themselves, perhaps if the I (mother of groom) agree with the fact that my son is getting married to a white lady or if I would be doing something quite dramatic?

Also, the bride(Yana) and groom (Prince) are both wearing a combination of white and black; this could also be portrayed as being neutral and innocent.

Secondary Research (East Enders)

CLIP SEQUENCES


The first scene shown to the audience in each episode of East Enders always starts in the morning for example... The audience will be shown families getting up preparing breakfast and children ready to go to school... This shows the believability and adds to the realism because we all start our day in the morning getting ready to go to work or to school. The duration for a single episode of East Enders is 30 minutes but through out those 30minutes the audience get shown the characters whole day i feel this is very effective to the audience because when they are watching East Enders their daily activities would be finished as from 19:00 on wards is relaxing hours! In our group we will try to make our soup be shown at 7:30 because from our questioners many people said they would be available from that time on.




MUSIC


The music that is played in East Enders is normally diagetic music being played in the pub or the radio on the market. The music which is played in East Enders is new top hits which are at the Top chats this makes the audience feel like they are in the same world as the characters as they listen to the same music. In our soup we were thinking of recording our own tracks this will be easier for us to make the music relate the action that we will be showing.



CHARACTERS STORY LINES


Every story line in a soup has a purpose and it has its own effectiveness it may not appeal to certain people but surely some people will definitely be interested in some storyline that you and i might not find interesting. The main story lines which are regularly shown in East Enders are : family problems it almost seems as if each family is going a down hill period, there's never a family which is totally problem free these are real life situation because not every family is living happy all the time. This story lines is very popular because in each family there are characters with different personalities so they will always keep their situations going on and on.There are many other popular story lines such as love triangles and gossip any many many more in our soup trailer we will use a few popular story lines and we will also use a few story lines which are not popular so that we can develop them and hopefully succeed in making those story lines effective

Brief Overview

Have we included the following in our Soaps:

Examples of codes and conventions of a soap opera are as below

• The narrative progresses between episodes.
• There is a cliff-hanger at the end of each episode.
• It has no end-continuous storyline.
• Has a more than one narrative through the series of the episodes.
• Focuses mainly on family issues, racism and romance.
• Often a 'shocker story' leading to the narrative.
• Storylines relating to issues brought up in colloquial life.
• Features a wide range of characters from differnt backgrounds and ages. This is mainly done to engage the audiences in the soap.

Personally, I think that we have covered majority of these codes and convention. Viewers can also relate to the themes which are raised. Furthermore, Our soap informs and educate its viewers about current issues in our community such as tumour.

Open and Closed Soaps

• Open soaps has no end- EastEnders is an example for of a open soap.
  
• One the other hand, closed soaps have a end. They are known as Telenovela; and are very common in Latin America. Definition of Telenovela: a limited-run television serial melodrama. It also has key attraction as viewers also finds out what happens in the end just like a novel.

At the moment, I am not sure of what kind of soap ours it. But however, I think if we make our soap a closed soap, it will be very sucessful because viewers get the opportunity to adjust with it. And also allow us to get feedback from us if we plan to make any other series in future.

Analysing the Hollyoaks Website

Analysing the Hollyoaks Website

Sense of unisex. Both colours mixing together.

Pink depicting females. Males depicting blue.

The mix introduces both sexes mixing together and suggests that this soap will contain both genders.

The structure is extremely simple, its clear and organised but the bold colours and the news page feeds the readers important spoilers or exciting storylines coming up this enables it to be viewed as more exciting and generally more people are encouraged to view it and read the possible gossip updates or view the pictures and see what's happening on later in the week.

Hollyoaks, I believe it a captivating soap opera that questions different types of areas of realities and lets the audiences freely discuss through games, quotes or polls. The interest of the audience is the number 1 issue which is extremely important as it determines what the audiences want to see or how some storylines should be solved in their opinion by specific characters so for instance, the current storyline of Zoe being blamed for Sarahs Death.

There is always an important photo in the middle when you first see the page. It's there to influence the audiences and inform them of the current most important storyline happening at the time.

Photos, Catch-ups enable audiences to get involved, the quizzes and games also ensure that audiences participate in such questionnaires and they will be able to interact and keep up with their knowledge of the characters, famous quotes and storylines.

We need to ensure that we include as much detail into the page as possible and use extremely bold and eye-catching material so perhaps highlighting the title and layout and making it stand out for being more different. We can update it with current storylines and the most important storyline being the on the front page so it can be addressed as the main issue.

Analsying East Ender's Website

Task

Choose a soup opera Analyse the website, how fonts,colours,images are layout and structured?

*The background colour for the official website of East Enders white, and it has no dark colours.

*There's no special fonts added its just normally fonts and the headings are written in black bold text. This makes that balded text to stand our more and the viewers are made to focus on that particular text.

*The main images which is enlarged is a photograph of the Albert road and its post code, if your a regular East enders viewer you can realise that there is always a scene were the director shows the name of the road in some episode.

This is the picture which is enlarged on that website



*The other images put on the website are put as a slide show and there's a hyperlink to each image which enables you to see the stories/gossip/interviews of the characters

*And also you can read about certain characters lifestyle off the set.

*The website seems simple but there is a lot of information on the website and also what i found very interesting was the fact that there is a question about two characters Peggy and Archie the questions allows the viewer to add their view about their relation and what they feel about what the characters are going through,i feel this keeps the audience interested and they will feel like a part of those characters.

Meeting Point

8:35: Talked and collaborated with Prince about what exactly has to be done to ensure we are moving steadily through paperwork to get to finish our filming more earlier and not miss out any specific details

9:00: Walked around school and distinguished the characters that we wanted in our film. Specifically looked at race, gender and the persons personality and capability of being able to portray the character we wanted.

9:40:Agreed that the next step is to complete our storyboard and not to miss out any details. Pay attention to small details especially things such as props. Need to determine what shots we require. Asked for extra help because we only have 3 people in our group and all of us are in the shot in the first scene.

10:00 Meeting Finished, All assigned to work now =) 

Choosing characters

      Choosing Characters 

After walking around the school and gathering specific points to how we want our characters to be percieved as and what we want them to look like.

Therefore I have sorted a few people, tell me if you agree with the choices or not

*  Harry Papacharalambous {He is a key character within the wedding} as he knocks over the wedding plate, let's it smash and this is vital in introducing the next scene.

* Me {Yana Kudrjashova}, Bride of Prince.

* Prince {Groom}

* Mr Mosedale [Yana's Father}

* Barbara {Prince's Mother}

* Anna Philona-Runaway, who finds out she has a tumour.

* Ali- is our driver for the end of our trailer

* Matt-is helping out by filming.

* Pedro is our priest.

* Raihan is part of the audience as is Maria A, Tamika, Sinthuja, Dena

* Usman Priya Aleeha Bejal who gets the empty text. Bejal is going to ask a year 12 student to help in case she cannot make it.

* Tell me if these people are suitable for the roles or any comments if you want to seek others to do the specific roles.