Asian Families In East Enders

The Ferreiras






In East Enders, The first Asian family to join the Albert Square was introduced in march 7Th 2003.

They were called the Ferreiras. They moved in into the house where Mark Fowler used to live before he quit the hit soap. The head of the family, Dan Ferreira, brings with him his three sons Ronnie, Ash and Adi and daughter Kareena.

All these characters will be known from their previous films and also some of these characters will be noticed by Bollywood fans as they have appeared in Bollywood before.








The Masoods







The second new Asian family for Eastenders The Masood where introduced on the 21st May, 2007.
Some of the main character in this family is actress Nina Wadia and newcomer Zahra Ahmadi. Ms Wadia will play tough-talking businesswoman Zainab Masood while Ms Ahmadi has been cast as her daughter Shabnam. They will be the first Asian family introduced to the BBC soap since the Ferreira family in March 2003 and axed four years ago in Spring 2005.


Zainab Masood has been cast as a strong-willed woman in her early 40s who owns a string of post offices. Her direct manner can be hugely intimidating and sparks will fly with Denise [Wicks]. Underneath her fierce manner, however, Zainab is great fun and has a wicked sense of humour."Nina Wadia briefly played a nurse in Eastenders in 1994. She said: "I'm thrilled to join the show and I can't wait for Zainab to come to the Square and cause some trouble.

The Eastenders source added: "Shabnam's definitely going to turn heads. She's 21, fresh from university and has no idea what she wants to do with her life. To keep her going, her mum gives her a job at the Post Office."Eastenders executive producer Diederick Santer said: "I'm enormously excited to welcome Nina Wadia to EastEnders. She's a brilliant comedy actress and I'm sure her character Zainab will showcase all her comic and dramatic talents."He added: "Newcomer Zahra is a real find. She's warm and great fun. I'm confident the Masoods will be a big hit with viewers."


From the time i used to watch east enders when i was young the Ferreiras were still around but i wasn't following the soap that much at that point until 2004/2005. I have to admit that the new Asian family have really s[iced up the action and i feel that our trailer will be good if we include an Asian family and me and the group have come to the decision that we will have an Asian family on our trailer i was really excited when i heard this because I'm really into Bollywood actors and i feel that they are great actors.




We have decided to choose Asian characters that have no link as in relation terms i fell bringing them together will be good to see how they react because Asian people are loving and friendly I'm sure while were filming we will not have many disagreements to what they want to do and what they cannot do. We all know that Asians are really strict with their religion but the characters we have included are British Asian but we also want them to wear the religious clothing just to add on the realism.




My aim with this post was just to show my research to my group members and to let them know that our plans we discussed sound good and our research can prove that if we work hard and stick to our plans we will end up with great results and i am really pleased for the fact that we have included an Asian family in our soup it shows that we are targeting a wider audience in terms of representation of Race and Possibly religions.

British Asian Families

Analysing The Hollyoaks "Asian Family"

The Roy Family Characters:

Ravi-Brain tumour

Laila-rebel and extremely great in creativity, even though her parents expect her achieve more higher.

Anita-anorexia, bullying, racism School girl that lives a life of hell

Mother & Father have left the show for now..

I decided to take a deeper insight into the British Asian families within soaps.

My main research was based on Hollyoaks as my group had decided the specific soaps we would focus on.

Due to many posts on the internet that Hollyoaks needed an Asian family, they finally hired Asian characters and presented each character in a way that helped people become more familiar with the behaviour, the culture and their reaction to the racist comments that they have in real life. This adds realism as it emphasises just now important bringing multi-cultural characters into the soap to enable more interest in the audiences.

Being able to bring an Asian family will help us get further insight into how we can encourage our Asian characters to bring in their cultural ethnicity and offer our audience a more realistic viewing on what problems would arise in their current lives and what other situations may happen that anyone else can relate to.


The next step we have to achieve is maintaing a specific atmosphere, to ensure that our Asian scene is as succesfful as our wedding scene, to do this we need to carefully select our props and background, perhaps persuade the characters to bring in traditional clothing to set the mood or we could discuss whether these characters are modern Asians, therefore wearing normal modern clothing such as jeans, like in the contemporary UK now, these little changes such as clothing, way of speech & actions will show the audience that this family is different to others, more vibrant in terms of their decisions and more free in the aspect of traditional morals, therefore can go out for longer, their outrageous storylines can represent the panic within Asian families and the day to day problems they face, for example the things that are looked down upon, such as divorce, pork consumption etc.

Hollyoaks demonstrated this through Anita, who drank and was introduced to drugs, following her ordeal with peer pressure and longing to blend in with a "perfect" in her world) society, she manages to spin out of control just to prove shes dangerous. We hope to introduce this panic phase and the abrupt connection within the family through out characters, the next plan is to choose our characters.

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. 

My Initial Proposal

My Initial Proposal

1st SceneRacial Marriage
Prince dressed in a tux, background {in school} but we can decorate the way, near the D.T rooms outside, making sure the weathers good and there isn't much wind that was the mistake from last time, I'll be wearing a "wedding dress" and led up the what seems like an aisle by MR mosedale {my father}, we will have to ask a few 6th formers to sit in the background as if they are family. Barbara, dressed formally but we have to make sure we make her up to look much older. We will have to include slow wedding like music to create the feel of a very calm happy atmosphere It is also vital for the characters to smile to lighten the mood and create the feel of happiness in the air.

The scene should consist of a few shots and be left in a very melodramatic state, so Once i walk the aisle there are a few medium shots and a long shot from Princes view on me walking towards him, we can then have a close up shot of Barbara putting her hand on her head as in despair.Everything should go normal speed at first until I reach the "altar".

Then the twist of events will begin. There will be a shot of Barbaras hand grabbing Prince's should and pulling him back, his shocked reaction and then a quick shot of my face, eyes welling up in tears.
A long shot of the whole situation and Prince being dragged into a separate room.There speech will take place. At thing point once the drama beings, the music changes completely, it beings to become more dramatic . Barbara and Prince shoulder shots of conversation. Barbara extremely angry and agitated "Why did I do you make you like this? Prince: "It is a crime to marry someone I'm in love with", Barbara "It is if she's white, are you intentionally trying to disgrace this family because i wont let you, your father would have been so disappointed in you" Prince left as his mother walks out on his wedding. Close up of him observing the ring, sad expression.

My close up of sitting on the altar my father {mosedale} with his hand on my shoulder, a guest in the background accidental knocks over the wedding plate it cracks. make sure that we film how it cracks make it slow motion to create a more effective "sudden" effect.

Scene 2Camera zooms out of a plate to an Asian family dinner, need to include props such as curry, rice, plates of Indian food, decorate the place with more cultural objects. Circle the "normal conversation about school> so the shot will be circling the table while they talk till it stops on one young teenage girl. A shot of her taking the phone out of her pocket, and reading it.

Blank message

Scene 3: School toilets, a suspicious looking girl running in locking herself in, music is calm yet building up to something dramatic, she takes out a folded paper from her pocket, and slowly unfolds it, music starts building up, text of her brain disorder a positive.>camera focuses on her facial reaction. Tears well up and she screams.

Scene 4

Runs out of the school onto the road, crying cannot see, music is up beat creating panic, she falls over the border right in front of a car.Blank screen, car screeches.
"bang"

The soap name

coming soon or have a different wording something catchy and rememberable.

Initial Proposal ( Barbara's Copy)

Opening Shots:

The audiences would be introduced to a marriage scene whereby Prince and Yana are getting married; here, I would like to us to use fast camera movement as well as the sound ( non-diagetic) it would help build the tension just as we want it. I strongly think that the technique of speeding the pace of camera shots would increase the focus of the audience.

Scene A

1st shots: long shot from one corner of the room, alongside slow non-diagetic music; after a few seconds we get quick/fast shot zooming into the faces of Yana, Prince, Mr. Mosedale, The Priest , Me and the ring. I think this would make it a significant point as it would be recommending the audiences to focus on these faces and object as it would be the main focus (stars) of the soap.

2nd shots: close up on me looking furious, reaching out to Prince's shoulder. I then drag him to a seperate room( here there would be a dialogue). Prince would also not be very happy with my interuption of the wedding. There should also be a mid shot of Prince expressing his feeling towards Yana. But on the other hand, I would be still a furious as ever trying to convince him not to grt married to Yana. The camera shot move in awkward ways a in switching from my face to Prince's. This could be interpreted in various ways; it would add to the fact that there is a misunderstanding. And the camera moving awkwardly would add effects to it and would the audiences involved more. Just at the end of this shot, i think it would be useful if we could have a close up of Prince breaking down followed by a long shot of him exiting the room.

3rd shot: in the other room where the wedding was meant to take place, we should have shot of Yana playing with the ring then a shot where we could have Mr. Mosedale( Yana's Dad) moving towards her and trying to comfort Yana.(a dialogue here) Then a close up of Yana's face then gradually pans into her eyes. The whole movement of the camera on Yana's face keeps the viewers aware of her pain/embarrassment

After a few moments, we hear a sound of a plate cracking then the camera quickly moves to the crack of the plate; this could also be signifying that their planned marriage has turned into failure or in other words was not meant to be.

End of Scene A: We find a way where we could use the camera to put the plate together. I strongly thimk that using this sort of technique is extreamly important and significant as the next scene will be a happy family having lunch. This could be identified as some sort of justaposing.

Scene B: Introduction to the Asian family and Traumatised Girl

In this scene, we will be featuring an asian family sitting round a table having a fairly peaceful lunch. This family would be having a family bonding/discussion moment when all od a sudden, their daughter recieves a text which is blank. This text automatically changes the facial expression of this young girl as questions are being raised in her head. We then have a close up of the text then slowlt pans out to the girls face imforming the audiences of her feelings which is being communicated via her facial expression. Furthermore, this is however likely to keep the audiences wanting to know more and keeping them hooked to the soap as they would like to know what is happening.


Attached Shot to this scene: Introduction to the girl who gets run over by the van.

A girl walking up the road with music in her ears, dancing and then all of a sudden tumbles over and end up lying in the road. W e then have a long shot of the van in a distance then quickly pans inside the driver's seat, close up of the driver being distructeed by a text. As the driver is driving at full speed he doesn't realise that someone is on the floor. We then have quick close ups of the girl, then the tyres and then the reaction of the driver's face. There should be no sound at this moment apart from the screeching tyres.

Final shot in scene B: A mid shot of the girls head very close to the tyres, this would make it very dramatic as it covers the conventions of realism. (A couple of seconds intervals between this and the blackout)
After,there would be a blackout.

Here, questions would tend to rise in the head of audiences as it is not very clearly communicated if the girl was run over or not.

Closing Scene: A letter from the NHS has been sent to the asian family regarding their daughter, from this letter, it is informing them that she has been diagnosed with brain tumour. The girl does not get that chance to open the letter as her mum recieves the letter.
The woman then had to break this news to her daughter and found this very difficult. This scene create an intense atmosphere at a broad range of feelings are brought out.
The scene then ends with the woman finally about to break the news but does not quite do it.
This is bound make the audience want more and keep them entertained.

Prince's Initial Proposal

First scene...

((The establishing shot:

Long shot, camera panning down from the skies for 3 seconds and pans right following a character walking/entering the location where the wedding is going to take place (church)

Slow calming music will be playing and the camera will be following the character from a long shot and slowly getting closer to the character.

I'd like this character to walk up to the front of the reception or registry office. The camera will be following this character until he or she turns to sit down and the camera keeps steadily going forward and it focuses on me and Yana about to say our vows.))

The first scene Marriage

A long shot showing Prince and Yana in a distance and from this camera shot we can also the heads of the characters sitting down. This duration of this scene is approximately 15-25 seconds.

As the characters who are getting married begin talking the camera gets closer to the main characters focused in this scene, I'd like this scene to have an UN obvious twist in terms of the sequence of the camera shots. For example I'd like to show the audience a CU camera shot of Prince followed by a CU camera shot of the mother and lastly a a CU Camera shot of Yana, the point of this sequence is to show the conflict between the characters through their facial expressions.

In this scene i think it would be useful to show other facial expressions from the extras on the scene this will increase the realism of the dramatic sense that we are trying to bring from this scene. We want this scene build tension though the performance of the characters and also i think adding tensional music would also increase our chances of receiving what we want from this particular scene.

The main character who the audience are more likely to feel sympathy for is Prince because he is stuck in between two people who are very different but they both share a huge part in his life.

(His mother and his soon to be wife))

This scene will end in a very symbolical way as the audience is going to be shown a place smashing and the camera shot is going to be reversed and we see the plate back unbroken and it leads to the second scene.

((From the plate smashing we are trying to portray the fact that the marriage is going to be broken.))

Scene two

In this scene we going to make the audience have different emotional responses, although the idea is moving far away from being dramatic in this scene our focus and aim is to show depression and misunderstanding.

An Asian family sitting around a table having dinner (Approx 3 characters Mum, Dad, daughter)

the daughter will receive an empty text (close up shot of her facial expression and also the audience will be able to see the empty text.

This scene might get the audience slightly off their seats. As a group this scene will not be our main focus although our aim in this scene is to build tension but not giving the audience all they want to know...

We feel that using Asian music would be very suitable for this scene as the characters in the scene are from an Asian background.

Scene 3

This is one of my favourite scenes because as a group we are going to show something very dramatic... we are going to have a long shot of a girl walking and she falls/tumbles on the kerb and as she drops half of her body lays on the road and in a distance we can see a van being driven at a very fast speed.

i think leaving this scene without music will be very useful for the audience to concentrate more on what is being shown on the screen, Also we need to make this scene realistic by making sure at least the tires of the van get really close to the girls head as she lays half on the road and on the kerb.

As a group we decided this scene will be more realistic if the character driving the van sorts of leans over to change a CD not looking on the road until his just about to run the girl over.

Scene 4 The Asian girl receives a letter from the NHS on the letter it's written that she has brain tumor.

This scene is going to be very depressing and as a group we decided that the duration of this scene should not be very long

(approx 10-seconds) will be enough for us to show and give the audience what we feel is enough action for them to realise the situation

Group Aim:

WE NOW should make sure that we write up the initial proposal,

I think it will be good if we all write up our own account of what we think we should do

and then combine our ideas into one through comments.

NEWS AND GOSSIP

Home and Away also features a page or two where viewers could explore more about the cast aswel as the soap. 

From my research on the ''News and Gossip'' page, I found a couple of articles which is very likely for viewers to read as it is very intersting. Also, the page doesn't fully inform the viewers fully about what is happening but instead gives them hints about it.

An example of articles that I found is below:

New love for Leah

Home and Away's Leah Patterson-Baker has had a rocky love life over the years - but things could be looking up for her in 2010.

The lonely widow's previous relationships have ended in disaster, but a new resident is set to turn her head, sweep her off her feet and provide the loveable Summer Bay resident with some much-needed happiness, show bosses confirmed.

The newcomer's arrival will also mark the beginning of some strong storylines for Leah in the next 12 months.

Meanwhile, Ryan Kwanten - who played Leah's husband, Vinnie Patterson - can be seen in True Blood, now airing on Channel 4 in the UK.

He plays a redneck construction worker who becomes addicted to vampire blood in the spooky series - w

Rub some Hollyoaks on it Poster Anaylsis

Analysing Posters> Rubbing some Hollyoaks on it

By analysing and doing more research on the ways posters are presented to attract audiences, I have a more clear view on what we should present in our own poster. 

Firstly, colour is extremely important, this can make it more eye-catching sufficient and pleasant to observe it.

Secondly, like the < Hollyoaks advert on the left of this text, it has to leave a question mark or some sort of funny element to it, so that not only is it pleasant to look at it but it can create humorous prospects, therefore encourage more people to talk about it and remember it more efficiently.

Thirdly, I think its a good idea to be informative as well as presentable, by creating a good catchphrase it leaves it in the audiences mind, easily remembered, more watched. Its also extremely good as it presents the logo and everything in one. 

The use of having a realism approach on the left to signify the culture or broken relationships, obesity and bad-mannered dogs, compared to the controlled and well mannered characters in the right. This could also present the different contrast between these situations. The realist approach> not photoshopped, as real as it can get, trashy background, dingy walls, a dog peeing on the floor and that atmosphere of smoking alcohol and all sorts of trouble, compared to the classy, upper-class elite, chihuhaha money infested, rich young and beautiful stars, this brings out the Hollywood feel to it and the classy love storylines.

But put these two pictures together and compare them, you have many things in common, mainly, the same real truth. The storylines. Rub so Hollyoaks on it can symbolise, rubbing sparkle, style and beauty into characters, yet the storylines will remain the same ugly truth just like the ones on the picture on the left. 

I enjoy the fact that this picture is so explicit, it doesn't hide the ugly truth of reality, so the Fat woman smoking and looking extremely revolting compared to the beautiful skinny society accepted shiny hair and make up type. It also shows the audience that anyone can be as beautiful with some (Hollyoaks) rubbed into it and makes people feel good about themselves, as it informs them that although these characters are beautiful, they are destined to face extremely bad situations in their life.

I think that it is well presented and i want to get that element of humour into my poster as well, as well as being informative to make sure that the audiences will always be attracted into it yet leave it in their memory. Easily-rememberable is extremely vital in determining that people will watch it. Inventing a catch phrase is also a good way of encouraging people to remember it, so I think we should invent something and put it on the poster too.

:)

Home and Away ( Spoilers)

All tv soaps have spoilers. This is mainly done to get the audience more involved in the soap. There are different techniques that TV soaps use for their spoilers; TV magazines, posters and mini clips on the internet are all example of spoilers. Spoilers are also made to create new viewers; it is also very effective as anyone is likely to pick up a magazine or bump into a poster.
Persuasiave language is often used on the internet; it makes the veiwer want to view the clip as its giving him/her the opportunity to see what is going to happen even before the soap opera begins.
Below is an example of persuasive language which has been used on a 'SPOILERS' website.
Soap Opera Spoilers:
This is the soap opera spoilers index. As usual, WARNING: Soaps Spoilers Ahead! ... soooooooooo, do not click on any of these links if you do not want to find soap opera spoilers containing soap opera scoops, soap opera rumors, soap spoilers, speculation or clues concerning upcoming soap opera episodes or seasons. Remember, soaps spoilers and scoops like all TV spoilers are meant to be fun, and some may turn out incorrect ... *wink*.
http://www.spoilersnews.com/soap-opera-spoilers
But on the other hand, TV soap producers do tend to profit from all these spoilers as it doesn't fully inform the viewers but instead gives them a gist of what will happen. This process is very successful as it encourages the viewers to watch it later on.On Home and Away's official website, it gives the viewer the chance to view approximately five (5) minutes of the soap.
And this also includes advertisement-it is very important for spoiler to contain more than just a clip of the soap. Because if it is done in this way, it also gives its sponsers the opportunity to sell its self.
Below is the text that is featured on the website.
Tue 13 October, ep 4932: Indi's accident
Tuesday 06 October 2009 4:04PMIndi gets seriously hurt after indulging in drink and drugs, while Ruby goes undercover.
http://holysoap.five.tv/homeandaway/video/tue-13-october-ep-4932-indis-accident-3200

Analysing TV Listings.

Whats On TV Front Cover 

We decided to make sure that we annotated and analysed TV listings to get a more better perspective of
what we might want to do in our own soap.

We noticed that most of the time, the main attraction for readers and potential soap watchers, was the bold colours and presentable "good-looking" airbrushed characters, much of the slogans created important questions and were left on small cliffhangers to make sure that audiences were interested and would tune in and watch TV and see what will happen in that particular week.

The TV Listings offered hints of information to readers therefore attracting them. Many people are interested in finding out more information therefore they look at TV listings to feed their hunger for gossip and be more aware or what is happening in their own soap.

We hope to deliver the same in our soap, so including bold storylines, good presented characters and good catchy headlines we can influence the readers to buy the magazine and be more interested in our soap. What worked well in this was how everything was splashed out onto one page, so not only is there one thing to focus on but many little storylines. The main one was obviously highlighted and the humour yet interest put onto it as well, (Biancas fury), it also raised many questions, this enabled audiences to be more in tune with what is happening and yet be prepared for a big explosion in the next episode. 

It does create a sense of continuity, people feel more interested and because they keep up with watching episodes they are more interested in what will happen in the next ones. Coming from work/school, wherever, audiences expect to be entertained well these magazines leave hints but not definite answers, hints create more gossip thus enabling more interest to be raised. In the end the results are audiences craving to watch more and understand the ordeals being faced. It also informs soaps of the different sorts of situations in the contemporary UK. So obesity, pregnancies, two timers etc.

This is important because not only can it inform the horrors of reality it can also prepare people for the real world.In our soap we want to include a racial marriage and a Asian girl suffering from a brain disorder, by keeping it quiet from the family she eventually falls unconscious. I think by including it in a magazine cover we are more able to communicate the different sorts of stories that the audiences should expect from us. Splashing it out on the first page it can cause hectic stress as it will be more difficult to analyse the soaps in many ways. 

Analsying Narratives Of East Enders (After Group's Feed Back)

Analysing Narratives East Enders. (After Group's Feed Back)

The main dominant storyline in the episode that I watched were Family Problems Most of the families in East Enders have their own problems and some family try to solve their problems with money. For example the Archie, He knows that Peggy would do anything to get Sam out of prison so he offers her money to get her out so that he can come back in her life and her family’s life too but except for Peggy all the other family members know that this is a bad idea as Archie is not a trustworthy character.

There seems to be a huge sense of hatred towards different families and characters. For Example Bianca’s family n The Mitchel’s Because Bianca’s daughter Whitney was the one responsible for Sam to be in prison after she called the police , the reason for this was to get Ricky back with Bianca. During the episode the audience can clearly tell that there's a sense of jealousy within the female characters for example, Jane And Tanya as they are going through a Husband swap period for a week, Jane seems to be enjoying the fact that Her and Max are
husband and wife for a week while Tanya seems upset because she’s hardly spent any time with Ian his always out with business partners.

Through out the sense the music which the audience heard were diegetic sounds coming from a scene were the was a radio for example the VIC. Although there are many other minor storyline going on at the same time the most dominant story lines are Love Hatred And Jealousy trigger by money and family problems.

East enders seems to be the most popular soap opera at the moment and as a fan of East Enders I'm proud to say that i enjoy it very much ...Going back to the subject The first scene of East Enders always begin in the morning, and also sometimes it continues from the cliff hanger left of the last Episode, this also adds to the realise and it shows that time does pass and while its passing, also in the programme time keeps moving even though its not shown everyday of the week.

Continuity is very useful in terms of realism in soaps and East Enders always shows the continuity and the flow of its story lines and this makes the audience more interested also the audience wouldn't want to miss an episode because if they miss an episode they will not understand the next episode fully. So this shows that East Enders are fully aware of their ways of attracting more viewers, in our group she should also try to base our ideas of narratives to a popular soap like East Enders as this would give us more audiences.

Posters And Magazinee Reviews Of East Enders

About East Enders

Since its first airing in 1985, EastEnders has become something of a phenomenon in England. Set in the fictional borough of Walford in east London, the program centers specifically on the lives of the residents of Albert Square. The Square consists of several streets, flats, various businesses and a bustling market and busy pub in the center of it all.

Its residents, of course, are the real heart and soul of the program. Families with dramatic secrets abound, and storylines run the gamut from infidelities and teenage pregnancies to classic "whodunit" murders and child abuse. Being a soap opera, though, there's nothing straightforward and run-of-the-mill about these stories.

In EastEnders, it's plausible for the mother-to-be not to even know she's pregnant until she's in labor, for a man to have an affair with his son's wife, and for a young woman to get pregnant by her best

Analysing The Questionnaire

Analysing The Questionnaire


Below i Have roughly put the percentages of the answer that i received from the questionnaire and it seems that East Enders is one of the most popular Soup opera followed by Hollyoaks.Most people said they rarely watch soap operas but they do watch soaps at lest 3 times per week. This shows us that it would be a good idea to only broadcast our soup only on certain days not every single day of the week.
The narratives which seems to be more interesting at the moment are dramas teen/crime family and romance, for our soap to appeal to a wide range of audiences we need to at least include those story lines as they are popular. Most soaps are only shown for 30 minutes and in our questionnaire i asked; Would you be interested in a soap opera that extends the duration time? 60% of people said yes if the narratives are interesting then it would be a good idea. 40% of people said 30 minutes is fine and if you extend the duration of the soap it might get boring.
So i think if we base the duration of our soap around 30 minutes it would make our audiences stay tuned. The results from the questionnaire showed that bet tween 7:00-7:30 is the best time to broadcast your soap as most people watch soaps at the time. So it would be a great idea if we target to show our soap around 7:00 -7:30
The results of the questionnaire in percentage


1) What’s Your Gender?
Male 60%
Or
Female 40%
2) How Old Are You?

3) Do You Watch Soaps? If Yes Which One Do You Like The Most? If Not Which Soap Opera Do You Hear About The Most?
East Enders 90%
Hollyoaks 10%
Home And Away 0%
Coronation Street 0%
Emmerdale 0%

4) Do You Regularly Watch Soaps?
Yes 20%
No 10%
Sometimes 70%

5) In Terms Of Realism Do You Relate To Any Of The Narratives In The Soap(s) That You Watch
Yes 40%
Not All I Just Enjoy Watching Soaps 20%
Sometimes But They Don’t Help 40%

6) What Sort Of Story lines Do You Enjoy Watching In Soaps?
Crime 30%
Teen 10%
Drama 60%
Romance 0%

7) The Duration Of Soap Operas Is Normally 30 Minutes. Do Sometimes Wish If The Duration Was Extended?
No 30 Minutes is fine 40%
Maybe It Might Make A Difference 60%

8) What Time Do You Watch Soap Operas? If Not Which Soap Opera Do You Hear About The Best?
5:00-6:30 0%
7:00-7:30 70%
8:00-9:00 0%
10:30 30%

9) How Many Times Do You Watch Soaps Per Week?
Not Even Once 10%
Once Or Twice 60%
Three To Five Times 30%

Treatment edited

Extended Treatment, Tell me what you like best!

· Girl is very life threatening ill doesn’t tell parents until the last minute that it may be a brain tumour or more, she then finds out she’s pregnant but her best friend is sleeping with her boyfriend.

· Boy finds out he’s adopted tell his best friend and cries. His friends bully him “cissy” because he crying<> parents don't approve due to colour so Prince's parents don't approve> disgrace to family. Question of will he carry on with the wedding or not?

· Guys plays around with girls feelings doesn’t realise what he’s done, only bullies her because he found out the real truth, she is his half sister. Doesn't know how to deal with it, angry that his father had a one night stand and managed to get someone pregnant. Also blackmails his father into telling his mother.

· Husband cheats on wife with his daughters younger best friend, mother walks in on them, upset big argument

· Popular girl attracts many but when she finds her love and reveals her true secret the fact that she was in a car crash at the age of 10 and has a fake leg, initial reaction of the guy to leave her or not to leave her.

· Love triangle- She cheats on him with his cousin whilst being in a relationship with him for more than 5 years. Conflict and confusion

· Family crisis, mother looses a son he gets bullied for being Gay, accidental death, sisters mourn another sister finds out she was pregnant from bully aka killer of her brother. Turns to abortion but cannot go through with it due to stress

· Family is torn apart when divorce becomes final, young 10 year old child keeps running away from home, cannot deal with it, becomes friends with a tramp


LOOOL i know this is a bit mad but you lot have to choose a few or add some more if you want
I really like the Racism storyline> Prince getting married family not accepting< its more real and I think it'll be good if we fit in that storyline somewhere in between our trailer.

OK so after the comments and meetings im more aware of what we are doing,

We will have a racial wedding story at the beginning then guided through a plate we are introduced to an asian family and then to a troubled teenager to runs out to the road and nearly crashes
Yana :P

Nialls Revenge Edit after Prince's comment

With Nialls Revenge, I decided to analyse the Hollyoaks trailer to get more background research on what makes a trailer effective and hopefully include that in our own.In the beginning we are straight away led to a low lighted room where Niall is soliloquizing "Once upon a time mum, you chose not to keep a child".

Obviously bitter, the mis en scene and the characters appearance sets a thrill factor, the music is also completely out of tune which emphasises the dangerous situation. I like this it does create a thriller effect but at the same time its a completely dramatic piece that's guaranteed to catch the audiences attention and leave it at a cliffhanger.

We are then guided to crying Tina who shouts that "max" (her son) needs her so her mother Myra should choose her to live. The grotesque dark grey background sets the alarming factor as we immediately feel like a part of this dangerous situation.

There is a picture at the back smudged, yet not straight, perhaps hinting that there is going to be violent or extreme conflict. Tina being the mother of the child and being in a struggling situation with Russ, is a good way of making the audience sympathise, I think its extremely important to make sure that the audiences questions which character they think will die or and which will survive.

The cliffhanger effect is becoming a more conventional part of soaps, therefore, i think showing less gives more meaning. This may have been a short trailer but it did leave a lot of questions, like what is going to happen next? Who are these character? Why are the suffering? What lives do they lead? Who will survive?

The characters also demonstrate the fear through crying, and actions so Nial is talking with his arms folded and sneakingly looking into the camera, confident of his evil actions.We see Myra with a single light at the back of her, while fairly trying to get to grips with the situation "but they are all my babies", I think the light at the back could signify a hint of hope yet at the same time, the whole dark place with 1 tiny light at the back also demonstrates the light being able to go off any minute.I think that the light in the end is a good way of perhaps showing that a lifeline may go out, so therefore one character will die soon. The whole dingy setting also creates a scary effect and the blank walls make the place seem like a prison, > perhaps> indicating that the blank walls are no way out.

Gathering this information has enabled me to consider what we may be able to use in our trailer. So low lighting can signify danger or a sort of dull atmosphere, we could use this in our trailer from the beginning. If we use it when Prince and I are getting married it could imitate that the marriage has a dead end or something bad will happen. By including tension filled music this can enable us to portray a more depressing mood, so the audiences will immediately be aware that something will happen.

In our second storyline when there is a family dinner, zooming out of a plate from the wedding to a plate in the dinner table can signify - the broken plate being a broken way to marriage like the hall that Niall is standing in a dead end. The fixed plate being a fixed answer>togetherness.

It is important to put this through, we need to include as much detail as possible. Little factors within the mis en scene can influence the whole of the trailer differently and make it seem more professional and gathered.