Filming

As a group we found filming an exciting experience. Emma was in charge of the camera while Laura and Yollanda where the actresses in the scene.
Laura played Grace and Yollanda played Sheniqua in this practice scene.
We filmed next to the college library, a quiet undisturbed area, with a long path perfect for walking down. We improvised actions such as Laura handing over her bag and giving Grace evil, jealous glances.
The practice scene enabled us to get used to the camera and equipment such as the tripod. It also got us thinking of potential props and shots we might use in our final shooting.

Letter requesting to film on college site

To whom it may concern,
We are A2 media students filming a soap opera for our coursework. We are writing to request to film on site.

Our media teacher Sophie Mngoma has given us permission to film and has asked us to request permission from you as well.

Yours sincerely,


Yollanda Musa, Emma Frow ,Laura Bradbury

Filming Commences

Today we practised filming . Through this experience we learnt that we need to obtain a dolly track to make the camera movement smoother, particularly on scenes where characters are walking down the street. Another objective is to purchase good quality camcorder tapes, preferably Sony. We also need to arrange a schedule with our actors and actresses so we sort appropriate filming times.

16/10/09

Today we went around college looking for characters for our soap trailer. It was a difficult task as we have to select specific individuals and some people were not so willing. We required the following characters;

• A blonde female
• Black boy with urban clothing
• Muscular football type boy
• Posh looking black female
• Geeky looking male

Some images of our main locations

Establishing the location

Today we took images of exact areas to film which is set around the college and the young peoples houses. The computers represent the use of internet and the website 'Flex'. The canteen is a typical location for teenagers to hang out and certain shots such as graffiti emphasise where Grace's real house is; on a lower class estate.

Questionnaire results

After collecting the results, we put them in charts too compare and contrast the information. From this research we discovered Soap's these days have become uncommon for teenagers. We have an aim to get the youth off the streets and regain an interest in Soap by including aspects which appeal to them like social sites. American programmes are also more common so we want people to enjoy the realistic view of British television with problems they can relate too.

Article on BBC website on 'Fewer young people' watching TV

'Fewer young people' watching TV

This article focuses on the decline of Young people watching television and and the increase of yonug people watching on the internet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4758932.stm

Students launch online soap opera -Newspaper article

This article desribes how university students created a new online based soap opera. This is a very interesting idea and we are exploring the possibility of having our soap online .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8021000/8021314.stm

Treatment

The soap opera trailer Flex is about six teenagers in England who all are unhappy with there lives and as a form of escape go on to a social networking site called flex. These characters are, Grace, a girl how pretends to be wealthy by wearing stolen designer clothes but really lives on a council estate. Jerome, a teenager whose parents are divorced, his Dad pressures him to go to Cambridge university but Jerome in an attempted to deal with the stress is secretly taking drugs. Eliot a geeky boy who dreams of being a fashion designer but as he is a guy he fears being ridiculed and fears upsetting his parents. Sheniqua is a wealthy girl but wants to fit in the others at her college so she pretends to be ordinary. Jack is an average teenage boy how longs to be a football legend, popular and a ladies man.

Song Choice 2 for our trailer

We have also considered using Dizzee Rascals "Flex" as it links to the name of the soap. The tune is also quite hip and funky which is appealing to young teenagers. If we chose to use this song we would probably use the instrumental as the lyrics are not particularly relevant to the soap.

Dizzee Rascal – Flex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUPleuj42w0

Songs for our trailer

Lily Allen – LDN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmYT79tPvLg
We thought about using this song because it relates to our soap trailer. Although life seems perfect you have to look closer and read beneath the lines. The following lyrics are taken from the song LDN by Lilly Allen. They emphasise the message we want to put across.

Sun is in the sky oh why oh why ?
Would I wanna be anywhere else
Sun is in the sky oh why oh why ?
Would I wanna be anywhere elseWhen you look with your eyes
Everything seems nice
But if you look twice
you can see it's all lies

Potential Characters

What appeals to teenagers

Brainstorm showing issues facing teenagers

Potential names

This is a brain storm showing that we came up with for the social website in our soap, we decided the name of the social website would be the name of the soap. We tried to think of something memoriable,catchy and that appeals to teenagers. We also tried to combine the names of some existing popular networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace to attract audiences who use these sites. For example the name "Pic Face" combines Piczo and Facebook.

Questionning the questionnaire

After distributing the first few questionnaires we faced the following issues;

• There is not enough spacing between the images on the question "Which character is your favourite?" making it impossible for someone to tick next to the image.Some people resorted to circling the box. So either we must create more space or change it to "circle" your favourite character.
• Some of the images of the character are not very clear so perhaps we should include the charcaters name
• Some people did not even recognise the characters as they watch more American Soaps such as Smallville and Heroes, so therefore perhaps we should include characters from these soaps
• We need to include a question as to why people chose the character they chose
• The order of some questions needs to be reconsidered for example, where someone has said they never watch soap, then perhaps they cannot answer further questions. Perhaps it is best if we reconsider this question as well as the questionnaire is aimed at teenagers who watch soap.
• The "what channel do you watch the most" question could be improved by adding other popular channels such as channel 5, Living T.V. and leaving space for people to write the name of any other channel they watch.

Questionnaire

Today we worked on the questionnaire which we will use to assist us in the production of our soap trailer. We used visual imagery to discover the best type of characters to use.


Please see the evidence folder for our questionnaire

Idea for television drama trailer

Flex

A soap opera for the 21st century, Flex follows the lives of six different teenagers from different backgrounds who face different issues and as a form of escape they go on a social networking website called Flex. This enables each character to help them discover themselves as individuals, escape from ordinary life and socialise with others that they wouldn't normally socialise with. This website also helps them deal with the problems that they face in reality.

Flex is an equivalent to Facebook that many teenagers use as a way to socialise and as there are no other soaps with a modern focus. Traditionally soaps are typically set in a street, town, workplace but this is different as it is set round a social networking website.