Minutes for Fifth group meeting

General filming discussions

Friday 30th October 2009

Start time: 7:30pm

People present: Natalie Michael, Thegla Savvides and Natalie Nicolaides

• We began by deciding we wanted to make a start with our TV guide magazine front cover.
• We then decided we wanted who would take on the role as the main character – we decided on Thegla.
• Next was the discussion about how we wanted the main picture on our cover to look. We decided on the victim as the main image in the foreground and the possible murderers in the background. It was settled that Natalie Michael would be the Victim and she would be dressed in white (to symbolise innocence or a coat to symbolise closure). The suspects in the background will be wearing something red to represent the danger.
• We selected a day that we would take a photo. We decided we would take these photos in school as we are going to be using photoshop to change the background of them.
• Our next main discussion was as to who would be filling out which pre-production forms we would each be completing.
• Next on the agenda were the locations we would be filming in. These included; -the house (Natalie M’s house), the cafe, a supermarket, the streets, the place where the girl bunks, a park and a kitchen.
• We finally discussed possible people who could act as the extra people.

Finish time: 8:05pm

Written by Natalie Michael

Minutes for fourth group meeting

Discussing our Tv guide cover

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Start time: 2:10pm

People present: Natalie Michael, Thegla Savvides and Natalie Nicolaides

• We began by drawing out a draft of how we want our cover to look.
  We planned where we wanted everything to be placed and how we wanted out title. We decided we wanted out title to be in the top left corner and we wanted it to be placed inside a TV.
• We then discussed possible titles for our cover. These included:
  -Teleh
  -Just TV
  -TV Rush
  -Ultimate TV
  -TV Revealed
  -TV World
  -Big Mouth

Finish time: 2:40

Written by Natalie Michael

Written Storyboard for Trailer

We have drawn up our storyboard for our trailer (names of characters still to be decided).
We decided we wanted our trailer to be unconventional using the recent Eastenders trailer with Peggy and Archies wedding and Hollyoaks trailers as inspiration. It will go as follows:

• Close up of girl 1 crying with make up running down her face

  She closes her eyes to a heartbeat sound

  Close up of the first note on the floor 'We'

  Scene fades to letters coming through the letter box

  The note with 'We' falls out from in between the letters.

  Close up of girl 1 with her hands on her head. she closes her eyes to a heartbeat

  Close up of the second note on the floor 'Know'

  Girl 1 sitting in a cafe

  A waitress brings her a drink and hands her a note from someone

  Girl 1 reads the note but audience do not see it.

  She looks around in the hope of seeing who it is from but the cafe is empty

  Close up of her hands covering more of her face and the sound of her whimpering

  Close up of the third note on the floor 'W

  hat'

  When girl 1 gets home from the cafe she looks in her bag and sees the third note

  Close up of the girls face, tears rolling down

  Close up of the 4th note on the floor 'You'

  Girl 1 sitting on her floor doing homework, as she lifts up a folder, the fourth note falls out from it.

  Close up of the girl crying

  Fifth note on the floor 'Did'

  Girl 1 in supermarket she gets her purse out to pay and the 5th note falls from it.

  Girl in her bedroom putting the notes together
  'WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID'

  The tempo/pace of the music increases as she puts the notes in order one by one. the music stops as they are put in order and a cardiac arrest beep comes on.

  The scene flashes to a dead body

  I.V appears on screen with the days and time the soap is on - 'Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8pm

  Final sound of a heart beat then silence as the trailer ends.

Group effort. Written by Natalie Michael drawn by Thegla Savvides

Written Storyboard for Episode 1

We have drawn our storyboard for part of our first episode (names of characters still to be decided). It will go as follows:

Scene 1

• Girl 1 in kitchen eating breakfast. She gets a text saying 'Are you in today? x'
• Her mum appears in the doorway saying 'hurry up or you are going to be late'
• Girl 1 walks out and slams the front door whilst her mum is still talking
• Girl 1 walking down the road

Scene 2

• Girlfriend and boyfriend walking down the street together talking
• close up of the girlfriend looking uneasy whilst the boyfriend is still talking to her
• close up of the boyfriend looking down at his girlfriend with a smile on his face

Scene 3

• Boy 1 cooking his breakfast, his phone rings
• He talks on the phone saying 'yeah I'm going to be late again'

Scene 4

• Girl 1 smoking in the street
• A group of girls walk past her, they say hi, one asks girl 1 for a cigarette
• She passes her one
• Girls say thanks and walk on
• Close up of girl 1 smiling

Group effort. Written by Natalie Michael. Drawn by Natalie Michael and Thegla Savvides

Final draft of Treatment

Our soap opera will have a mixture of short and long term storylines which will all run concurrently with each other. This will allow the audience to get to know the variety of characters. Some of the less important storylines will be short term, only lasting for the period of one episode. The long-term storylines will run for perhaps two episodes with the effects of it lasting for the episodes to come. This will allow the audience to possibly connect to the characters that are having similar life events to them and may possible use the way the characters react to it to influence the way they deal with their own problems.

The characters in our soap are going to be mainly teenagers of both genders. We also hope to include the families of the teenagers and some of the teachers working at the school. The characters we are hoping to focus on include a “gossip”, a “dodgy geezer” who supplies drugs to others, a group who have parties and do not focus on school, “geeks” who focus on school work, “lower class” people who may be considered “chavs”, good-looking males who all the girls fancy and a mysterious new character who is known as an outcast to the others as they are new to the setting. They will be new only at the start but will not completely fit in as all the groups have already been formed between the characters that have been together for a longer period of time. This “new” character will be picked on and included into groups for particular reasons and then will be shut out. The main characters in the soap will change as the storyline does, one story will evolve around one group/character whilst in a different week it will change.

Our soap opera will be based in a school setting, including the classrooms, library, staff room and the playground. We will also include the homes of the characters and their local areas. The homes will be used so the audience can get an insight into the lives of the characters and the homes may also be used to hold parties. We will have a meeting place where all the characters go; this may possibly be a café. We may also include the park as many teenagers hang around in the park.

Our target audience is going to be teenagers and young adults of both genders as our characters are mainly of this age group too. By having teenagers as our target audience and as the main characters, we hope the audience will be able to connect with the characters and possibly relate their own lives to the characters. We also hope that our soap will appeal to an older group of people and that they will be attracted to the issues we will be dealing with.

As our soap is aimed at teenagers and we will have moral and educational content.
Our media product will follow the expected and unexpected elements of a soap opera. It will include all the necessary conventions of a soap opera such as narrative enigmas, a sense of realism, concurrent storylines, social representations, and a central meeting point and will deal with real life issues. Each episode will end with a big cliff-hanger and the storylines can sometimes end with smaller cliff-hangers. We will also challenge everyday conventions of soaps by having events such as a lesbian wedding, a teacher getting in trouble instead of a student and a person not fitting into a tight community.

We decided on the name I.V for our soap. This will stand for Independent Variable. We believe this fits into the nature of our soap as the definition of an independent variable is a variable that gets manipulated in order for the outcome to be different each time. The lives of the characters will get manipulated by other characters and by social factors in order for outcomes of the soap to be interesting and to keep audiences watching.


Group Effort. Written by Natalie Michael with contributions from Thegla Savvides and Elena Christodoulou

Followers of Group blog

http://natalie-media-a2.blogspot.com/ -Natalie Michael
http://thegz-a2.blogspot.com/ -Thegla Savvides
http://elena-media-a2.blogspot.com/ -Elena Christodoulou
http://natalies-mediacoursework.blogspot.com/ - Natalie Nicolaides

Analysis of Home and Away website & Evaluation of our analysis of websites

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/home-and-away/


The official Home And Away website is on the Yahoo TV website. Theres options for fans to catch up on missed episodes, see trailers, read spoilers and have the chance to see behind the scenes footage.

Its special features let you comment on forums, read newsletters, characters personal blogs and see episode galleries. Also after every aired episode the website is updated and new imformation is given, featuring new pictures, news and gossip everyday.

Theres also options to watch and read the characters being interviewed, joining the fan club and also the music used in the episodes.

EVALUATE:

• I Definitely will take some of the links and features they have into account.


• Like a Gallery and the ability to catch up on missed episodes i think is benefited from.


• I also think trailers and spoilers are a brilliant idea to have, ensuring fans regularly sign on to the website to see what's up next.

By Elena Christodoulou

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Evaluation of Websites/What we have Learned:

What my group has learned from researching websites is that the features we allow our audience to have is very important. We must make our theme match the personality of our audience and provide what they would need to acomplish their desired task. Research from all of these soaps' websites has allowed us to see what they have in common but what they offer individualy. Our aim is to cater to all the needs of our users by taking on board what we have found and put it into our own website.

By Thegla Savvides

Analysis of Emmerdale and Coronation Street websites

Analysis of Emmerdale and Coronation Street homepages

As part of my groups secondary research into soaps we looked at soaps homepages online. We looked at what the site had to offer to the audience and how it attracted and benefited them.

EMMERDALE SITE ANALYSIS:
-The Emmerdale site has a lot to offer the audience. It provides them with the opportunity of watching previews and ability to catch up on past episodes. The site has a number of special features which both attracts the audience to both the site and the tv show. For example, they offer video specials, galleries, news, gossip and the chance to see new arrivals to the show. The site also allows the audience to find out about the cast with the opportunity to read about cast and characters. They also use a combination of medias to make the experience of finding out about the show even more exciting. For example they have areas on the site for the use of webcams, widgets and also mobiles. The site also includes a page of feedback for the audience allowing them to post topics and comment on them. To increase the popularity of the show the site offers the audience to become apart of the soaps fan club. Members of the club receive soap merchandise and future information on the soap.

CORONATION STREET SITE ANALYSIS:
-Like the Emmerdale site the Coronation Street site had a number of features which attracted the viewers to watch the soap. For example the site provided the viewer with the opportunity to watch 'previous' and 'coming up' episodes of the show keeping them as up to date on the storyline as possible. This was also easily accessable for the viewer, as you did not need to download the video. The site also includes 'cast talks'which allows the viewer to watch videos of the cast talking about their characters and storylines. The site also offers the viewer a section on the news of up and coming characters and which actors will be joining the cast, they also include gossip about the lives of the cast and whats happening in their real lives. To keep the viwer interested in the storyline the site includes a gallery of picture taken over the weeks episodes. This also has a section for the up and coming episodes giving a spoiler away to the viwer. The gallery also includes pictures from past big storlines to remind the viwer of what has prviously happened.Also on the site there is a section dedicated to some of the popular characters in the soap, informing the viwer of ther statistics such as dste of birth, adress, workplace, like and dislikes... Like the Emmerdale site there was a section of the website for the viewers feedback on the soap, this also included frequently asked question by the viewers. This indicates to the audience that their views are important to the soaps directors/producers and believe that their views may be taken into consideration.

Analysis of Hollyoaks website & what we hope to gain from analyzing websites.

Analysing Websites - What? Why?
As a group we have decided to analyse the websites of the soaps we have been researching, including; Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Home & Away, and Corination Street. This research, we believe, will help us decide what is acceptable of a conventional soap website and what we will include in our own. Colour schemes, features and amounts of pictures and text were taken into consideration throughout our research. By Thegla Savvides

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http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/H/hollyoaks

The official Hollyoaks website is situated on the Channel 4 website. With 4OD now in place fans can watch Hollyoaks online at whatever time they want as well as get gossip,trailers and behing the scenes footage. It's features let you explore the characters and their backgrounds and see pictures in a gallery of upcoming episodes and previous episodes. After every aired episode the website is updates regularly, featuring new pictures and gossip everyday.
The site also links Hollyoaks related news to the website, such as Ricky Whittle (Calvin Valentine) competing in 'Strictly Come Dancing' being posted on the Hollyoaks website.

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/H/hollyoaks/news

Games and quizes can be played interactively online to add a bit of fun and see how well you know Hollyoaks.

Hollyoaks is to push the boundaries of cross-platform content by launching an online show that will also appear in the TV soap. Producer Lime Pictures and its digital arm, Conker Media, are developing Runners, a show-within-a-show that it plans to air daily on the teen soap's website.In Hollyoaks, characters will be seen talking about comedy-drama Runners and watching it on TV. The show is set among students working as runners in showbusiness and the fashion industry. It will be filmed in London close to transmission and will include sequences shot at events such as the Brit Awards.As well as brief clips of Runners appearing in the soap, Hollyoaks fans will be able to watch a full three-minute online episode each weekday for the 10-week initial run. Episodes are planned to appear on C4's Hollyoaks website as well as on Bebo, MSN Messenger TV, Facebook and iTunes.

Evaluation of Website

The Hollyoaks website is colourful and bright, which matches its target audience which ranges from teenagers to young adults. It's features include things that us as the audience would like to see or know more about, such as behind the scenes and a gallery. The site gives us a link to the Channel 4 "4OD" feature which enables us to watch previous episodes.

Analysis of Neighbours Website

Analyzing websites - What? Why?

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http://www.neighbours.com/

Entering this website you are given the option as to whether you want to enter the 'official Australian' site or the 'official UK' site, both leading to website about the soap. This page has a few pictures of the characters which are seen during the opening credits. There is also an image of a landscape of Australia with a Ramsey Street scene name sticking up from it. The welcome sign gives the site a friendly feel to it.

The Australian site:
The home page has the 'Ramsey Street' street sign in the top left hand corner. This flowed from the same sign we saw on the first page we were taken to. There are 9 options on the home page along the bar at the top. This includes:

• home
• video
• episodes
• characters
• forums
• music
• photos
• interact
• competitions

Under these options is a slide show showing events that are happening in the soap and to the characters' lives. This includes photos from:

• last episode
• next episode
• news
• declans diary
• photo gallery
• video
• E.P corner (executive producer)

Each section has an image and text, clicking on the image takes you to that page on the site where you can read/ see more.

Under the 'favourite' section visitors to the site can choose from a selection of links:

• most recent/most popular episodes
• latest fans
• characters by residence
• neighbours quiz
• latest news
• vote here
• hot forum topics
• download own wallpaper

There is also a section called 'tour and merchandise. This gives people the chance to tour the Neighbours set and meet the characters. A selection of tours can be chosen each with different prices and the option to take a free tour. This will draw in visitors to the site. There are images of people, who have taken the tour, with the characters and they are holding the 'Ramsey Street' road sign. There is an image of the tour bus with times of departure.
From each of the links at the top of the page a number of fun and interesting sections can be revealed.

VIDEO:
This section allows the audience to feel part of the Neighbours world and see the characters in a different way to how they would see them during the show. The videos are not available to UK viewers. This is an advantage to the Australian viewers.

EPISODES:
This has a selection of previous episodes and the next episode. This makes sure the audience cant miss out.

CHARACTERS:
When the audience select a character from the scrolling bar at the top, the audience are taken to the page of that character. This page gives information about the character. The audience can read up on the life of that character and possibly feel as thought they are getting to know the character.

FORUMS:
'Welcome to the Neighbours community' is written above the forum topics. This is friendly for the audience.

MUSIC:
'Songs from Neighbours classic episodes and your favourite stars!'. Clicking on this takes you to a page with the words:'After an overwhelming number of requests from "Neighbours" fans, Grundy Television in collaboration with Sony Music have put together this fantastic collection of music from the show.'The fact that this shows that the fans are listened to would make them feel special and they will still remain faithful to Neighbours as a soap as they would feel part of the 'family'.

PHOTOS:
There is a slide show and a choice of groups of episodes to see the pictures from. This will allow the audience to see memorable moments from the episodes of their favourite characters.

INTERACT:
There are 4 main sections on this page; trivia, timeline, fan messaging and wallpapers. These all allow the audience to feel part of the nieghbours community even more.

COMPETITIONS:
'Lots of promotions and great prizes can be found with the click of a button! Good luck'
These words are found when you first enter the competition page. They are friendly and it does not sound too formal which would let the audience feel comfortable on the site.

In my opinion, the Australian site is very successful as it is friendly, easy to use and has enough links and things to do so that the visitor to it does not get bored. A true Neighbours fan would enjoy this site. i hope that within my group we can take examples from this successful site in order to make ours look good too.

THE UK SITE:
This site takes us to the holysoap website which gives information on all the soap operas, British and Australian. This has a similar layout to the Australian one and has similar features for the UK audience to enjoy. It includes:

• full episodes
• clips
• news and gossip
• pictures
• cast
• extras

These links all have similar things as the Australian site does. Again, i believe this site is as successful as the Australian one.

Written By Natalie Michael

Newspaper article on Neighbours

I found this article about Neighbours which talks about how the change from BBC1 to Channel 5 has secured more viewers and has been more successful than people originally thought it would be. This article was written in 2008 and was published in the Guardian.

Channel Five's £300m "big bet" on the "Neighbours effect" is showing signs of paying off with the Australian soap helping boost the network's adult audience share by 13% in the three weeks since it switched from BBC1.Five, which had a 5.2% audience share in the first six weeks of the year, has seen its share climb to an average of 5.9% since the show launched on February 11.Gerhard Zeiler, the chief executive of Channel Five's parent company RTL, admitted today that the acquisition of the show - pinched from the BBC last year in a 10-year £300m deal - was a gambit to help halt a decline in adult audience share from 5.9% in 2006."It was a big bet to secure Neighbours for Five. It seems the bet management took has really paid off," Zeiler said.Five, which has secured Weight Watchers as the first-ever sponsor of Neighbours, recorded an adult audience share boost of one percentage point to 6.2% in the first week the show aired.The launch of the show helped Five pull in its best weekly ratings in over a year.In the subsequent two weeks Five's share has slipped back slightly to 5.8% and 5.7% respectively.However, in the three weeks following the launch of Neighbours, Five has enjoyed a healthy boost to an average 5.9% share of audience, a 13% increase compared to the six weeks prior to the debut of the show.Five executives will be hoping the slight slip in audience share in the weeks since Neighbours launched is not an indication that the novelty factor may have worn off and that a significant audience boost will slip away.Zeiler said he expected Five's audience share would end up being "up significantly" this year and that there would be "further significant growth" in digital services Five Life and Five US.He added that despite the current economic climate there was "no reason to be pessimistic" about advertising sales, although the company "remained cautious".

• From this I have learnt that the channel in which a soap is aired upon is very important as this will determine how many viewers it will get.

Written By Natalie Michael

Minutes for Third Group Meeting

Discussing locations and the treatment

Thursday 8th October 2009

Start time: 2:10pm

People present: Natalie Michael, Elena Christodoulou, Thegla Savvides and Natalie Nicolaides

• We began by discussing what types of locations we would need for the specific moments we want to film for our trailer.
• We decided upon a school which led to us needing corridors and a classroom.
• A bedroom
• A central meeting point which we then decided we wanted to be a cafe.
• We then discussed the advantages and disadvantages of these locations
• Included in the advantages were; a school is easily accessible for us to film in as we have access to classrooms and corridors and included in the disadvantages was whether we would be able to film in a cafe and we then discussed that we would have to get permission from a cafe owner before filming there.
• To overcome the cafe problem we decided that we could create a cafe in one of our gardens and get people to pose as a waitress and customers.
• We then went through our treatment together as a group and discussed what we could include in each section.
• We also went through the tasks we had set each other from our previous meeting and gave new ones to each other.
• We discussed having to complete location recce forms, risk assessments, production schedules, shooting schedules and scripts and any booking forms for equpitment and rooms.

Finish time: 2:50

Written by Natalie Michael

Treatment

Our soap opera will have a mixture of short and long term storylines which will all run concurrently with each other. This will allow the audience to get to know the variety of characters. Some of the less important storylines will be short term, only lasting for the period of one episode. The long-term storylines will run for perhaps two episodes with the effects of it lasting for the episodes to come. This will allow the audience to possibly connect to the characters that are having similar life events to them and may possible use the way the characters react to it to influence the way they deal with their own problems.

The characters in our soap are going to be mainly teenagers of both genders. We also hope to include the families of the teenagers and some of the teachers working at the school. The characters we are hoping to focus on include a “gossip”, a “dodgy geezer” who supplies drugs to others, a group who have parties and do not focus on school, “geeks” who focus on school work, “lower class” people who may be considered “chavs”, good-looking males who all the girls fancy and a mysterious new character who is known as an outcast to the others as they are new to the setting. They will be new only at the start but will not completely fit in as all the groups have already been formed between the characters that have been together for a longer period of time. This “new” character will be picked on and included into groups for particular reasons and then will be shut out.

Our soap opera will be based in a school setting, including the classrooms, library, staff room and the playground. We will also include the homes of the characters and their local areas. The homes will be used so the audience can get an insight into the lives of the characters and the homes may also be used to hold parties. We will have a meeting place where all the characters go; this may possibly be a café. We may also include the park as many teenagers hang around in the park.

Our target audience is going to be teenagers and young adults of both genders as our characters are mainly of this age group too. By having teenagers as our target audience and as the main characters, we hope the audience will be able to connect with the characters and possibly relate their own lives to the characters.

As our soap is aimed at teenagers and we will have moral and educational content.

Our media product will follow the expected and unexpected elements of a soap opera. It will include all the necessary conventions of a soap opera such as narrative enigmas, a sense of realism, concurrent storylines, social representations, and a central meeting point and will deal with real life issues. Each episode will end with a big cliff-hanger and the storylines can sometimes end with smaller cliff-hangers. We will also challenge everyday conventions of soaps by having events such as a lesbian wedding, a teacher getting in trouble instead of a student and a person not fitting into a tight community.

Group Effort. Written by Natalie Michael

Progress Of Group Ideas

So far we are comfortably into our coursework process and have come up with numerous ideas, and through discussion and analysis of different soap operas, we have been able to elaborate on all of these ideas, all having our own individual input.

Ethnic groups, sterotypes, middleclass Vs Lower class, are just a few of the ideas that have crossed our minds.

Some of the ideas I thought of, for example Echoing thoughts, another group member added the idea of a heartbeat sound and another group member mentioned her being locked in her bedroom; We definitely work well as a group taking in everyones ideas and moulding them to suit everyones liking.

So here are some of our ideas so far:

• Echoing thoughts throughout, heart beating backtrack- her sitting on her bed, discomfort, moving, shaking, crying.
• Board- Characters pictures, sums and equations(shows life's difficulty, struggle) closes in on character scene.
• Final image a dead body, back to girl on bed rocking, close up of face.
• Heart beat-flashing images on every beat
• From picture of girl on bed, to board to close up of her face etc.
• Mother trying to talk to her and get into her room- turning of the door handle- but she cant hear her because of the noises in her head.
• IV drip-dead body-
• girls face-running makeup- crying frozen with hands on ears-
• zoom out and Iv appears on screen with siren sounds.
  

By Elena Christodoulou

Minutes For Second Group Meeting

Discussing character types, ideas for trailer and story boarding first episode.

Tuesday 6th October

Start Time: 11:06am

People Present: Elena Christodoulou, Thegla Savvides, Natalie Michael, Natalie Nicolaides

• As a group we first discussed different character types that we think would appeal to our target audiences, We began mapping out different characteristics that individually appealed to us.
• Some ideas where a posh character that doesn't look posh, bad looking characters who are very well behaved, The popular girls and the misfits.
• We discussed numerous ideas for the trailer, one of us comes up with an idea and by the end we all have had an input.
• Some of the ideas for our trailer, we've elaborated upon and decided it for the first episode, allowing us to leave numerous cliff hangers in the trailer and prolong them onto the episode.
• We asked ourselves many questions like...Is the trailer going to be a spoiler of an unrealistic scene-e.g. like at the beginning of Hollyoaks with the supernatural and flashbacks etc.
• We also set each other targets in order for things to all be completed in time and in order, keeping us up to date.
• We discussed a few locations, and the advantages and disadvantages of these.
• Some of the ideas we came up with, where more of a challenge than others we discussed how we would work around certain problems and in some cases lack of required props, i.e. recording in a shop-copyrighting issues- and our main idea of having a clear board for characters thoughts.
  

Finish Time: 12:20pm

Written by Elena Christodoulou

Review of Emmerdale

Emmerdale Review
REVIEW 1:" Very real life storylines and brilliant acting. The coverage on cot death was excellent. Very sad. Very true to life story lines which really appeal to the general public."

REVIEW 2:" I am afraid Emmerdale is going to lose popularity if the writers don't do better than recent episodes.This is not the Old Emmerdale..."

REVIEW 3:"I have watched Emmerdale for many years it was excellence. All the script writers need axing as do most of the cast..."

REVIEW 4:" After so many years of watching emerdale I am now watching the one show on BBC1 and you wonder why the ratings are going down.... get rid of the script writers and TRY to bring it back into something worth watching and stop taking the viewers for a load of idiots."

Review of Coronation Street

Coronation Street reviews

As part of my groups secondary research into soaps we looked at some reviews of the previous soap we analysed. This research allowed us to understand the audiences views/opinions on the soap,commenting on what they liked and disliked, giving my group the advantage of knowing what to include in product to attract our target audience.

• REVIEW 1:"I've watched Coronation Street for many years but have come to the point where I switch off some of the episodes. I am 76 although I don't think I am priggish. At one time Coronation Street was a family show but now there are so many unmarried mothers, youngsters love etc when it would be more appropriate to be involved in school. I am fast coming to the conclusion that the Street no longer considers morals to be of importance and in fact I am extremely disappointed that is going from being a family show to one only fit for teenagers."
• REVIEW 2:"I think Coronation Street is a rather good episode and am rather keen to keep updated on characters like Gail, David and Audrey I recommend Coronation Street to anyone who is stuck with ideas on what to watch one evening"
• REVIEW 3:"I have watched Coronation Street on and off ever since I can remember. If you miss a few episodes you can soon pick up again. Many of the actors/actresses have been in Corrie for years, making it a little more realistic than some soaps where the actors keep moving on. Tracey Barlow is a great character, one you love to hate! Cunning, devious and wickedly clever, that cheeky little grin lets you know she is up to something! Although my opinions on this soap go up and down, depending on the current storyline, I have to give this one a 10/10 as it certainly is one of our longest running and best loved soaps of all time."

Review of Home and Away

There are an equal amount of negative and positive reviews for Home and Away, with some mentioning its better than any British soap, and others saying there embarrassed to say they watch it. It is fair to say everyone has there own opinion and some say you do either love or hate it.

"This show is awesome it just keeps getting better and no one can doubt that. look at past story lines, psycho stalkers, killer cops, explosive weddings, hostage situations, drugs, on the run, storms, shipwrecks and much more...Have you ever had juicy and gripping plot lines like that on things like Coronation street, and Neighbours. NO. and you probably never will...Home and Away is way before its time and its one show that Channel 5 shouldnt ever let go of, i hate it when people say ozzy soaps arent as good, i cant stand neighbours the show has bad acting and story lines were as Home and Away is off the scale juicy ahead of its time storylines what more can you ask for in a soap."

"The charaters are perfect for the part they play and it is directed so well. The person that invented Home and Away should become a saint"

"its a great show to watch, focusing on everyday issues "

Alot of people compare it to Neighbours, they say Home and Away has gripping sorylines and gets to the point faster, avoiding long dragging story lines.



"Utterly pitiful. Made even more hilarious by the original boast of its cast members that it was more "realistic" than Neighbours... If realistic means a town where all the inhabitants have white teeth, there's no smoking, everyone is politically correct, there's lashings of bizzare family disharmony, morality is policed by local "tough nut", there's *never* any swearing, I haven't bothered to watch this soap since 1991"

"The show does need fine-tuning. It is very, very predictable and the twists are not as good as they're made up to be. I think I will stop watching Home and Away soon"



EVALUATION
From the positive reviews to those of which are highly critical, we can take down things some audience members dislike and some audience do like, some enjoy the unrealistic story lines, some find it extremely annoying, others are just unaffected, With everybody voicing there own opinions of soaps, it is impossible for everybody to be fully satisfied, however you could try and touch upon many different aspects, making it enjoyable for many people rather then just a particular type- some unrealistic story lines, some realistic ones but then this would most probably raise criticism, so i have gathered that it is something that's unavoidable and is dealt with accordingly to keep as many people happy as possible.

Review of Hollyoaks

In the nineties we saw the birth ofmany fantastic forms of entertainment. Take That sparked sexy malepop, The Spice Girls introduced us to ’girl power’ and hollyoaks stormed on to our screens with its young and beautiful cast. Only oneof these has fully survived the last decade, growing from strength tostrength and eventually gaining the respect of the British public andcritics alike: Hollyoaks.
Over the years we’ve seen rape, murder,drugs...to name but a few! Hollyoaks has repeatedly gained theattention of young adults in Britain, but has in its beginningsfailed to gain the respect of critics and the wider population. Thatwas until the hard hitting story lines of 2007 were aired.
In recent months we have seen bulimiaending in tragedy, teacher student relations resulting in a prisonstabbing and a murderous gold digging wife. These are a few storylines amongst many that have made the wider public and critics reallysit up and take notice. As we have clung to the edge of our seatsawaiting numerous revelations, the standard of acting has rapidlyimproved. This years soap awards have seen Chris Fountain secure bestactor for his role as Justin Burton, the vindictive school boy whobedded his teacher only to have her incarcerated. Emma Rigby followedhis triumph by securing best actress for playing Hannah Ashworth thepretty A Level student ravaged by bulimia. Roxanne Mckee maintainedHollyoaks’ reputation as the soap that stuns, by once again beingnamed as sexiest actress. Overall Hollyoaks swiped 6 awards, puttingour usual favorites to shame!
Aside from its award victoriesHollyoaks has smashed the storylines that have broken others. In thepast month incest has been on the tips of everyones tongues, inBrookside it was gut wrenching, but the cast and crew of Hollyoaksmade it heart wrenching. Elliot Bevan, the resident geek, broughtabout the tricky subject of alien activity. This was far removed fromEl Dorado’s ridiculously farsical attempt, instead it was a tearjerking story of a confused young man searching for his father.
The story lines may be slightlyobscene, the characters may be overly gorgeous, but theres no denyingthat in the past twelve months Hollyoaks has really come in to its own.

[ By: ljmckeever1 May 07, 2008 09:59 PM ]

Written By Thegla Savvides

Review of Neighbours

Reviews about soaps can allow people to form opinions without even watching it. People have mixed views about a soap including criticisms and positive feedback

• Neighbors' features poor acting and bad storylines'


• Neighbours is my life along with home and away. They are fake but yet so real. Once you start watching neighbours you just can't stop it is additive,in a good way. The way it is directed is incredible it makes you feel that the events happening in the episode are happening right beside you,it is very believable. The actors and actresses in it know just how to play the roll of the character they are playing and make it very believable and realistic. Neighbours is a show that can get your attention very easily and I would recommend it to anyone at anytime.'


• 'This show is the best. It makes you cry and be sad but it also makes you happy in some ways. This is a awesome show and everyone knows it is the best. I end by saying the only words that can describe this show "The best show ever made on Earth."'


• This show (without doubt) is popular, and why is it popular? I intend to argue that it is the sheer quality that has brought this show to its extreme popular standing which it now holds in many nations. One only has to do a quick scan of a neighbours forum to see just how many and how extremely intent the viewers are. There are many intense forums which are both criticising and proving that this show is so great.'


• 'Neighbors is definitely the only soap that i allow myself to watch. The show is quite dramatic and a lot of stuff happens in such short periods of time. But then again that is what a soap is. Neighbors is one of those shows that you get hooked to and i have been watching it for the past 3-5 years. The actors and actresses aren't spectacular but there have definitely been some pretty talented people come out of the show. Take Kylie Minogue for example. To all those soapie lovers out there choose Neighbors over Home & Away and you will not regret it.'


• 'It's a great drama, helped by the fact that it has a huge cast, meaning there are always a lot of different, varied storylines going on at the same time, so you'll never get bored with what's going on. The great thing about the show is that it mixes drama with some light-hearted comedy every now again. The dramatic storylines are truly enthralling (like the fire in Lassiters), while the comical scenes can be quite amusing too (think of some the more recent episodes!).Overall, it's a fantastic show, and definitely worth watching!'


• 'Neighbours is a great show, full of drama'


• 'Getting worse'
  

From these reviews, it is easy to see what most viewers enjoy from a soap. They enjoy drama, good storylines that are believable and realistic so we can take this and incorporate it into our planning for our soap to ensure it will be successful.

Written by Natalie Michael