Final Soap Opera Trailer and Feedback

We collected a number of positive pieces of feedback and some improvements. We won't be making any changes to this piece now however it is good to get our audience feedback just so that we know what is thought about it.

Positives.

- Like the panning across the characters at the end of the piece.

- Really like the bar shots that are in the piece.

- Their is a good use of actors and the acting shows their personalities.

- The music goes really well with the piece.

- They like the new pieces that have been added since the third rough cut.

Improvements.

-Some of the scenes are seen to be quite long - for example the snooker table.

- The footage can be dark at times.

Overall our audience really like our final cut which is shown but the small amount of improvements compared to the amount of positives.

Final Poster and Feedback

Although we won't be changing anything on this poster as it is our final product we have decided to gain feedback to see what other people think outside the members within our own group. This then gives us an idea of what we should do to change it if we did do it again.

Positives
- Like the logo for the channel that the soap will be shown on.
- It looks really professional.
- Love the picture that has been used for the poster.
- You are able to see all the characters.
- It is clear to see all the characters personalities.

Negatives
- The font that had been used needs to be a bit clearer.
- You should put something on it that will really catch your eye.
- The date and time needs to be bigger to stand our more

Amy Welsh

Final Magazine and Feedback

For our magazine cover we have collected some positive and negative feedback, even though we won't be making any more changes to the magazine cover the feedback would be used if we did decide to re-do it in the future.

Positive

- It's good that the price is in two places.

- Its overall really bright.

- Colourful.

- Really good use of images.

- The price is shown twice which is really good.

- Really catchy cover lines.

Negative

- The magazine name isn't that prominent ( you need to get the brand awareness).

- The font could be a bit bolder.

- There are a few white gaps.

Overall the positive feedback is really good, the negative feedback are all things that could be easily changed, for example we could make the magazine title a bit bigger and maybe change it to a brighter colour so that it is more eye catching, we could also re-arrange the pictures and there tag lines so that the font can be made bolder. It would be hard to cover all of the white gaps but getting more pictures as there aren't enough story lines or characters that we could use. We could only make things bigger in order to cover all of the white space.

First Draft Magazine

We have collected a large variety of feedback on both positive and negative aspects of our first draft magazine cover.

Positive

- The pictures that you have used are really good as they give detail into the personalities and the story lines of the characters.

- 'I like the use of the work 'every' in the tagline'

- The use of the word TV in the picture of a TV is really creative and suitable for the magazine for soap operas.

- The font is really easy to read.

Negative

- There is a lot of white space that should be filled.

- You should maybe look into having a more consistent colour scheme.

- There isn't a price shown.

- The font maybe easy to read but it could be more creative.

From this feedback we have decided that we shall move the pictures around and add some more writing to give the audience more insight into the story lines which will also use up some of the white spacing. This will fill up the magazine cover and draw more audience attention to the soap and magazine due to the writing. from looking at other magazine covers there isn't really a colour scheme as the are loads of colours used to make sure that it is eye catching, therefore we won't be changing any of the colours or adding in a colour scheme. We shall be adding the price onto the front cover in two different place which again will use up more space and will also make the audience aware of the amazing price that the magazine would be sold for. The generic conventions of soap opera magazines just just bold and basic fonts so that the audience don't have any troubles reading the information and it also adds to the eye catching of the front cover. Overall the positive feedback that we have received for out magazine cover is really good, we are happy with the pictures that we have used on the front cover of our magazine. The people that we have asked for the feedback have told us that the extra things that we have put on their, for example the picture of the TV with the word in it has also been a success and people can then relate to that logo as being part of that particular magazine.

Casting Information

Before we could look at auditioning people for the different characters within our piece we had to think about what type of people we would like to cast.
We have seven different main characters within our soap opera trailer and we also want to include a fair amount of extras within the piece so that it is made more realistic.

Character 1 is our 'Rich boy' we decided that we were looking for someone that is quite tall, and someone that looks after himself. This is because as a 'rich boy' he needs to have that hierarchy over the rest of the characters so if he has height then it helps portray this to the audience. We also wanted him to be white so that we could follow the stereotype of a rich, white, middle class man.

Character 2 this is our couple that we have in our piece, we have put them as one character as we want to audition them together. Its important for us that both actors work really well together and the audience can see a type of bond or chemistry. We are looking for a male and female that are roughly the same age of which we would like to be early 20's. We aren't looking for any type of ethnic background with these characters as long as they can act together really well then its fine.

Character 3 is our homosexual to begin with we were looking for a female that could play a gay person so that we could challenge the conventions of the soap opera and having something different to other soaps, however from doing some research it is better if we have a male that can act gay due to the stereotypes that there are the audience will be able to see his is portraying a gay character. We would like this character to be of average height and again early 20's in age.

Character 4 is our drunken character again we are going with the stereotypes of this character being a muscly and masculine man, we don't mind what height he is but he needs to be able to act drunk and look realistic for a soap opera and not slapstick comedy.

Character 5 is our jealous girl within the piece, this character is going to be in a number of story lines with our couple so she has to be able to work in conjunction with those. We would like this character to be quite tall so that the audience can see the hierarchy that she has, we would also like her to have longish hair and a very slim body so that she is a stunner for all the other male characters. By doing this it will help her character quite a lot and the audience will also be able to relate to her.

Character 6 is our pregnant girl, we are looking for a girl that is in her late teens so between the ages of 17 to 21. This character also has to look realistic as a young mum to be but at the same time she has to have that teenage look about her so that the audience can relate to her. We would also like her to be the kind of person that would be stylish and that could pull off the 'yummy mummy' look.

Finally we have also looked at the type of people we would like to cast for our extras, we need a mixture of male and female characters that are within the ages of 16 to 30 as this is the age group of our target audience so we want the audience to be able to relate to the story lines for people their own age.

Our Magazine Layout Ideas

This is the magazine layout that we have made to give us a rough idea of the colours and design that we want for our final magazine cover. This layout follows the convention for a soap opera magazine and therefore is the perfect layout for us to use.

This is another magazine layout that we have made and considered to use for our final magazine cover.

Jess Wilding

Second Draft Poster and Feedback

We have collected feedback form a number of people so that we have other peoples ideas to work from for our final poster.

Positives
- Really like the layout.
- Like the soap details they look really clear.
- The Details about the dates and times are really clear and to the point.

Negatives
- Dont really like the boarder as it is a bit plain.
- Should change the font of for the tagline as you can't really read it.
- Doesn't really look professional.
- The tagline needs to be made more clear.

Amy Welsh

First Draft Poster and Feedback

We have collected a variety of feedback in order to see what things we should keep for our second draft and what we should change to make it look better.

Positives
- Good characterisation in the main picture that you have used.
- The font is really nice - eye catching.
- The catchphrase is good.
- I like the theme of the poster with the picture been set in a bar and then the boarder being the wine bar.
- The way its set out gives an idea of what the programme is about.

Negatives
- There should be more colour used as it looks quite brown.
- Its overall dark.

Amy Welsh

Third Rough Cut and Feedback- New Footage

We decided to do a third rough cut before our final cut so that we could show our progress within the editing stage of the trailer. This also gave us more of a chance to look at the titles and the order of our footage within the trailer.

We have collected some feedback on our third rough cut so that any improvements can be made before completing our final cut. We have asked a variety of people and they have given us both positive and negative feedback.

Positive Feedback.

- The footage that you have really shows the characters personalities.
- You have a lot of footage so that audience have a lot to see.
- The trailer is a good length for a soap opera trailer.

Negative Feedback.
- There isn't any music on the trailer.
-You need to add footage where it says 'Lauren's footage'.
- Seems a bit muddled up, get confused what's happening without footage as well.
- Titles needed near the end of the trailer and font is boring at the end.

From this feedback we have found out that all of the footage that we have is really goo we just need to make sure that all of the content is in the right place and that certain parts are filled with extra footage. The people that we have asked to give us this feedback have said that it seems that we have a good plan for our trailer, we just need to add small parts to it which will make the trailer better overall.

Second Rough Cut and Feedback - New Footage

We have collected feedback in order to see what people think is good and what we could do during editing to make our piece look better when we finish our third rough cut.

Positives
- The music that you have used goes really well with what is going on in the piece.

Improvements
- In ceratin there are darker areas.

From this feedback we have found that most people think the footage that we have is quite dark at times this means that in our next rough cut we shall try and lighten our footage during editing to see if it then looks better. When we were filming we found it really hard to get high key lighting as pubs are known to be a dark location in order to create a homely and friendly atmosphere.

First Rough Cut and Feedback- New Footage

Feedback for our first rough cut
We showed our first rough cut of our new footage to a group of media students and we recieved positive feedback and improvements which we would need to consider when re-editing our piece.

This piece of feedback was given with regards to our first rough cut using the old footage.
Positive Feedback:

• Better continuity
• Meaning much more apparent
• Camera used more effectively

Improvements:

• Transition in the middle of the piece to be added in editing

The remaining feeback we recieved was given towards our first rough cut using the new footage (as seen above).

Positive Feedback:

• Ending works well
• Good variety of shots (such as the pool shot)
• Props are realistic and work with the setting
• Lively music matches the young characters and setting
• Lighting was considered well
• Clever idea for a soap opera trailer
• Good location and storyline
• Zoom was effective

Improvements:

• Beginning shot too long
• Did not show a lot about the characters
• No voiceovers or soap name - no soap trailer conventions
• Establishing exterior shot to show location
• Add more transistions
• Some of the scenes where extras talk could be shortened
• Storyline can be unclear
• Framing - some heads are cut out of the close up shots

From this feedback we recieved, we can see what we need to add and improve on for our second rough cut with the new footage.
The feedback given shows a positive improvement from our first piece of footage to the second but improvements are still needed.
When editing our second rough cut, we will be adding titles at the end of the piece to inform audiences of the time and channel in which our soap is on. We could also look at using an establishing shot at the beginning to show location which will enable us to follow generic trailer conventions.
Our initial idea was to look at introducing the characters one by one with their names and a bit about their personality so the audience can relate to them and have an idea of who they are so we can include this in our second rough cut when the characters line up towards the end.

Information on the soundtrack

As we did not want any lyrics to be heard in our trailer we decided to use a software called 'Cubase 4' this is a music editing software which enables us to use a sample and change this in whichever we wanted. Therefore, we decided to have a gradual build-up in our trailer by noting down the times that we would change them at and chopping the music so we could loop them to be repeated. We would then use different types of cross-fades and compressors in our samples to make it sound continuous. This is what our software looked like: 

Our Film Diary - Second Time Filming

Media Diary File 2


Lauren Dinnes

The Baby Bump!

As we have the character of the pregnant teenage girl we had to look at what we could use for her baby bump. We found a variety of different shaped an sized pillows and cushions that could possibly be used for the bump. These are pictures of the three cushions that we found.

1.   

2.

3.

We got the actor that we were going to use and while she was wearing the costume we tried out the different cushions under her top. The top that we wanted her to wear was very tight so that it is easy to see the bump and therefore the cushion had to look very realistic.

These are pictures of our actor with the first cushion under her top.

These are pictures of her with the second cushion under her top.

And these are the pictures that were taken with the third cushion.

We thought that the first cushion look the most realistic so that is the one that we decided to use within our filming.

Lauren Dinnes

Filming Schedule For Re-schedule

Filming Schedule

Re-filmed Shotlist for Trailer

Shot List Trailer

We needed to make a shot list for our whole trailer as when looking over our film in editing it'll be a lot easier to put the shots together and piece up our film. As well as this, we will know how long shots will go on for and how they will look in it's chronological order. Additionally, we will take this along to filming as well as the filming schedule to go over and make sure we haven't missed anything out and resolve the issues that will hopefully not occur.

Re-considered Storyboard

After watching our Rough Cut through we came to the decision that we wanted to re-film our piece. Therefore we have decided to do a re-considered storyboard which will be based on our original idea of our rough cut however, changed slightly to give our new soap opera a better approach.

There will be a black screen to start off with.

(Long shot) In the pub, there will be people sitting at tables acting causal talking, having a drink to set the atmosphere in the setting of the pub at this point in time.

(Close-up) From the outside there will be people walking in to the pub, camera only showing their feet.

(Long shot) 

(Close-up)

(Long shot)

(Mid-shot)

(Long Shot Pan)

(Long shot)

(Zoom)

(Close-up)

We would to re film our trailer so that it looks completely different to the original footage that we had. We will film it so that when we go to edit the footage that we have will be put together to create a large amount of suspense therefore making our target audience want to watch it. We will have a number of different people sat in the pub which will be shown as locals, it will flick from these people to the shot of actors walking into the pub but you can only see their feet. It will flick back and forth from these two shots which will get quicker each time, by doing this it will cause a large amount of suspense. We will then show shots of the 'locals' stop what they are doing and suddenly looking in a different direction with a shocked look on their faces. This is when we will then show a long shot of our seven characters acting to show their story lines and personalities, we will then use a close up to pan across their faces to show their facial expressions and adding titles at the same time.

We have also decided to add in short clips of other people sat at tables, drinks being poured and someone behind the bar. This will then add more footage to our trailer as well as creating more suspense for our target audience.

This shot would be a mid-shot with a person pouring themselves a drink

We would shoot this footage as a long shot or a mid shot depending on what frame looked better of two people sitting at a table

This shot would be a close-up of someone pouring (what seems to the audience to be an alcoholic beverage) into a wine glass

First Rough Cut and Feedback- Old Footage

Feedback from 'First Rough Cut - Old Footage'

We have asked a few people to watch over our first rough cut and collected feedback to see how the audience would react to our soap opera trailer, we took in all our feedback, positive or negative, and would gather together as a group and decide our next step in the editing process.

Positives
- 'It's really good that when the titles are shown, I like the fact the footage is in slow motion'

Negatives
- 'It is all really dark when the footage is outside and inside'


After using FinalCut to edit our filming, as a group we went through the trailer and discussed what we'd have to do to our Rough Cut. As a group, we came to the conclusion that we all wanted to re-film our piece. We noticed that our trailer as a whole wasn't long enough and didn't give enough away, obviously we don't want to give too much away but we'd like a better approach to our soap opera. We also thought that the shadows from outside were too obvious and we'd need to re-film at a different time in the day so that it'd be lighter outside, as we are filming in the Winter Season we needed to consider this. Additionally, we thought that the actors will need to be re-considered as they did not follow our directions/instructions as followed. When our actors were walking through the door into the pub at mid-shot some of them did not stop and look at the camera for long enough even after multiple shots, this made it difficult for us. As a whole we feel as though we could do a lot better with our Soap Opera trailer, therefore we are re-filming in January 2012.