Question One

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

As we followed plenty of real soap opera conventions I have taken screen shots from different trailers that are similar to scenes in our soap opera trailer and explained each one.

1. An establishing shot to show the 'New Ramsy Street' this lets the views see what they are looking at in the trailer.

2. A street sign for 'Albert square'. This often shows the title of the soap or where the soap is set which enables the audience to feel more attached and have more knowledge of what they are watching.

3. A conventional job used in most soap operas. There is often at least one mechanic in the soap. This is because viewers can relate to the characters as they are in demographic group D/E and have similar jobs.

4. A fade to black. This is one of the biggest soap opera trailer conventions. They are used to show suspense or a change of scene. They are important to a soap opera trailer so that the audience don't get confused.

5. Two shots are often used to show characters in the trailer, these characters might not be as important to the storyline but instead have their own. A two shot is used to show conversations. In this scene two gossipping ladies are shown.

6. Close ups are used to show props that are important to the trailer. Most of the time props connote other things, in this scene black petals are used a wedding to connote death.

7. Tracking shots are often used to show rush or hurry. They also give suspense as the view may be unaware of who the feet belong to. In this shot feet are shown to be running towards the camera in a hurried fashion.

8. A pan is used in soap opera trailers to reveal a character. In this shot the character 'Kat' has come back to the square. It puts the audience on the edge of their seat as they want to see who the woman is.

9. At the end of every trailer titles are used to give the audience information of when the soap is on and the soaps name. This is a main convention as its the whole point of the trailer, it needs to inform the viewers. This shot is from a trailer for Eastenders.

I have then take scene shots from our finished soap opera trailer and explained how we have followed conventions and why.

1. We filmed an establishing shot to show the rural area we were aiming for. It lets the audience see Mill Lane for the first time. This is following conventions as it is often used to start the trailer or opening to the soap.

2. After the establishing shot we showed the street sign of the name of our soap. This means the audience can see what they are about to watch and remember the name. 

3. So that the audience could relate well to our characters we included a young man working on a broken down car. This not only shows the characters in Mill Lane are hard working and caring but they have similar jobs to the viewers. 

4. We included fade to blacks throughout our final product as we didn't want to confuse the viewers. By following conventions and using fade to blacks whenever the scene changed we were able to create a nice flowing product.

5. A two shot is used half way through the piece, it shows two characters speaking to each other about the new girl in the village. They are shown to not like the new girl by shaking their heads, this could show that they are 'bitchy' and like to gossip, which brings in more viewers.

6. A close up is shown in our piece to let the viewers see the magazine the character is reading. As it is a woman magazine it connotes the character is homosexual and this is following another convention as there should always be a homosexual character in the soap so that all viewers can relate to someone.

7. A tracking shot is used to show the new characters feet going into the pub. This introduces a conventional scene and uses a conventional shot. It makes the audience wonder who she is and want to watch more to find out.

8. A pan upwards is used to show the character and finally revel her face. This makes the audience excited to see her and watch more.

9. We created our own channel logo and soap opera logo to use for our final titles, this made the shot look really similar to others and let the audience know the information for the soap.

Our final media product challenges the conventions of real media products with the lighting and the sound. As we struggled to find a good song for our final product we created our own, to do this we used GarageBand and a DJ Programme. As the piece is quiet upbeat and the new character we were introducing was young, we decided to create a fun, fast paced song. From collecting feedback this is what our audience wanted too. As most existing soap operas use slow deep songs we are challenging the conventions.

We are also challenge them as our trailer goes through the day, starting off with a bright sunny day and gradually getting darker finally ending with a pitch black scene only shown by street lights. No other soap opera trailers do this, but as it was beneficial to our story line we have chosen to do it none the less.

1. Magazine titles

The top image is the title from our soap opera magazine. The bottom is a tittle from a existing magazine.The titles are similar as they are both large and bold. The colours match as they are both red with a slight background colour. The fonts are very similar and each new word has a capital letter. There are also no spaces included. Our fonts are extremely similar to existing magazines.

2. Information

These are also very similar, as we had to include the right information we did look at existing soap opera magazines and this was conventional on all of them. We added a bit more information and our information was set in a different place. However they are still very similar meaning we followed the needed conventions.

3. 'Number One'

These are similar as they have the same point. However they look different and are worded differently. Our colours also match with the rest of the magazine as the other magazine uses pink and this clashes with the rest.

4. Cover Line

These are slightly different, as we included our cover lines in a different area they had to differ. The subjects of these are also both different. However looking at other magazines we have followed conventions well.

1. Soap Title

These titles are slightly different, however they are both straight forward and to the point. They are also similar to the fact that they are included on every day objects. By including the titles of our soap on a photo frame plaque it is similar to TV show 'The Middle' as it is placed on a road sign.

2. Main Picture

The main picture in our poster is of all of the character together. This is similar to a 'Home and Away' poster, where all of the characters are stood together and they seem happy and jolly. Ours differs from this as the background people look sinister and upset. Also Rachel Manning's is the main focus. This doesn't follow conventions however lets the audience know she is most important for the new storyline.

3. Information

We have followed normal conventions here as we have included all of the right information. To make it look better and make more sense we included our channel logo next to the information.  This is similar to an E4 poster for TV Show 'Misfits'.

4. Tag Line

We have challenged conventions here as the tag line used in most soap opera and TV show posters is normally really prominent and is one of the first things you see. Where as on our poster is is quiet discrete as we didn't think it was as important as the information or the meaning of the picture.