Mustafa - Evaluation task 1

Title

The title ‘Empire Avenue’ came about from a road located in Edmonton N18. The name first started as ‘The Lane’ as we got inspiration from other soaps such as ‘Coronation Street’ as they take names from actual roads. Our soap then went to the name of ‘Empire Lane’ then after further discussion we thought we should change the name of our soap to an actual road name (Empire Avenue) to increase the realism. Empire Avenue is a real name and the name itself signifies a sense of community already.

· Setting –

the setting used is palmers green high road a long stretch of road with countless places that create community including pubs, gyms and supermarkets. Our characters will mainly be seen roaming this road, and live in the housing nearby the high road, a quiet area that always has tension and drama floating in the air.

· Costume/Props –

The costumes used in our soap is clothing that can be found on any high street. Clothing that can be seen everyday, very casual. The type of clothing used for some characters can represent their personality e.g. Craig Smith wears a hoody which then can portray him as a troubled youth. Props used in our soap are very conventional in everyday and are items that are very common in society today e.g. iPhone which is used by Nicole. All these items are used to add realism to oursoap because these items are commonly seen in everyday life.

· Camerawork/Editing –

The camera shots that were used for our soap trailer were not the conventional shots that are seen in soap operas in general and also soap trailers. From our research we found out that soap trailers are more cinematic compared to the soaps itself, an example of this is ‘Coronation streets’ 50^th anniversary trailer where a tram clash is about to take place. The editing we did to our shots were also not conventional in soaps, however more extravagant editing can be seen in soap trailers an example of this is ‘Eastenders’ western themed trailer. An example of some of our editing is when David Wake (played by Saul Nash) is walking up the stairs to exit the train station and the shots jumps from him walking from the bottom of the stairs and then jumps to him nearly at the top of the stairs. This not only looks good but also helps our trailer become more efficient as we can show more content in a shorter time, as trailer are very short, and are usually around a minute long. Other little editing that we have applied into our soap trailer is fading images into the shots, so audiences have a clearer understanding of what is going on, for instance when David is going through Nichole’s phone the audience does not know what is written on the phone therefore we faded the text conversation into the backdrop so audience can read what is written between the characters but at the same time see the performance from the actors. This also helped us be more efficient as instead of adding an extra 2-3 seconds of footage we have tied it into the trailer already so we have not added minutes to out trailer.

· Title/Font/Style –

This is our title shot of our new soap. As you can see we have a blue stone effect in the backdrop, to give a gritty feel to our soap. In our soap we want to follow the typical conventions of a soap so we can attract a soap audience, however as a new soap we want to challenge the typical soap by trying to attract a younger than typical target audience. Our soap will capture realism within society today and portray issues within society today. Our soap will also present a great sense of community which will have tie in joy and happiness which is accompanied by comedy within the community.

· Narrative/Storylines and how they are set up –

Within our trailer we show two different narratives. The first we come across is the return of David Wake (Saul) to Empire Avenue after a lengthy absence because of a violent incident he was involved in. after he’s arrival David goes to his girlfriends house Nicole (played by Andreia) where then he finds out that she is seeing someone else. This is a very typical narrative that can be recalled from various soaps. We chose to use this narrative because we felt that it would be a very clear storyline for audiences to understand what is going on between the two characters. The second narrative that we used was more male dominant as we see Craig Smith (played by Mus) push Aran (played by Aran Singh) onto a alleyway wall, the reason for this is because Aran has told the community Craig’s darkest secret when he told him not too, resulting in his reputation being ruined. This again we felt would be an easy narrative for audiences to pick up, as we can see the conflict between the two characters.

· Genre and how the sequence suggests it –

I believe that our soap clearly signifies to the audience that we are creating a new soap. The narratives and the storylines in the trailer show drama, conflict and community which are some of the main conventions within the soap genre. Our trailer shows a great deal of realism, as we see the violence between two characters in an alleyway. Also relationships are a huge part of soap operas, therefore we decided to bring a relationship into our trailer, a relationship with a hint of drama coinciding. Even though our trailer is only 72 seconds, we believe we have established drama and conflict within these seconds.

· Characters and how they are introduced –

David Wake is our first character that is introduced within our trailer. We see him exiting the train station after returning to the Avenue. We then see the partner of David, Nicole is waiting at home for David and welcomes him home after opening the door. We then have our two other characters which are introduced when we see a confrontation of both in an alleyway as we witness there conflict. All of our characters in our soap are young adults; we chose these characters so we can interest our target audience more, which is younger than the typical soap opera audience. Our target audience can also relate to the characters and therefore be more interested in watching as they might be dealing with the same problems that they are.

· Soundtrack –

The soundtrack within our soap is an upbeat sound with a slow start. This sound within our soap seems very chilled however closer to the end where we have an argument scene within two characters the pace of the music begins to speed up, showing chaos and disaster between the two characters.