Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media?

When creating a new soap, it’s really important to create something new and fresh, while including what attracts a large demographic. The overall aim was to create something diverges away from anything else that is already popular amongst British soaps but includes popular soap conventions. It was clear through the audience research in the planning process that there was nothing wrong with the forms and conventions use in soaps currently, but viewers are interested in seeing something a different in storylines and stereotypes/archetypes. All our products, the Trailer, magazine cover and poster all were to meet this demand.

“Private Hours” Aim

Media Platforms

Considering what institutions to pitch our soap to was obviously important for the popularity of the soap and what audience it will attract. The considered platforms are all British as it is a British based soap which would be more cathartic to British viewers rather than international ones. We considered other soaps and how they thrived on their platform.

BBC One

EastEnders – This is one of the BBC’s longest running soaps, as well as one of the most popular current soaps. EastEnders is a family-orientated show. Although it can explore some heavy/sensitive themes, it is aimed at families to watch together.

Doctors – Doctors is a cult favourite and appeals to an audience that enjoy hospital based drama like Casualty and Holby City. It hasn’t got a viewership like Casualty (which is considered one of the most popular shows on BBC One but doesn’t have the conventions of a soap), but because of its focus on drama, it attracts a devoted audience. Neighbours – This is an Australian soap that debuted in BBC One in 1986. It proved more successful in soap-loving Britain than its home country but stuck out against the soaps typically shown BBC One and The BBC were not willing to pay for the continuation of the show, for it to then be bought by Channel 5.

BBC One is the most popular TV channels of the British Broadcasting Corporation. While over recent years the corporation has faced major cuts which popular channels like BBC Three have faced detriment to, BBC One

remains one of the most popular channels and flagship shows have been protected by continuous high ratings, while some of the more niche shows have be discontinued. One of the reasons for BBC One’s success is how

regardless of what audience the show is tailored to, the programs are generally for an entire family regardless of being before the watershed.

ITV1

Emmerdale – One of the three British flagship soaps, Emmerdale won Best British Soap 2016. It’s made great plights through making storylines more extravagant and dramatic over the years have proven successful, regardless of the decline of soap, it remains one of the most popular British programmes.

Coronation Street – The third British flagship soap, Coronation Street, is the longest running of the three. It appeals to and older audience but is still very popular.

Home and Away – This is an Australian soap that began broadcasting in the UK in 1989. Like Neighbours, it was most successful internationally rather than in its home country and the rights were bought by Channel 5

ITV is the home channel of ITV plc, where lots of their most popular channels feature . It’s BBC One’s main competitor as shown by host the 2/3 flagship soaps. Like BBC One having sister channels, ITV1 has ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 which all have specific demographics. ITV1 is the head and holds the most viewers for shows with bigger budgets.

Channel 4 is a tv channel under the Channel Four Television Corporation. The corporation has many other popular sister channels such as 4seven, E4, Film4 and 4Music, but Channel 4 being their original and most popular remains the third most viewed channel. Its programming is one of a more socially aware and aimed at a young-adult audience, rather than having a wide demographic like BBC One. Its soaps have been limited over the years and only features one currently at the same timeslot each week, and that is Hollyoaks.

Channel 4

Hollyoaks - Channel 4’s Hollyoaks is a soap that appeals to a younger audience. Although it was originally aimed at 16-21 audience, the demographic has briefly widened to a slightly older audience. It’s drama and storylines generally appeal more to younger people as it has a younger cast. It fits with the rest of Channel 4’s programming as most of the shows are for a younger audience.

The platform we decided to use was BBC One. The most obvious reason is the fact that it is the most popular channel so it will reach a larger audience. But also looking at the other channels popularity, ITV1 is shown to lose popularity of soaps and lose their rights – something we don’t want to happen to Private Hours. This hasn’t happened to soaps EastEnders who have remained on the air for 32 years and kept popularity. Channel 4 shows alternative media which doesn’t really fit the aim of the soap as we would like to be a highbrow and respected soap that doesn’t limit its audience.

Conclusion

Genre Conventions

My main task through the conception of our piece was gathering the research for conventions we were conforming to such as the use of theme music, the use of font and whether we’d be applying signs and signifiers, action and enigma codes to our piece in a way that still makes our piece stand out the most against some of todays most popular soaps.

conforming to forms and conventions

One of the most major genre conventions that is the grass root of our soap is its cyclical order in which the storyline would be based around. Although the trailer only has small implications of this. There is a huge range of atmospheric changes throughout the trailer that suggest different story arcs, such as reflection of the abuse/ the build-up, the abuse itself, and if she was killed. These all open up paths for different arcs, where storylines open and then close. Having this continuous exchange where the storyline remains open ended as a serial and pairing it with the melodramatic focus is basically the definition of Soap Opera, so obviously we kept this.

Cyclical narrative

In the same light of keeping the cyclical narrative, we implemented this by using Todorov’s Equilibrium Theory for each story arc to reflect real media products. Using this type of narrative is important for the audience because it is a style that appeals to a large audience, as having a somewhat happy conclusion to a story arc is what makes the viewer stay tuned for. However using this structure of storylinehelps for the soaps continuity.

Todorov Equilibrium Theory

Using common themes of soap is what we wanted to keep the most as it’s the most identifiable and attractive convention to any soap viewer. The themes of romance and betrayal are the most popular; we wanted to take this but instead of portraying it in a way the over glamorizes it, we added the twist of swaying more towards the thriller genre. Using semiotics’ signs and signifiers, its clear to see what themes are expressed in the soap through the trailer with the focus on colours such as red for romance/murder and close ups on the clock to express the focus on time.

Themes

A very popular trend to most modern soaps are to tackle storylines with serious social issues. In Private Hours, we’ve created a microcosm that has a huge focus on a couple who go through domestic abuse. When soap adds commentary on serious social issues it’s important to have a reflection that doesn’t glamorize or romanticize the issues but shows the sheer reality of it in a non offensive way that can also be shown pre-watershed. I believe following this convention makes our soap interesting to a contemporary, as shown with other real media products.

Commentary on social issues

A common theme for a soap is to use Propp’s character theory, a study that suggests 7 certain character archetypes (the villain, the dispatcher, the helper, the princess/damsel in distress, the donor, the hero, the false hero) appear in a narrative. Although we have a small cast, we can see that the two characters display these archetypal traits, the husband being the villain and the wife being the damsel in distress. We conformed to this convention because using this theory helps the audience identify what each characters role is in the narrative.

Propp’s Character Theory

Soap shows a small portion of the lives of characters, in a melodramatic fashion where everything is heightened; there is huge focus on what goes wrong rather than what goes right to carry the intensity and keep a constant flow of disequilibrium. We applied this to our soap by using the same locations that would be used in real soaps, focusing on a small town rather having a wide range of locations. You can also only see two characters with no extras, showing a selective focus.

Microcosmic focus

Challenging forms and Conventions and their success

One of the aspects that sets our soap apart from the others is the use of illogical verisimilitude. It’s always been a unintentional rule to keep soap generally quite realistic with nothing supernatural as part of the show’s lore. It’s only been a recent surge to include ghostly characters to haunt as part of the plot, but it’s usually brief or part of a special episode. Because it’s quite popular but doesn’t appear a lot in soaps, we wanted to have a large focus on it as a plot point to fill the niche in the market.

Illogical verisimilitude