Real Media Texts - Soap Opera Episodes

I was able to be given an idea of what was included in a soap by watching episodes of different soaps that are on the television at the moment and looking at the number of scenes, different storylines and aspects of individual soaps included in each episode which would prepare me when it came to creating our trailer for a new soap opera.
I watched an episode of Eastenders from the 12th of July 2011 and created a table to show my findings.

Eastenders Episode

Specific Knowledge of Soaps

I have created a second spider diagram to look at specific knowledge of soaps where I have focused on locations & settings, conventional characters and target audience. I have also looked at representation of ethnicity within soap operas and families within them.

I have summarised my work in the bottom right hand corner and commented on lighting, narratives and storylines also.

This task has helped me think about how to include different representations within my own trailer and what makes a good soap whilst also looking at the audience, I was able to see how these audiences were targeted and why and therefore will be able to apply this to my work and research & planning.

Knowledge of Soaps

Before carrying out any research into soap operas I created a mind map of everything I know so far about soap operas, the characters in soaps, storylines, scheduled times that soaps are on television, channels that soaps are shown on and general knowledge about each soap.

This enabled me to gain a brief idea of the general conventions of soaps and the ideas I would follow when creating my own - characters, storylines, locations, setting etc.

I was able to see certain aspects of existing soaps which would set me up when it came to researching and planning for my own.