Camerawork Focus Point: The Spire's Music Video

In the initial planning stages, I wanted to find as many inspirations and focus point as possible to ensure my soap trailer had as many realistic filming conventions, without being too clique, some of the establishing shots and cross cutting with the focus upon a single characters were really interesting and had a strong link to my initial plans for my production. For example, the video starts with a tracking shot from behind the antagonist of the story, we plan to use a similar establishing shot in our production, this allowed me to see how this camera angle would appeal and if it has an instant impact on the audience and sparks an interest, we opted to use a standard mid shot/ close up of the drunken character as it is a soap trailer so each character has to be introduced as quickly as possible, this establishing shot could be used in another trailer where a new 'Bad guy' is introduced into the soap, it could show a tracking shot from behind of him walking through all the stock settings and passing the stock characters which have already been established through the initial trailer and the episodes of the soap which have been broadcasted.

At around 3.18 in the music video, there is also a chase scene which then leads to the antagonist being stopped by another character, we were planning to use a similar shot towards the end of our trailer with the drunken character, however, we opted not to use this as we wanted to establish the stock character's persona as opposed to storyline progression.

 

Focus Point: McDonald's 2011 Ad:

I saw this McDonald's advert on television this weekend and was inspired by the camerawork and storytelling which was displayed through this. I the camera shot I was particularly intrigued by were the long shot of him walking down the street from within a store, this also showed a woman filling up a washing machine, this shows community interaction and also the main character, this could be a very effective shot for our film when we are tracking a character, we have permission from several shops in the town where we could have someone purchasing an item at a till with a character walking -past, this would link to pour plan of character interaction having a catalyst effect.

There was also a good example of an over the shoulder shot which then cuts to a panning shot on the other side of the street, I would love to have a similar style in my soap trailer, however with a more varied focus upon other characters. For example, in this advert when the man looks at the attractive girl on the market, the camera then follows her, then she interacts with another key character who has a unique role in the story.

Location Photos

Today (17th November 2011) we took photos of our planned location, we also gained permission from several local businesses to allow use in the film.

This street was the inspiration for or soap title 'Avenue' our tagline also came from this 'There's two sides to every story' as avenues always have two entrances.

Possible local busiensses, Polish restaurant (ethnic diversity) and a hairdressers for the women in the town.We have used this store as a background for an extras scene, however, this scene is unlikely to make it into the final cut as it slows the fluidity and pace of the trailer, howevere this store would be a focal point of the soap, with many female characters using it as their hairdressers.  

Possible pub for the older characters, have the alpha male and/ or the drunk being kicked out for disorderly behaviour. We also have other option for pubs, We have used the Pig N Falcon as opposes to this pub as we gained permission from the landlord to use their establishment.

Avenue road, residential area where majority of characters live, contrast of characters on each side of the road, left hand side is middle class people, right hand side is flats for working class characters although both sets of characters interact.  

Main street connected to Avenue road, tracking/ establishing shots are planned for this area, we hope to have extras to add to the realism and ambiance of the set. The car in the center is roughly the location of the love triangle boy with the flowers, he looks through the window of a car and sees his lover and another man on a bench to left which is out of shot in this image.

Permission gained for use of this flower shop, shot used to establish character, in particular the boy involved in the love triangle who is buying flowers for the girl he loves, the shot will show a mid shot of him leaving the store. 

This image shows a back alley from the town, this is behind the barber shop which is shown in the above image, I want to use this area for either a drug deal and/ or a fight with some of the juveniles in our soap.  

This alleyway is a focal point and setting for our 'Jack The Lad' and druggie scene, the druggie character is leaning against the wall on the left hand side and the Jack The Lad character enters from the left, walks up to the stereotypically shifty character, grabs him by the neck and demands his cocaine. The final shot of this scene shows the Jack The Lad character exiting the shot in a similar way to that of myself (centre). 

This dry cleaners is also a main location within our soap, this will be a place where everyone meets up, in a similar fashion to the dry cleaners in EastEnders. In the trailer however, a businessman leaves with a newly cleaned suit

The below images are purely concepts for additional scenes, the market square is showcased in the bottom two images, this would be a set scene every thursday and storylines would be integrated around this, with many of the characters shown in the trailer working on it. The park and alleyway (Images 1 and 2 respectively) also show areas where the youths will 'hang out' when doing illegal and contemporary activities such as binge drinking and drug abuse.

Soap Trailer Planning: Characters

This is our initial plan of characters, we wanted to hit every age group/ stereotype which is featured in modern day soaps such as Eastenders and Corrie with a key focus on teenage stereotypes as the 16-15 age bracket is our TA, so we have included the 'geek' the alpha male and Jack the lad characters for the typical schoolyard characters, but with the darker, more rebellious side of teenage life with drunks (binge drinkers), Drug addicts and junkies looking for their next fix. We want to make these stereotypes clear and show how to either avoid them or simply to raise awareness of the social impacts of these stereotypes and how real life events have a difference effect on each of them, we want to make this apparent in our trailer with the focus upon these stereotypes.

However, our soap is not only about teens, we also have plans to use a wide array of older characters, we aim to use a pub and other businesses/ extras who will have adult interaction and some adults will also have key roles in the storyline, such as the elderly couple who disapprove of the teen 'Jack the lads' swagger and look at their grandson,  

Soap Names

We have concepted several ideas for the name of our soap, we have looked at the names of current soaps such as Corination Street, Eastenders, Neighbours, Hollyoaks etc and have noticed they all relate to a semantic field of location, we had ideas such as 'Two Sides' and 'Changes'. But I had some innovation when walking down my street and saw a sign on a blank brick wall which said 'Avenue Road', I then decided to use 'Avenue' as the title of my soap, this meets the semantic field of location, shows that it is based in a community and the tagline 'There's two sides to every story' relates to both the characters and the fact that Avenues have two enterances.

BBC

BBC's mission statement: To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.

The BBC has lived up to this statement thus far, offering a wide array for informative, educational and entertaining shows and radio broadcasts. the BBC is the largest broadcating organisation in the world, with multiple channels in the United Kingdom and across the globe, including BBC US.

The BBC is funded by TV licensing, it uses the income from this to run eight national TV channels, showing such shows as Strictly Come Dancing to Family Guy. There is also 10 radio stations and a highly developed website, with info about viewing figures, future plans, news and multiple other aspects.

The BBC also shows multiple dramasm but most importantly from my research's perspective, soaps. The most popular soap that is still running on the BBC is Eastenders, I have writen previously about this soap and it has been a huge sucess since hitting our screens in 1984. They also have a popular day time soap called 'Doctors' which unsurprisingly, focuses around a doctors surgery.

Characters+ Story early planning

The above image showcases our first plans for the soap characters. We want to establish around six stock characters within the soap of diverse age, gender and ethnicity ranges. We have planned to use four male characters and two female characters within this, this will fit in with our sequential story, where each storyline aspect weaves into another and has a catalytic effect. Next to the character ideas, we have names of people who could possibly play this role, we will choose these characters careful to find the person who fits the bio of each character well, for example, with the alpha male, we will look for a male character who is muscular.

Soap Trailer planning: Characters & Story ideas.

This is our initial planning for our soap trailer. We have an idea for the setting and have based the storyline and characters around this, we feel our characters diversity matches that of an everyday soap, the choice of story lines related to these characters will be showcased in the trailer, with each character exemplifying their stereotype; for example the Alpha male is pushing others around and the love triangle shows emotional pain. When planning, we came to a unanimous conclusion that each characters action will lead to another story, so the alpha male pushes the boy involved in the love triangle, then he drops and object which another character then interacts with. We felt this would showcase the tight-knit community which is frequent in soap operas and will allow us to show each characters persona.

Soap Trailer Song:

Learning from my mistakes last year, we decided as a group to pick a song as the first step, then work the filming upon this song and allow the story of the lyrics to match what is occurring on screen, this paired with diagetic dialogue to link in with the lyrics, the bass drops and rhythm of this particular song will fit ideally with the eerie atmosphere and the secrecy each character holds.

We are still looking for a song to match Althusser theory of intelpellation (Discussed in a prior post) as a theme tune for our soap, we will use the inital draw at the end of our trailer when our title sequence occurs.

Eyes on Fire- Blue Foundation (Zeds Dead remix):

Camera Angle ideas

I have been watching several soap trailers and have envisaged some camera angles to use for my soap trailer. Sme of the abstract shots I want to use are:

Dutch Tilt

- Dutch Tilt/ Oblited/ Canted Angle
I plan to use this shot at least once in my filming process, this is one of my favourite shots to use in productions, I feel it adds an abstract angle which is very effective. This shot type is ofetn handheld, but I feel it can also be effective in a steady shot with the use of a tripod.


-Over The Shoulder 
I want to use several over the shoulder shots, some concepts we have storyboarded as a team are to use this for the love triangle scene and the drug dealer/ Jack The Lad scene.

- Eye Level
This will be very effective in a soap trailer as it will portray the emotion of the characters and have this emotion at an equal level to the viewer as opposed to a high/ low angle shot, this will be paired with a close up or an Extreme close-up for further effect. 


Another shot we would love to use, but is almost impossible to conduct is a birds eye view of the scene, a concept I came up with was for the final scene to zoom out to a birds eye view of the street 'Avenue' and the town to show the location of the soap, unfortunately, without investment, we are unable to afford a helicopter. 

Shot List:

Thursday: Film pub scene and the Homosexual couple scene, film these at around 3pm. Shot types used: Long shit, Tracking shot, Close-ups, Mid shots. Bring Tri-Pod. Film during fair weather and lighting, ensure next filming date is within similar lighting and identical weather conditions, possibly after rain for picture scene. Next film date estimated to be the corresponding Sunday when all cast are free.

Sunday: Love Triangle scene, Nerd scene, Dry-cleaners jack the lad/ drug dealer scene. Shots Used: Shot reverse shot, mid shots, close up, panning camera angles, dutch tilt, close-ups. Filming locations: alleyway, main road, Tudor Rose Club. All cast members are available for the Sunday, this will allow us to complete all of our footage, once filmed, we will edit a chronological sequence for the trailer, if the lighting is an issue, I will conduct some colour correction and adjust the brightness/ contrast if there are lighting issues. 

Chronological shot list: 

Alpha-Male: Pub scene, use of over the shoulder shot, close up, mid shot and long shot. 

Homosexual Couple- Location: Town Bridge. Shots used: Mid Shot, Panning shot and Long shot. 

Dry-Cleaners: Establishing shot, mid shot 

Jack The Lad/ Drug Dealer: Location: Alleyway. Shots used: Mid shot, over the shoulder, long shot 

Love Triangle: Location: Main Road: Shots used: Over The Shoulder, Long Shot, close-up, tracking shot

Nerd-Scene: Location: Main Road: Shots used: Shot-Reverse-Shot, mid-shot.

Final Scene: Avenue Road: Mid-Shot

Soap Theme Tunes

Althussers Theory of Interpellation

Althussers theopry was first based upon church bella and the way church goers reacted to these, when the church bell was rung, they would go to the church. This theory has been related to theme tunes of popular shows such as Estenders and Hollyoaks.

The 'Duff duff' of the theme tune for eastenders is an iconic sound of modern television, in the 80's, the shows producers tried to change this theme tune, this resulted in outrage from fans and the tune was turned backl after a few days. The theme has stayed the same since, when producing my soap trailer, I will ensure the song choice is both repetitive and catchy! The current idea we are considering would meet the theory of interpillation.


Also, the intro of Eatsenders shows a circling outward zoom of the setting, this is effective as people instantly relate the view of the thames as the intro to this soap, with the music, this intro has stayed similar for many decades, with a recent update to the scenery adding icionic new build to the London landscpae such as the 02 arena (formerly Millenium Dome)

Hollyoaks' theme tune has also stayed similar, witjh the inital guitar riff meeting the theory of interpellation. However, as this soap is made for a different and younger demographic, the style of the intro (instruments used) has changed, with a more 'rocky' tone from past years. the intro compared to that of EastEnders, is very heavily edited, with special effects being used in each section. When a new character is added, the intro changes for every character, this keeps the intro interesting as opposed to EastEnders which shows the same setting every episode, this is why the main focus is on the song, when the inital 'duff duffds' play, the viewer knows they have 30 seconds before the show starts, allowing them to make a cup of tea and enjoy the show.  

Plotline Ideas

We have planned several plot lines for our characters in the soap, these being:

- Drunken man, drinking away his sorrows after losing custody of his daughter.

- Gay couple who feel they are mistreated in society.

- Man with dry cleaning, knocked over by hooded teen, contrast of ages.

- Jack The Lad buying drugs 

- Love Triangle

I want my soap to meet contemporary social issues such as a rise in drug abuse in teens, controversy over gay couples and the treatment of gays, youths having a lack of respect for their elders and also meeting some stereotypical conventions of soaps such as romance, drinking and family disputes and issues. 
With each of these storylines, I want to showcase the two sides of each character, this will be shown via camera angles, contrast, colour correction, editing and voice overs. The concept of the trailer is 'There's two sides to every story' we want the viewer to decide how they see each character, for example, when the Jack The Lad buys the drugs, they may disapprove of his abuse of disapprove of the dealer supplying to a teen.