Eastenders is the main soap I will be researching into now as from research I have realized this is one of the most popular British soaps.
EastEnders was launched at a critical moment in the BBC's history and was intended to demonstrate the BBC's ability to produce popular programming. It started airing on the night after a major identity change for the channel, with the show representing the "new face" of the BBC. Critics first derided the new offering, as it was clear that the BBC wished to bridge the gap between the network and its competitor, ITV. One news source went as far as to accuse the channel of only having the courage to air the soap after Patricia Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) left Coronation Street.
The BBC brass was vindicated, however, when EastEnders became wildly popular and displaced Coronation Street from the top of the ratings for the rest of the 1980s and much of the 1990s and 2000s.
Many celebrities have appeared in EastEnders. Robbie Williams has made a cameo appearance on the telephone in the Queen Vic and is a big fan of the show. Martha Ross, mother of television presenters Jonathan and Paul, was an extra in the programme, as a market stallholder, from its inception until November 2006, when she was fired for leaking a Christmas storyline, which Paul repeated on his LBC radio show. Before the Spice Girls, Emma Bunton was cast as a troubled youth in the soap. Also, Big Brother 7's Nikki Grahame once had a background role in the show. Blue Peter presenter Peter Purves also appeared in 1987 as Martin Hunter, a patronising television reporter. David Walliams played a friend of Alfie Moon in 2003. Mayor of London Boris Johnson appeared as himself in the episode broadcast on 1 October 2009. The previous Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, accused the BBC of political bias for allowing Johnson to appear in the programme.
EastEnders is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985. It currently ranks as one of the most watched shows in the UK. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London. The series primarily centres around the residents of Albert Square, a Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighbouring streets, namely Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street, and which encompasses a pub, street market, night club, community centre, café and various small businesses, in addition to a park and allotments.
The series was originally screened as two half-hour episodes per week. Since August 2001, four episodes are broadcast each week on BBC One, with each episode being repeated on BBC Three at 22:00 and an omnibus edition screens on Sunday afternoons.
It is one of the UK's highest-rated programmes, often appearing near or at the top of the week's BARB ratings. Within eight months of its launch, it reached the number one spot in the ratings, and has remained, almost consistently, among the top-rated TV programmes in Britain ever since. The average audience share for an episode is currently between 35 and 45 percent. Created by producer Julia Smith and script editor Tony Holland, EastEnders has remained a significant programme in terms of the BBC's success and audience share, and also in the history of British television drama, tackling many controversial and taboo issues previously unseen on mainstream television in the UK.
EastEnders has won six BAFTA Awards, as well as ten National Television Awards for "Most Popular Serial Drama" and eight awards for 'Best Soap' at the British Soap Awards. It has also been inducted into the Rose d'or Hall of Fame. It has also won eight TV Quick and TV Choice Awards for 'Best Soap', five TRIC Awards for 'Soap of The Year' and four Royal Television Society Awards for 'Best Continuing Drama'.
I looked at the setting involved in this soap.
Setting
The central focus of EastEnders is the fictional Victorian square Albert Square in the fictional London Borough of Walford. Albert Square was built around the early 20th century, named after Prince Albert (1819–1861), the husband of Queen Victoria (1819–1901, reigned 1837–1901). Thus, central to Albert Square is The Queen Victoria Public House.
Fans have tried to establish the actual location of Walford within London. Walford East is a fictional tube station for Walford, and with the aid of a map that was first seen on air in 1996, it has been established that Walford East is located between Bow Road and West Ham, which realistically would replace Bromley-by-Bow on the District and Hammersmith & City lines.
Walford has the postal district of E20. The postcode district was selected as if it were part of the actual E postcode area which covers much of east London although the next unused postcode district in the area was, and still is, E19. The E stands for Eastern. In 1917 the current postal districts in London were assigned alphabetically according to the name of the main sorting office for each district. If Walford had been assigned in this scheme it would have been given E17, which is the current postcode district for Walthamstow. Fans have tried to pinpoint the location using this postcode, however, in reality London East postal districts stopped at E18 at that time; the show's creators opted for E20 instead of E19 as it was thought to sound better.In March 2011, Royal Mail allocated the E20 postal district to the 2012 Olympic Park.
In reality, at least two Albert Squares do exist in the East End of London, one in Stratford and the other in Ratcliff, E1. However, the show's producers based the square's design on the real life Fassett Square in Dalston. There is also a market close to Fassett Square at Ridley Road. The postcode for the area, E8, was one of the working titles for the series. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where Tony Holland lived and a blend of Walthamstow and Stratford—the areas of London where the creators were born. Other parts of the Square and set interiors are actually based on various other locations. The bridge is based upon the one adjacent to BBC Television Centre, the Queen Vic on the old pub at the end of Scrubs Lane/Harrow Road NW10, and the interior to the Fowlers' is based on a house in Manor Road Colchester, close to where the supervising art director lived.[citation needed] The fictional local newspaper, the Walford Gazette, in which local news events such as the arrests or murders of characters appear, mirrors the area's own Hackney Gazette.
Reasearch found on various websites through the google search engine.
Here is one of the most popular episodes of Eastenders in this clip you can see the setting well.
Saturday 18 June 2011
Soap Opera history
I conducted some research on soap opera history so that I have a very clear understanding of soap operas in general so that I can apply what I know to my own soap opera which my group will create.
I created certain questions that I wanted to find out answers for, the questions I wanted to know were;
Why soap opera's are called soap opera's?
What is the longest running soap opera?
Key conventions found in British soap operas
Most popular characters and storylines
The answers I got for these questions were;
Why are soap operas called soap opera's?
Because back in the days before television they were mainly dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers as sponsors and producers.
What is the longst running soap opera?
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting". With over 16,500 episodes, it is both the world's longest running radio soap and, since the axing of the American soap opera Guiding Light in September 2009, the world's longest running soap opera in any format.
Key conventions found in British soap operas
A British soap opera almost always features the following conventions:
It is a serialised drama that usually runs week-in, week-out, all year round.
It features continuous storylines (or 'narratives') dealing with domestic themes and personal or family relationships.
It generally has a well-known theme tune and intro sequence which has changed little over the years1.
Though the casts for soap operas tend to be bigger than for drama series, there is a limit to the number of characters available at any one time. This allows the soap to focus on a smaller number of characters, thus allowing more time to be spent on each, so that the audience knows them better and the storylines can be more detailed and involved, as well as being more numerous over time.
The plots are open-ended and usually many storylines are featured or even interlinked in an episode. Often they follow the same issue, with, for example, two characters dealing with the break-up of a relationship. The storylines in these cases run parallel.
They are often set around a small, central area such as a square (as in EastEnders) or a cul-de-sac (such as Brookside). Sometimes, there is something else connecting the characters. For example, most of the characters in El Dorado were ex-pats who all lived in a same British-dominated ghetto of Spain.
Soaps often have special episodes for events in the real world such as Christmas or the Millennium. Some special episodes focus on long-departed characters, or current characters who travel to a location outside of their usual surroundings (such as Brookside's 'South', which saw Tracy Corkhill and her boyfriend run away to London). Such episodes are often referred to as 'soap bubbles' as they are often self-contained and have little impact on the on-going stories of the regular show.
British soaps most often feature common, ordinary, working class characters, in stark contrast to American soaps, which tend to deal with richer, flashier, more fantasy-inspired characters, reflecting the preferences of their respective target audiences.
As a rule, British soaps are realistic or, at least, aim for realism2.
Soap episodes often begin with a 'hook' in which one or more of the narratives from a previous episode are continued. The episode will undoubtedly end with a 'cliff-hanger', which is a tense and suspenseful, unconcluded piece of dialogue or action when, for example, a character finds out that their fiancée has just died - cue zoom-in on their traumatised face.
Three, four or even five storylines will be in progress during any one episode, with the action switching between them. As one narrative is resolved, another completely different one with different characters will already be underway. The characters go from quiet, harmonic (but uninteresting) periods to chaotic, confusing (but interesting) dilemmas.
Most popular characters and storylines
Erica Kane is a long-running fictional character from the American daytime drama All My Children. The character has been portrayed by actress Susan Lucci since the show's tenth episode first aired in January 1970. Erica is considered to be the most popular character in soap opera history.
To understand exactly what a soap opera is I put in research into the history of 'The Soap Opera'.
I researched a little more about soap operas for some more information on its history:
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episode work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers as sponsors and producers. These early radio series were broadcast in weekday daytime slots when most listeners would be housewives, the shows were aimed at and consumed by mainly female audiences.
The term soap opera has at times been generally applied to any romantic serial, but it is also used to describe the more naturalistic, unglamorous UK primetime drama serials such as Coronation Street. A crucial element that defines soap opera is the open-ended nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. The defining feature that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Albert Moran, is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode".
I created certain questions that I wanted to find out answers for, the questions I wanted to know were;
Why soap opera's are called soap opera's?
What is the longest running soap opera?
Key conventions found in British soap operas
Most popular characters and storylines
The answers I got for these questions were;
Why are soap operas called soap opera's?
Because back in the days before television they were mainly dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers as sponsors and producers.
What is the longst running soap opera?
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting". With over 16,500 episodes, it is both the world's longest running radio soap and, since the axing of the American soap opera Guiding Light in September 2009, the world's longest running soap opera in any format.
Key conventions found in British soap operas
A British soap opera almost always features the following conventions:
It is a serialised drama that usually runs week-in, week-out, all year round.
It features continuous storylines (or 'narratives') dealing with domestic themes and personal or family relationships.
It generally has a well-known theme tune and intro sequence which has changed little over the years1.
Though the casts for soap operas tend to be bigger than for drama series, there is a limit to the number of characters available at any one time. This allows the soap to focus on a smaller number of characters, thus allowing more time to be spent on each, so that the audience knows them better and the storylines can be more detailed and involved, as well as being more numerous over time.
The plots are open-ended and usually many storylines are featured or even interlinked in an episode. Often they follow the same issue, with, for example, two characters dealing with the break-up of a relationship. The storylines in these cases run parallel.
They are often set around a small, central area such as a square (as in EastEnders) or a cul-de-sac (such as Brookside). Sometimes, there is something else connecting the characters. For example, most of the characters in El Dorado were ex-pats who all lived in a same British-dominated ghetto of Spain.
Soaps often have special episodes for events in the real world such as Christmas or the Millennium. Some special episodes focus on long-departed characters, or current characters who travel to a location outside of their usual surroundings (such as Brookside's 'South', which saw Tracy Corkhill and her boyfriend run away to London). Such episodes are often referred to as 'soap bubbles' as they are often self-contained and have little impact on the on-going stories of the regular show.
British soaps most often feature common, ordinary, working class characters, in stark contrast to American soaps, which tend to deal with richer, flashier, more fantasy-inspired characters, reflecting the preferences of their respective target audiences.
As a rule, British soaps are realistic or, at least, aim for realism2.
Soap episodes often begin with a 'hook' in which one or more of the narratives from a previous episode are continued. The episode will undoubtedly end with a 'cliff-hanger', which is a tense and suspenseful, unconcluded piece of dialogue or action when, for example, a character finds out that their fiancée has just died - cue zoom-in on their traumatised face.
Three, four or even five storylines will be in progress during any one episode, with the action switching between them. As one narrative is resolved, another completely different one with different characters will already be underway. The characters go from quiet, harmonic (but uninteresting) periods to chaotic, confusing (but interesting) dilemmas.
Most popular characters and storylines
Erica Kane is a long-running fictional character from the American daytime drama All My Children. The character has been portrayed by actress Susan Lucci since the show's tenth episode first aired in January 1970. Erica is considered to be the most popular character in soap opera history.
To understand exactly what a soap opera is I put in research into the history of 'The Soap Opera'.
I researched a little more about soap operas for some more information on its history:
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episode work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers as sponsors and producers. These early radio series were broadcast in weekday daytime slots when most listeners would be housewives, the shows were aimed at and consumed by mainly female audiences.
The term soap opera has at times been generally applied to any romantic serial, but it is also used to describe the more naturalistic, unglamorous UK primetime drama serials such as Coronation Street. A crucial element that defines soap opera is the open-ended nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. The defining feature that makes a television program a soap opera, according to Albert Moran, is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode".
Friday 17 June 2011
Soap Opera whole episode analysis (Coronation Street)
I decided to watch a full episode of a popular soap and analyse what I saw during the episode.
I firstly researched the three most popular soaps through using the internet the results I obtained were, Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
The Soap I chose to anaylse were Coronation Street I watched an episode of each and analysed what I saw into certian catergories.
Number of characters
Type of Characters
Settings
Number of Scenes
Storylines
By looking at these different groups I looked at my results and ordered them into different catrergories including age, gender and ethnicity.
Corronation Street Monday 20th June 8:30pm
Here is the link to the episode -
Run, Adam, run!
There is not alot in this clip that shows any inequalitys between age, in the start of the clip the older woman (the mum) is making the dinner for her son and his wife this shows the stereotypical role of the mother, this also links to gender in how it was the woman cooking the dinner.
The locations that are used in this epsiode are stereotypical of a small town with such things as a cafe, pub and taxi service this helps to create verisimililartude towards to audience of the soap makes them feel more at home when watching.
There is use of stereotyping through the jobs shown in this episode with the men driving the Taxi's. At the staet of the clip sterotyping is used once again when there is a clip of the woman cleaning and the man not. Another job stereotyping is that the police officer in this clip is of the male gender and a police officer is seen as a more powerful job this signifies male power. When there is a man and a woman who clearly have a problem with someone it is the man who does the talking this signifies male dominance.
I wrote down the number of scenes that were in this clip
There were 6 scenes, I then split these scenes into whether the scene showed male dominance or female dominance.
There were 4 scenes signifying male dominance
There were 2 scenes signifying Felmale dominance
This shows that throughout the clip without meaning too the soap signifies that the male is the more dominant gender through such things as the jobs they have and what is said by different genders.
For example
2 men are having a conversation and the man says 'If you want to make it work give it a chance, if you dont then dont' this signifies that the man has the power in the relationship over the woman and it is his decision whether it works or not.
This male dominance from this male character continues at the end of the clip when the male says to the woman that he wants a divorce he holds to the power over her as she begs for him not to leave her.
However there is a scene in this clip that signifies the female dominance over male, there is a man and woman in a pub and the woman is holding the power over the man as he is apologizing to her.
As a whole there is a mixture of male and female dominance and the same with age throughout the soap of corrination street just depending on the different storylines but throught there are 2 or more storylines that are different and appeal to opposite genders.
As for location it is aimed towards lower dempographic groups to try and create verisimilartude towards the audience through the use of the cafe, pub, mechanics and other stereotypical lower demogrphic jobs.
I firstly researched the three most popular soaps through using the internet the results I obtained were, Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
The Soap I chose to anaylse were Coronation Street I watched an episode of each and analysed what I saw into certian catergories.
Number of characters
Type of Characters
Settings
Number of Scenes
Storylines
By looking at these different groups I looked at my results and ordered them into different catrergories including age, gender and ethnicity.
Corronation Street Monday 20th June 8:30pm
Here is the link to the episode -
Run, Adam, run!
There is not alot in this clip that shows any inequalitys between age, in the start of the clip the older woman (the mum) is making the dinner for her son and his wife this shows the stereotypical role of the mother, this also links to gender in how it was the woman cooking the dinner.
The locations that are used in this epsiode are stereotypical of a small town with such things as a cafe, pub and taxi service this helps to create verisimililartude towards to audience of the soap makes them feel more at home when watching.
There is use of stereotyping through the jobs shown in this episode with the men driving the Taxi's. At the staet of the clip sterotyping is used once again when there is a clip of the woman cleaning and the man not. Another job stereotyping is that the police officer in this clip is of the male gender and a police officer is seen as a more powerful job this signifies male power. When there is a man and a woman who clearly have a problem with someone it is the man who does the talking this signifies male dominance.
I wrote down the number of scenes that were in this clip
There were 6 scenes, I then split these scenes into whether the scene showed male dominance or female dominance.
There were 4 scenes signifying male dominance
There were 2 scenes signifying Felmale dominance
This shows that throughout the clip without meaning too the soap signifies that the male is the more dominant gender through such things as the jobs they have and what is said by different genders.
For example
2 men are having a conversation and the man says 'If you want to make it work give it a chance, if you dont then dont' this signifies that the man has the power in the relationship over the woman and it is his decision whether it works or not.
This male dominance from this male character continues at the end of the clip when the male says to the woman that he wants a divorce he holds to the power over her as she begs for him not to leave her.
However there is a scene in this clip that signifies the female dominance over male, there is a man and woman in a pub and the woman is holding the power over the man as he is apologizing to her.
As a whole there is a mixture of male and female dominance and the same with age throughout the soap of corrination street just depending on the different storylines but throught there are 2 or more storylines that are different and appeal to opposite genders.
As for location it is aimed towards lower dempographic groups to try and create verisimilartude towards the audience through the use of the cafe, pub, mechanics and other stereotypical lower demogrphic jobs.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Research on soaps
From my mind map it is quite clear that I needed to research more into soaps, I needed to look at such things as the demographic group soaps are aimed at and also more facts into the generic conventions of a soap opera.
To research I chose a soap that I was familiar with and analysed what I saw to decide which demographic group, age and even gender that I felt this soap was aimed at.
The soap I chose to analyse was Eastenders.
I have embeded the link of the episode of Eastenders that I analysed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b011y3cl/
I analysed my research into different groups;
Ethnicity - There is no certian ethnicity that this soap is aimed towards there is use of all ethnicitys in the show so it is equal.
Age - The age I feel that this soap is aimed towards is teens upwards, the storylines create verisimilartude with both teenagers and adults through the use of characters there are various storylines that aim towards different age groups depending on the characters used in that storyline.
Location - The location is set in the East end of London, this creates verisimilartude mainly towards lower demogrpahic groups with the use of market stalls and seen as 'lower class' jobs.
Gender - There is a mixture of storylines in this soap that aim towards both the male and female gender, there are storylines involving babys that are mainly aimed towards the female gender creating verisimilartude and stereotypical guidelines as to what women enjoy to watch compared to some storylines involving violence which are aimed more towards the male gender as this follows stereotypical guidelines of what the male gender enjoy to see, so this soap is aimed both towards the male and female gender depending on the storylines there is usually a mixture of both storylines at the same time so that the show is always aimed at both genders.
Demogrpahic groups - From the use of the language used (resticted code) it will create verisimilartude towards the lower demographic groups also the storylines are more likely to appeal to the lower demographic groups because of the jobs that the characters have and the way they see certain things compared to a higher class demographic group.
To research I chose a soap that I was familiar with and analysed what I saw to decide which demographic group, age and even gender that I felt this soap was aimed at.
The soap I chose to analyse was Eastenders.
I have embeded the link of the episode of Eastenders that I analysed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b011y3cl/
I analysed my research into different groups;
Ethnicity - There is no certian ethnicity that this soap is aimed towards there is use of all ethnicitys in the show so it is equal.
Age - The age I feel that this soap is aimed towards is teens upwards, the storylines create verisimilartude with both teenagers and adults through the use of characters there are various storylines that aim towards different age groups depending on the characters used in that storyline.
Location - The location is set in the East end of London, this creates verisimilartude mainly towards lower demogrpahic groups with the use of market stalls and seen as 'lower class' jobs.
Gender - There is a mixture of storylines in this soap that aim towards both the male and female gender, there are storylines involving babys that are mainly aimed towards the female gender creating verisimilartude and stereotypical guidelines as to what women enjoy to watch compared to some storylines involving violence which are aimed more towards the male gender as this follows stereotypical guidelines of what the male gender enjoy to see, so this soap is aimed both towards the male and female gender depending on the storylines there is usually a mixture of both storylines at the same time so that the show is always aimed at both genders.
Demogrpahic groups - From the use of the language used (resticted code) it will create verisimilartude towards the lower demographic groups also the storylines are more likely to appeal to the lower demographic groups because of the jobs that the characters have and the way they see certain things compared to a higher class demographic group.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
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