Evaluation Task One;

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



The title of the soap

The title of the soap is displayed in the first frame of the collage above. We choose this name as our initial aim was to choose a one worded quick and snappy name as these tend to work most effectively especially in terms of soaps. It is highly unlikely that a name of a soap will be longer than two words. Liberty is a strong word that emphasizes freedom reflecting on our teenage characters included in the soap. Likewise to “Gossip Girl” the name has a relation to the characters and what the soap is about rather than having a name of the place that it is set. As you can see the title of the soap is displayed on top of a picture of the cast - this includes all the main characters. The photograph of them is a quite serious one, portraying hidden clues of what their forthcoming storylines may be about. Though at the same time this photograph was planned to look this way in order to appeal to the target audience.

The characters are positioned in conjunction with their relations of each other. For example, "Shiffa" is positioned in the centre very closely almost touching the following characters "Moji" and "Joanna" this is due to the reasoning that she is literally stuck in the middle of the two, not knowing who to choose. Whereas "Dervish" and "Moji" are fairly far apart as they do not have any connected with each other in the storylines just yet. While the couple "Maria" and Dervish" are standing close together reflecting their relationship between one another. The title of the soap is in large bold white fond in order to appear recognisable whilst at the same time stay quite subtle.

Setting/Location

In this frame I choose to include one of the main characters (Maria's) home. One of the photographs is of the character standing outside her house familiarizing the audience to her location the second is the home of Shiffa. The audience will be able to recognize this setting as it is included in one of the main dramatic storylines, one that cannot be forgotten. Similar to an establishing shot. Both the setting and location will say a lot about the characters and the soap itself. Shiffa's home is a traditional looking home reflecting the life she has to live and her attempts to rebel against these. Whereas Maria has a fairly modern home showing how different her life is compared to Shiffa's. These two teenage girls at first glance seem comparatively similar, they may be the same age, live in the same area but both live two very different lives and this is what we aim to show within their surroundings.

Costume/Props

Costumes and props are the main element included in Mise en scene, without these representation of realism would be unachievable. In the frame for this I have included three pictures which I feel are the most relevant related to this area. The photograph on the top right hand shows one of our actresses who we used as an extra. The woman appears as Shiffa's strict religious mother - without the costumes we used she would have looked like any other normal mother. For this particular character we used dark coloured clothing, all flesh was covered and a headscarf was worn to represent the religion. To the left hand corner the photograph shows the process of the make-up in action, this was to ensure that all the characters looked the part and again added to the sense of realism. The last picture shows one of the group members holding up lighting in the party scene. This scene was the hardest to achieve. We were working in a small confined area of space though we still managed to accomplish the outcome we had wished for. This was done by altering the lighting of the room to make it atmospheric, we used fairy lights and a disco ball. Also we used lots of props for this scene such as shot glasses. All the scenes needed the help of the costumes and the use of props in order for symbolisation to occur.

Camera Work/Editing

In this frame I choose the shot which I felt worked the best. It shows the shot of one of the main characters - she is looking at herself through the mirror. Here we had to ensure the camera was out of shot, it took a number of takes but eventually we managed to obtain the shot we wanted. Throughout the filming process each scene we shot we made sure that we took a number of times and a variety of these. We done this due to when we came around to editing we would have many different shots to choose from which would prevent having to re-shot any scenes. Additionally we felt that this year when it came to filming scenes it felt like an easier task - though still very challenging we were able to use skills that we had picked up from last year. When editing we used many quick and sharp cuts to tell the viewers what our soap will be about. As we had previously researched into former trailers almost all of them used snappy cuts to jump from more storyline to the other which works to build up suspense and the continuity of the action occurring.

Title font/style

This frame shows the logo of our soap including the name in the house font. The logo represents the city urban lifestyle the soap is based around and the font emphases the maturity. This style was chosen in order to appeal to our specific target audience of 16-25 year olds. The font is plain yet modern with a funky look to it. It is used on our trailer, our posters and also on our website therefore this makes it recognisable to our new viewers who will be able to familiarize the font style with the soap. The title of the soap LIBERTY along with this font aims to attract also our secondary target audience. Personally I feel that both of them work well together enabling to appeal to younger and older audiences.

Narrative/storylines - how they are set up

This brainstorm shows how the storylines were first set up. We all had to sit down as a group and discuss what we felt would work and what wouldn't work so well. We took into account our target audience and how we would go about attracting them. These were done not only by discussions but also by asking them face to face during focus groups and questionnaires. Finally from the many ideas we had come up with we were able to narrow these down to the two favourites we all preferred. These two storylines used and developed the forms of current soaps. They include drama, action and most importantly makes you want to find out the end result. We first had to set up the characters and produce profiles on them. We needed to create their different personalities, ideas and views in order to go on and produce storylines about them. Once these were produced the continuity of their storylines flowed.

Genre and how the sequence suggests it

The genre of the soap aims to be a mixture of traditional and of a modern soap. For example a mixture of Eastenders and Hollyoaks combined together to create something unique. Though the stories are all based behind the lives of young teenagers still traditional conventions are used. The three photographs represent the different variety of emotions the soap includes in order for our target audience to reflect this in their own lives. The larger photograph symbolizes appearance and taking pride in yourself - this is important in all of these teenagers lives. Secondly (top right) shows the group laughing signifying although in their lives trauma occurs things do get better and their relationship between each other are important. The last photograph shows the couple Maria and Dervish talking to one another reflecting there will also be serious moments in this soap. The sequence aims to represent all of these allowing the viewers to reflect back onto their own lives and maybe helping them to deal with these as the characters do too.

Characters and how they are introduced

The frame shows the five main characters separately, all leading different lives though all connected in some way. All of them are teenagers in order to attract the targeted viewers. They are introduced by their storylines which gives a little about them away. Shiffa is presented in two different forms - one the way her mother wishes her to be; respectable, polite and well dressed though in contrast we see her acting in a rebellious way stuck in the middle of two secret lovers Moji and Joanna. Maria is portrayed as the naive victim who finds herself stuck in a tricky situation with her innocent loving partner Dervish.

Sountrack

The soundtrack we used for our trailer reflects both our targeted audience and our soap. The picture in the frame portrays the type of music we used; quite rocky/indie to flow with the quick paced cuts.