Eastenders notes. Research.

Eastenders notes.

- Colloquial sland terms used with regional accents that can relate to many viewers. London is largest city in the Uk with the highest population so to reach high viewing numbers it must be based in the largest region. (this is an idea we innevitably have to adopt which will work in our favour).

- Eastenders tries harder than other soaps to represent a strong realism. Characters costumes are not stylsed dramaticaly, like Hollyoaks, as then concentrate on representing an accurate appearence of working class London.

- Other aspects of the mise-en-scene that reflect this working class lifestyle is seen in the locations/sets and props. This includes the size of houses, the decorative style of the sets.

- There does represent a cultural diversity, there's one Asian family living in the square. Eastenders doesn't focus on cultural issues that effect a large number of people in the country still! Things such as arranged marriages, the ethical issues surrounding headscarfs in school etc. Nor do they show cultural changes in London such as the rise of the Polish community since the new legislation was implaced. It's based around day-to-day routines. Eastenders concentrates more on holding their large fan base then representing realism. People around the country wouldn't really understand the issues that are based within London as, many live in scarce places in the country which are still prodominatly still English.

- In this recent episode a young girl is shown to have a child. This does show a huge issue in politics surrounding social concerns. It's introduced subtly as i can only guess the producers did not want to alarm viewers as today people are becoming increasingly impressionable to the media. People see Eastenders as entertaiment and would not want to view serious concerns, although it would be an extremly effective way of making people aware of what's going on around them.

- Enigma's are featured in this episode but can be mistaken for mini cliffhangers which are part of traditional forms and conventions of soap operas.


During this i also brainstormed a few ideas that we may include in our project:
- Could show the soap in the morning as, if it's based around the recession or a working enviroment, millions of people have been made redudent and would therefore have that extra half an hour in the morning.
- Include subtle enviomental issues. Its a very large global problem at the moment as scientist predict we're on the verge of catastrophe so, showing the enviroment with recycling bins could bring to peoples awarness this is now and the future.
- The Mental Health Department as recently been mentioned to needing a real upgrade. Many people see this as a huge taboo and almost everyone at some stage in there life could benefit from councelling. We could feature characters with stress/anxiety issues or go a step further and include quircky characters with ADHD that need to take medication to calm themselves. This will strip the taboo of the subject, bring it to peoples awareness and create a 'different' soap that shows a realism.