Filming session - Review.

On the 22nd we had arranged and prepared to begin the filming to our trailer. It seems we were over ambition as to how much we were to complete. Initially we thought there would not be too much preparation on set rather then costume, props and adjusting a few aspects in the frame. The light became an issue as soon as we arrived as we didn't consider the reflection from the glass and windows. We over came this problem by covering all illuminating light with black sheets of fabric, this became very time comsuming. The boss was going to be smoking in the building we had to carry out a few procedures such as adjusting the air ventallation to ensure the smoke will be filtered and that the noise wouldn't disrupt the audio when filming. We had to go against health and safety procedures and cover up the fire alarm in the one room.

I was rather dissapointed as we had only managed to complete 6 shots. The outcome of these shots were very adequate and we all felt we we're moving in the right direction. The filming is postpond for 2 weeks due to personal circumstances amongst the group. The filming will commence one th 12th or 13th of December.

'Corrie' website research.

The 'Corrie' website is a sub-page to ITV's main site. The 'footer' (above) has a concurrent theme of old street signs. It's very common for websites to have common themes to make it easier for the user to navigate through the site. It's therefore essential for the hyperlinks to different pages to be clearly displayed.












The main page has a central item which is the video (above) which is not a trailer but a small catch up clip that highlights the weeks main storylines. This is a technique used to entertain viewers and to instantly remind them of the drama that's occuring.
The pink font shots that there's a subtle similarity across the site that is not disorientate viewers too much. The links below are also hyperlinks that open up a gallery of other videos that viewers have a choice of watching.

It seems we may need to film a video exclusive as this is used as a marketing tool to allow audiences to begin speculating about future storylines. For a new soap it's vital to allow audiences to begin gossiping about the program to advance a viral marketing strategy.

Check-list for filming

Costumes
- Aya: 7 different tops/scarfs (top half will only be seen)
- Everyone must dress smart.


Props
Cups
- Everyons should bring 2 each, do not ring matching cups

Cigarettes
- Vogue

Ashtray

Business related newspapers
- Not The Sun but maybe The Times

Letters

Cheque book

****Production schedule and shooting script must be complete****

Written by Zoe.

New trailer plan. zoe.

Note: Each dialogue the boss speaks she will be wearing different clothes to show the different days that the redudencies were being announced.

Employee 1 - happy

"Hello"

lights cigarette

Employee 2 - confused

"So hows everyone working downstairs"

lights cigarette

drinks coffee

Employe 3 -nervous

*nodding* "It's a hard time now"

lights cigarette

drinks coffee

typing on keyboard

"I wanted to let you know"

lights cigarette

drinks coffee

typing on keyboard

puts cup to the side

Employee 4 - worried

"These are the expected figures"

lights cigarette

drinks coffee

typing on keyboard

puts cup to the side

"We can't afford to go the way we're going"

lights cigarette

drinks coffee

typing on keyboard

puts cup to the side

stubs cigarette out

Employee 5 - crying

"I'm going to have to let you go"

lights cigarette

drinks coffee

typing on keyboard

puts cup to the side

stubs cigarette out

Zooms out to Boss sitting in the chair completly exhausted

Verve House appears center stage as if being typed.

.End.

Group meeting. 17/11/09

Agenda

Website preparation

-Asign tasks

Filming preparation
-Asign tasks

Evaluation focus group

- group discussion

Minutes

Website

- What's being communicated (ideas, feelings or both)

- How its being acheived

- What is being sold

- How is this acheived

- Entertaining, Educationg, Marketing (combination of all three)

- Everyone must design a draft for the home page of our website and present this on:

Thursday 19/11/09

Focus group

-Agreed that the PA is not gay

- Show the main effects of the recession effecting the business. Showing the boss speaking with individuals about their redundency

- Accountant showing the balance sheets

- Boss shows order forms/estimated figures to employees

Filming

Due to our focus group we were informed about many things which we otherwise pressumed inacuratly. We shall present a small video to highlight the focus group discussion. This will be done after our filming.

Our original ideas for a trailer have no been changed. See other post for detailed specifics.

Written by Zoe.

Storyboard, Risk Assesment, Pitch and Recce Form

Above: risk assesment of the location we have chosen.
Conclusion: Low risk

We began by writing down a few words that are relevent to our soap idea and then chose three that summarise best and give the better narrative image.

Office, Recession, North London, Business, Money, Glamorous, Trampy, Fashion and Competition.

Final idea.

Fashion, Office, Recession

Recce form

Location:

Verve House, Baird Road. A small office situated on the second floor.

Date/Time:

14/11/09 13:00 - 16:00

12/12/09 11:00 - 15:30

Our entire trailer will be filmed in this one office. We're undecided on the content of our extended footage, we may choose to take shots of the surrounding perimeter such as; the hall way, the yard, design room.

We had several offices to choose from as employees are not in during the weekend. We'd decided upon two offices as one office had a liability of being locked. We had already arranged consent for us to film on the above dates (this was confirmed during our focus group discussion).

We chose these offices as they appeared to be larger and much more elegant then others. There were offices which had very litte furniture, others were too messy and some were over crowded with furniture. These offices did not fit our criteria.

The office we chose had a glass wall that sectioned another office. Initially we thought this was a concern as it may reflect us filming and distract viewers. When finalising our storyboard plan we realised most of our shots will be media to close up shots heavily focusing on the desk.
The office was of a generous size and would easily accomodate the four of us. We are also advantagous due to the closure of the offices on the days we chose to film. This allows us complete freedom (within limitations) inside the building.

The offices are impressive, they do not compare with the offices shown in the program The Office. The group and myself were very happy to confirm this as our set.

Focus Group Evaluation.

Thursday 12th Nov we conducted our focus group and Verve House. Overall it was a huge success and we got a lot of usefull feedack that i personally would like to implement. Below are some of the more important points our group brought up that i thought we should really take notice of.



- They thought the fact that there were two gay people in our top 6 characters was excessive as they said that gays are a minority. Even working in a fashion retail business not many would be seen as it's still a regular business. They said it takes away from the realism.
- The P.A was said to be suicidal, considering he had a wife and children, he was secretly gay, he's had a major pay cut, work has an uncertain enviroment, he's had to descale all he's property (car, house). We'll take this into consider as maybe too much is going on for this "poor bloke".
- From one of the gentlemen he mentioned that the new girl should be a tart and failed to see what our intention was. Maybe we'll chose to keep her gay.
- An interesting storyline idea another gentlemen mentioned was that maye the boss can be having an affair with an employee. The time comes when Aya has to 'sack' her lover and he can then turn round and blackmail her. "No you can't. I'll tell your husband and everyone at work about us!"
- They informed us that people bitch/gossip a lot. For example they told us that when an employee takes a holiday and another member of staff takes their position for the week they begin undermining there position. "Stupid cow. I can't believe they pay her this much, i can do a much better job". This shows it's a perfect location to include the huge factor of gossip to intise audiences.
- They said that the boss would never present employees with balance sheets. This is a very secretive affair between the boss and the accountant. They said it's more likely that an accountant would present it to the boss either on a computer screen or written document.
-They affirmed our idea that discrimination doesn't exist in their working environment. They stated that they do a lot of business with people of a Jewish and Muslim faith. Evidence of this is that the two bosses are Greek and Jewish.
- We got told that; when people were told about the upcoming job losses everyone was gathered into a large room. Grown men were seen to be crying. It was said that there was a great uncertainty, fear, anticipation, worry and generally very depressing. Whilst employees were explaining this to us the mood in the room suddenly droped as you can still tell it was still strongly affecting them.
-The people that were left claimed to be much closer and more as a family.
- Due to the huge competitiveness they have to do 5 times the amount of work, and provide much more products than the single garment. And, their pay as decreased.
-This happened just before christmas so maybe we could feature this as our chrismas special.
- They proposed we should definatly show how it has affected people at home as, basing it in an office alone is too narrow and niche.
- They proposed we should show it from the bosses point of view as when he told employees individually he went through it ten fold compared to employees. They all agreed it was more 'soul destroying' for the bosses than anyone else.



-For the website perhaps we can show clips of characters reactions or have an interview special to make it more exclusive and interactive for audiences. This will also help establish realism and make the characters and soap more believable. It would also spark of viral marketing and increase the gossip factor.

Eastenders website research.

http://www.eastendersblog.com/

The title is of the trademark font with the infamous 'queen vic' in the background. We may choose to illustrate our generic font style (our house style) and feature the warehouse in the background to enforce some strong iconography. We're assuming the theory 'the bigger the bolder' something is the bigger impact or impression it will cast on viewers.



This poll is a very good idea as it directs the user instantly and provides good feedback that's easy to comprehend. Although i would criticise it's vagueness, does it mean the Eastenders production team or the community of Eastenders.

The votes that are posted on the BBC website (for Eastenders) change daily to accommodate the every changing story lines. Maybe we can develop this idea and have daily votes on business affairs or comment on whether the business we're representing will gain a new business deal that's potentially on offer. We'll drift from the central idea on the characters and integrate viewers in a more interactive sense with being involved in the business procedures. This will be a way for viewers to relate and to gossip on the programme.

E.g. Is verve going to accept this new deal with the local high street retailer and gain £60,000?

E.g. 2 To maximise profits should Verve a. invest in the new lorries b. hire a new accountant c. fire staff that fail to enable efficient working procedures.

Eastenders trailer

In this trailer we see a very popular editing effect: the fade. This is done to show that the scene is not concurrent. As you can, it highlights one main storyline that's very dramatic and shows highly emotion shots from the programme. It's presented in the epic form as it has close ups of characters crying, violence and it has echoed voice overs which adds to the dramatic essence.

The storyline is very easily established, this trailer presents the narrative through dialogue whereas the coronation street trailer focuses more on visuals (iconography) to communicate.

Our main narrative will be very ambiguous hoping to be enigmatic and cause audience's to gossip around this. We'll focus more on the business's down turn due to the economic climate. We'll follow the conventions of a faced trailer like this one, as it helps build tension and cause adrenaline in the viewer.

This trailer shows snapshots of one particular storyline and focuses around very few characters. What we must consider is that Eastenders is a very long and well established programme and so, viewers are familiar with characteristics and current dynamics. For our opening we'd like to focus on our main characters such as the new girl, the boss and her PA.

What i particularly liked was the choice of dialogue, very strong and effective phrases that communicate powerful and meaningful messages. An idea we could have after we present the strong iconographic images of bank statements and graphs is, to have the boss light a cigarette and so "so what now?". We should decide what her tempermet will be like and what can be most effective. I would suggest a more subtle approach, which strays from the typical conventions of trailers, yet i believe to hold that essense of realism and mystery it will work very effectively.

Coronation Street trailer.

A popular style of trailers takes on an epic form in the sense that everything is over the top and over sensualised. Here we see the fairy tale wedding, it's very strong in iconography and posses many traditional features which can relate to a majority of people. The elaborate cake with the bride and groom displayed ontop, the silver service and the chapaign.

The gossip factor is elevated as a wedding celebration/ceremony is a huge occurence and maybe people will question who will arrive, what gifts they will bring, who may not arrive and as a soap viewer you will begin suspecting what could possibly happen that can destroy the day.

The scene is juxtaposed with the fairy tale idea and the realism of the situation. This can hold some ironic and satirical elements for example: the bouquet of flowers traditional decorating a 'classy' car, yet you zoom out to see an old ford escort being spray painted "just married!". How classy?

The phrase "good luck" is over emphasised in the scene which can be interpreted as quite sarcastic given the circumstances for example; the bride having to have a drink in the morning and the groom not looking to enthralled. This works as an enigmatic opening as audiences question what could possibly go wrong.

The music is enthusiastic and the shots are rather fast paced. I think this is something we would have to consider if we're going to represent a large storyline. Everything in this trailer is clearly displayed through the use of strong iconic props that are easily understood by viewers. I would also like to include satirical elements so it's more entertaining rather than gritty realism. The idea of juxtaposing positives with negatives works very well as it can highlight the dramatics, which entertain, and the realism, which draws viewers in.