Skills development/evaluation

The most recognisable development has been my theoretical understanding of the advertising and marketing procedures. Our task is centralised around the publication of a new soap we have thought of and so, this has extended my general knowledge upon the whole process of developing a TV programme and marketing it as a product.

The general nature of the advertisement world is to force people into purchasing their product whether they want it or not. A successful marketing campaign will target their audience and embed within their minds a need to purchase their product (or, have ever thought to agree with the message). This aim highlighted to me the importance of having researched the disciplinary market your product is aimed at and emphasised the importance of comprehensively understanding your target audience.

Soaps attract a broad audience and within this broad audience there are smaller audience groups. I felt it was compulsory for me to conduct extensive market research. I had arranged a focus group meeting, within the location we chose to film, with staff members we hoped to replicate. I had done this independently from the group, i believe this highlights my improved abilities of planning and research. Consequently, the focus group had us re plan our entire trailer due in invaluable information that was fed back and so we accepted that the focus group was a tremendous success. Not only had we re planned our trailer but the theory we based our soap on had changed. The characters that were to feature (hypothetically) in our soap were exaggerated stereotypes that subtracted from the realism. After having evaluate the response from our focus group members we accepted what they had to say with open minds and agreed to transform our characters into more refined archetypical characters.

Once all the research needed had been acquired we began grasping the difficulty of creatively solving the problem at hand. Fundamentally, what generates success through marketing strategies and advertisements is the ability to think of new and innovative techniques/methods of attracting and sustaining an audience. I therefore believe my ability to think creatively (outside-the-box) has improved.

We'd begin group discussions after we had researched conventions of media texts to discuss whether we'd like to adopt them or develop them. I believe the most innovative idea we've had was to transform the traditional communal location featured within a soap, which most often revolved around a minuscule geography location, and develop this in a working environment which can feature story lines that transport audience away from the offices and into their homes. We hoped this will give an extra dimension to our soap and generating a new genre of TV that converges the conventions of Drama and Soaps to offer something new.

Our initial intention was to have something that showed greater diversity in the representation of characters, which is a vague objective although we concentrated this to social class, gender and religion. We also wanted to include current affairs and communicate some kind of political message for a more intellectual audience. My having an office environment it can show employees in different levels of the organisation that will have different salaries, and therefore having different lifestyles/class. The boss is a female Muslim which in itself fights off any preconceived assumptions that women are not dominant in the working environment, brings awareness to sexist issues that are forever being disputed, highlights the awareness of the Muslim faith and the current affairs that are currently being highlighted in other media forms. Here we are sending out a strong message through one character that can reach out to many people due to the characters broad characteristics. We have two strong features to this character and this can be interpreted by two main groups of people; females that are career orientated and people of the Muslim faith that wish to see someone practicing their faith without having explosives tied around their waist. We're highlighting these two concerns and sending out a political message which may also interest some one of a political nature.

Our communal area based in the offices of a company dealing in the fashion trade. Someone who is interested in business can also be attracted to this. We have creatively thought of a way to communicate an impression that this business exists amongst our viewers as this will generate a more loyal fan base (seen by Eastenders, actors have been harassed in the street by fanatics), the idea is to feature on the website a business profile. This business profile would appear to converge with a business website, which would subsequently reject the conventions of a colour contrasting, 'over-loaded', traditional soap website and contain statistical information of the businesses finances through this economic climate and inform viewers of other corporate information to give our soap a real identity.

I believe it's crucial to have an understanding with technological advancements. Using the website to target all the new-age 'surfers' is crucial in generating a fan base. You must generate features that are seen to be addictive, or habit forming, to attract users to continue visiting the site. Due to the development of TV it's hard for shows to generate high viewings due the amount of TV channels that can cater for very narrow audiences. The same applies to websites, if not more so as the number of sites is mammoth, so in theory, to generate those large numbers you must have that 'hook'. I believe this business profile highlights our creative and innovative thoughts as amongst the research we have conducted there has been no evidence that this has been thought of before.

Also our awareness of technological advancements is predominantly because our generation has been introduced to mobile devices from a young age. Today mobile devices are not a luxury, but a necessity to life. Everyone has a mobile, people are able to be contacted at any time, at almost any place and about anything. Another way to tackle this problem of locating this broad audience is to add a text marketing strategy. This basically means people can register to receive up to date information about the soap, off the hours of broadcasting to create a further dimension to our soap (to add to the impression that it exists in reality). This feature can be diverse and can be sent from characters, general updates as though from a narrator or can be from producers themselves asking for feedback such as whether the company should accept this new business deal. This text strategy is becomingly increasingly popular although it has not been done with soaps. We are expanding our creative thought and incorporating the use of technological consumables in alternative ways to market our project.

Our project is a convergence of main disciplinaries and a development in soap opera's. We have established a foundation for this soap to be a replica of the ever changing, realistic setting of London suburbia. Originally we were predominantly inspired by Eastenders as we felt we related to this more so than the stylised Hollyoaks. We have introduced a new edge that's innovative and fits in perfectly with the current state of the nation that can appeal not only to the rich but the poor, not only to the young but the old, not only to the business men but the business women, and not only the intellectuals but the dim witted.

Eastenders Xmas trailer.

-Camera styles are very slow paced which can allow audiences to absorb what's seen. It's highlighting the memorable season, projects feelings of joy and prompts audience's to reminisce and reflect upon the winter months. This may generate a spark of gossip.

- The trailer begins very merry. The colour and contrast begin changing to represent the sinister ending. The first half is juxtaposed with the second half which truly reflects the nature of a soap: mundane realism conflicting with absurd dramatic story lines. By juxtaposing visual features such as colour and behaviour from characters from joyful to a darker mood creates tension and emphasises the epic style Eastenders will encapsulate for the Christmas special.

The techniques stated above are ones we hope to adopt and adapt into our trailer. We hoped to juxtapose the speed of the shots like stated below. We're relying on our post-production equipment (software) to modified speeds, if the software doesn't feature the tools we need then we'll be prohibited from doing so.

Red - Where the pace of the shot is either normal or sped up.

Yellow - The pace is either normal or slowed down.

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" -- The speech begins slowing down (1/2 point)
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.

The Xmas specials always have overwhelming festive iconography. The focus of this trailer is on family dinners/gatherings. This is a strong indicator to audiences that it may be Xmas, the majority of viewers can relate and respond positively.
- Reflecting upon our own trailer, it seems a vast majority can identify with the situation to certain degrees, yet i don't believe they'll respond positively. A few months back when conducting our market research people responded positively to our ideas although it may be inappropriate for this holiday.

- The Christmas season already generates a lot of excitement in people and is a time when people would speak to friends and family more than normal. By reminding people of this season not much else has to be done to engage with audiences. The trailer shows people sitting, kissing, laughing, showing photo albums and general happy moments that may occur during the season. The gossip element is enhanced due to this time of year where families are discussing what each other are doing and this attitude is reflected onto the program. Audiences may wonder, what are the families in Eastenders going to be up to on Christmas? They would already expect to witness some dramatic occurrence and would begin gossiping; not only to their usual fellow 'gossipers' but to their extend families (chances are, the extended family has some knowledge of the Eastenders storyline). This could be a reason why the Christmas special has more ratings that most other shows during the year.

Txt Marketing Strategies

As we've come into an age where the average person cannot be without their trusty mobile phone. As phones are becoming more advanced with internet capabilities perhaps we can provide audiences with even more entertaiment and updates. Some of future ideas can be:

• viewers texting in requesting 'storyline spoilers'
• images of the next episode to try guess or, peice together the storyline
• Download games/theme tunes onto their phone
• Enter exclusive competitions
• Create an Eastenders instant messenger chat so fans can discuss topics live

I've had a look onto the most popular soap sites and none are adopting any of the techniques above. I believe these is at the forefront of being interactive and now days people demand more. This seems more personal to the user as it's in their pocket, the fan may become more loyal and being sending the product (what ever this may be) to their contacts via e-mail or other social networking sites.

Future predictions state that internet access is to be more widey available than ever before reaching remote regions of the nation. It seems that this is a huge way of reaching out potential audiences and other technological advancements as this is up-and-coming, innovative and NEW!

This is definatly something to think about when designing a website layout and can be mentioned on a poster design. If this idea is accepted amoungst the group it can be adopted into all anxilary texts we're to produce.

Group Meeting 1/12/09

Agenda

• Discuss the progress thus far
• Set targets for individuals
• Set a date for the next film session

Minutes

We are all happy with the filming quality and wish to complete this all before the current term.

We must all continue our research and thnk about the coverging styles of all 3 products.

• Zoe - Take pictures of Verve and post them on the group blog by tomorrow. This can be used as an archive when selecting images in the designing process of the poster and/or website.
• Aya and Aslihan - Research possible styles or features for the website. Include font styles, images, layout possibilities, features etc.
• Serhan - Research possible styles or features for the poster. Include font styles, representation (eg, what characters to feature, how and why?), colours, images, slogans etc.

This should be completed by the 11th December 2009

Next and last filming session 12th December 2009