Kerrianne Tatton

Ivy Wood
Question 1
Candidate 4872
USING CONVENTIONS
*The Soap we made is a parody of “Hollyoaks” we used the name “Hollyoaks” to brainstorm ideas of a title for our own soap. The title we created was “Ivy Wood” as we thought Ivy is similar to Holly, and wood being the oak.
*To set the scenes for our soap we looked at other soaps such as “Hollyoaks” to base our settings on, we noticed that most soaps have a social ground or a meeting place of characters to meet. We made sure that the characters showed their relationships or friendships with each other through their body language or eye contact.
Eastenders – Queen Vic, Carol’s Cafe
Coronation St- Rovers Return, Roy’s Rolls
Emmerdale, Wool pack, Café
However Hollyoaks has 3 social ground areas to meet-
The SU bar, The dog, Chez Chez, College Coffee -that we could have mimicked in our trailer, as we are used student aged characters we used an establishing shot in a café area to emphasise what audience “Ivy Wood” would be aimed at and similarities to “Hollyoaks”.
*We used medium close ups of the characters so that the characters engage with the audience and can show emotions and tell a story without needing to communicate verbally.
We kept the camera at eye level with the characters so that the viewers connected with them.
*Using camera work, we used the camera as the 4th wall, we did this as it is a popular convention used in soap operas as it makes the audience feel like they are in the room with the characters, which makes them feel more involved.
In scenes such as the scene where chandelier tells rhino the baby isn’t his, we used symmetrical composition eye line of characters just within the top 3rd of the frame so that the audience are sat at the same eye line as the characters and can feel the intensity of emotion.
Also in this scene, we only used natural lighting this makes the scene more realistic and emphasises the openness of the storyline and scripting about to occur.
The mise en scene, camera work, and lighting all help to make the audience more connected as though they are in the room.
*Title cards
Really important as they show narrative and can set a storyline and create suspense throughout the trailer, I chose to use the “Hollyoaks”/E4 design by using the purple background and strong White writing in the same font used by E4 which is “American Typewriter” this helped me to make it look professional by using the E4 branding more effectively.
*In the scene where Mickey and Rhino fight we used low angle shots to show and emphasise power between the two.
By using a hand held camera it makes the movement in the fight more realistic this also makes the audience viewers feel as though they are witnessing the fight.

DEVELOPING CONVENTIONS*Pregnancy test scene. Within the pregnancy test scene we wanted to use the test to show that chandelier was pregnant, however usually in soaps they would use one of 2 tests and show them within the shot and it would create drama, realism and seriousness however, because we wanted to create a parody effect it also makes it over the top that she has numerous open pregnancy tests scattered all over the floor around her, we did this to parody the common seriousness of soaps such as “Hollyoaks”.
*We also parodied another convention used in soap operas by using mobile text messaging in other soaps screens of phones are showed sending or receiving text messages which usually include a serious message, to parody this we used slang words such as “Preggers” and “OMG”. Also the name chandelier on the phone screen is used to create comedy and to parody names such as “Mercedes” used in “Hollyoaks”.
By using this convention as a parody it juxtaposed the meaning and made it comical rather than serious as in other soaps the situation chandelier is in would usually be portrayed as a serious issue.
*Soaps often show a reaction shot after receiving a text message such as the one Chandelier sent to Rhino, we decided to use the reaction shot of Rhino to increase the level of parody used in what would be a very serious situation in real life.
After receiving the text from chandelier, Matthew who plays Rhino, dramatically fell to his knees, screaming no and ripping his t-shirt apart.
The camerawork of the high angle shot makes rhino look powerless in his situation also within the mise en scene we had water being poured from height out of shot from a watering can to make it look like rain was pouring directly on him. This again created the parody, comical side to Rhino’s situation.
*Often in the scene of a soap opera, there is a song playing in the background or a channel is on tv in the background. By using Intertextuality, we put Jeremy Kyle on the television in the background of the fight scene between Rhino and Mickey, this also created parody as the audience will know the stereotypical guests that go on the Jeremy Kyle show on a day to day basis, and this creates humour as it makes the audience of the soap feel that the characters within “Ivy Wood” are the typical people seen on Jeremy Kyle and also the story line would fit the typical problems dealt with on Jeremy Kyle.

CHALLENGING CONVENTIONSWe challenged gender conformity by adding cross dressing into our soap, we did this as it is not often seen it many soaps, and could also be seen as quite a sensitive subject to be used. We wanted to create comedy and we did this by using a reaction from both characters from the given situation.
By using cross dressing for Mickey it also made the soap more of a parody as it meant that Mickey has such a huge character and many story lines and roles within his one character, Mickey was a cross dresser, who had cheated on his girlfriend and had got his best friends girlfriend pregnant, there aren’t many soaps who hold one character with that many problems.