Filming Diary

Before we started to film we went to our location (photography studio) half an hour earlier so we could set up and be organized and prepared.
Once everything was set up we got the lighting sorted so it looked professional and we practiced some camera angles before the actors would arrive.
We decided to have the actors showing up at different times so the 4 girls (3 bitchy and 1 innocent) showed up first because they were the first people to appear in our our soap and so on but then everyone would be together at the end so we can get the group shots.
Once the 4 girl actors arrived we started filming them entering and the "bullying, jealousy" storyline. Because this was the first part we were filming it was difficult because once the camera was set up it had to stay in that position. The girls did as we said so once this part was filmed the next actors had arrived, (2 business men).
Whilst filming the business men the remaining actors (4 girls) had to stay in the same position in the studio for our continuity to work. It was hard filming the business men scene because they didn't really understand what we were telling them to do so we had to keep cutting and re-filming as to make sure we got a perfect shot. This then put us behind because the next actor (bachelor) had already arrived so we were running late.
The bachelor is involved in a shoreline with the business man who have a handshake whilst exchanging drugs. This shot was extremely difficult because they had to slip a bit of paper into each others hands whilst shaking hands but it had to run smoothly. We finally got this shot sorted and were ready to film the mother and son part (by this point all the actors who had been there were getting wrestless and it was quite stressful for us to film as there was more people in the room and we were behind. Filming the mother and son part was going to be difficult because we were using a 6 year old boy who would be hard to work with because you have to carefully explain to him what to do and you know it's not going to run smoothly the first time. This took about 10 shots to get right but our final actors hadn't arrived yet so it took a bit of pressure off.
Once we had filmed the mother and son part the last two actors still hadn't arrived which caused a problem because the current actors in the room were just getting as fed up as we were.
Finally once the couple had arrived we filmed there bit which was simple because everyone did as they were told so we could get it filmed properly and everyone could go home.

Overall this was ok filming, however as more of the actors started arriving it got more stressful for us especially when we started getting behind schedule.

We started to upload our film to the blog and it all looked good until a big problem occurred. The part where the couple arrived had been lost in the uploading process and was lost. This was possibly the worst bit of film to loose because we couldn't exactly cut them out as they were in the shot at the very end. We only had one option and this was to refill.

We wasn't able to get the photography studio again so we decided to bring the couple shoreline out of the studio, we ended up re-filming in our sixth-form block which is new and modern and we used the stairs which were going to be shown as leading up to the studio.

Although it is annoying to re-film this did go fine because we only had to re-film to people and they were very helpful and did exactly what we said, so this filming only took half an hour. The shots were very simple and because we were very organized and rehearsed it went very smoothly.

Costumes

Costume

Above I have commented on the costumes of our actors and the meaning behind why we put them in that outfit.

Here is the link to the post on my group blog on costumes - http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/10/costume-ideas.html

Location

-We all like the idea of using a photography studio to introduce our characters to the audience as this is going to be a new soap so no one will have any idea of the characters.
-We will be able to focus more on the character and storyline as we are using a minimalistic location which is very plain.
-It was easy to get permission to use the studio as one of our members in our group has a family member who is letting us use it free of charge.
-We will not have to change our filming plans on the day because of the weather as we are filming in an interior setting.
-This also means we don’t have to worry about the weather getting dark so we don’t have to rush our filming and can take as much time as we need.
-As our soap opera is having a “Glamorous” theme, a studio is the best location of our choices as a photo-shoot does seem very glamorous!

Here is the link on my group blog of "Location Scouting" - http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/10/location-scouting.html

Script

This is the link on my group post of our Final Script

We haven't got a lot of diegetic dialogue in our trailer as we wanted to use voice overs as peoples thoughts to introduce them.
A lot of trailers involve voice overs and we liked the idea of this, especially as our soap is a brand new one it shows how they're feeling inside.
If our soap was a current soap and not a new one I would of considered using diegetic dialogue because the trailer would be on a specific story line however our soap is a brand new one so we want to focus on the characters as a whole and introduce them as best we could.

Characters - Auditions - Casting for Soap Opera

The first thing my group looked at while considering characters was "Stock Character", we had already previously thought about the kind of characters we want.
Stock characters are used in every soap and are the "Stereo Typical Characters" which you can pick out from each soap. In every soap there will be around 8-9 stock characters which you can expect.

An example would be "The Cute Cheeky Child", in Hollyoaks there is Tom, in Coronation Street there is Simon and in Eastenders there is Tiffany. This can be classed as a "Stock Character".

The stock characters me and my group considered were as following

• The Spiteful Bitchy Girl (Natasha - Neighbours, Rosie - Coronation Street & Lucy - Eastenders).
• The Innocent Girl (Abi - Eastenders, Hayley - Coronation Street & Carmel - Hollyoaks)
• The Business Man (Frank - Coronation Street, Phil - Eastenders & Brenden - Emmerdale)
• The Bad Boy (Sean - Eastenders, David - Coronation Street & Cane - Emmerdale)
• The Single Mother (Amy - Hollyoaks, Roxy - Eastenders & Sarah - Coronation Street)
• The Cute Child (Tiffany - Eastenders & Simon - Coronation Street)
• The Potential Dad (Alfie - Eastenders, Jack - Eastenders & Peter - Coronation Street)

These are the Characters that we are considering for our Soap Opera Trailer. 

Here is a link to my group blog for the post on "Stock Characters" - 

http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/10/stock-characters.html

Here is a link to my group blog on "Casting" - http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/11/casting.html

With Characters there has to be a storyline behind it so my group discussed how we could place our characters in a storyline for our soap trailer. The Story lines we thought of were

• Bullying/Jealousy
• Drug Deal
• Love Triangle
• A big secret

Incorporating these Shorelines with our characters they are now all linked together and we know exactly what characters we want and the storyline behind them.

We would like 3 bitchy girls and 1 innocent girl and put them into a Bullying Storyline, We would like 2 business man and a bad boy/bachelorr and put them into a Drug Dealing Storyline, these have both been covered in soap episodes but they are never normally in a soap trailer so we would like to try and challenge this by adding these story lines in. 

We are going to have a love triangle between a couple and involve the bad boy/bachelor, this storyline is a very common one so we are using this for our soap.

Lastly we like the idea of having a Secret Story line, which will cause shock, we have decided to have a Mother and Son but what the son doesn't know his Dad and the mother wants to keep it that way because in actual fact she was raped.

Lastly here is a link to my Group Blog for the post on Auditions to show who we have casted and why. http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/10/auditions.html

Storyboards

Along with the Script and the Shotlist to help us with our Soap Opera Trailer we have created Storyboards in order to help us plan our trailer.

Here is a link to my group blog to show "Initial Storyboard" http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/09/storyboard-initial-ideas.html

After this my group then went on to make a "Photographic Storyboard" http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/09/animatic-storyboard.html

And lastly when we knew exactly the Idea we wanted we created an "Animatic Storyboard"
http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/10/animatic-storyboard.html

Creating the Storyboard helped me a lot, this is because you can see how your idea is going to look and if you think it is going to work, with the initial storyboard my group explored some ideas just to see how it would look, when we focused on the photography studio idea we went on to create a photographic storyboard which is much clearer because you are actually taking photos of real people and not drawing them. Lastly we created the animatic storyboard which was put into a video so we could see exactly how our trailer could go and to see if it would definitely work, the storyboard is a very creative idea and I enjoyed creating all 3 storyboards.

Initial Plot/ Narrative For Soap Opera

http://a2cvhspiglet.blogspot.com/2011/09/initial-plot-narrative-for-our-soap.html