Waterloo Road - Alcoholic Teacher

During series 8 of the BBC serial teen drama I have gained inspiration form watching the portrayal of the character role of the alcoholic teacher. This role expresses the stress teachers are under in today's society and the trouble of being a single mother struggling throughout the recession. Here we see the middle aged woman having to bring up a teenage boy single handily. The teacher follows many typical codes and conventions has she has a middle class accent. Her hair and make up also heightens role, this is due to her blond hair and making her more feminine and vulnerable. 
Throughout her role she puts the blame onto her son trying to put him in the frame and look as if he is the one who is the alcoholic in order for her to not face the truth and loose her job. 

This Life

I really like this soap opera trailer as the use of mise-en-scene, camera shots and props are all very well used. This soap opera trailer portrays the traditional social realism very effectively and  used the typical codes and conventions. The lighting and setting of this soap opera mimics the conditions in which the majority  of British people live in today. The suburban setting makes the characters look more vulnerable and  we build emotions for them as we sympathies for them. The winter looking setting adds to the atmosphere making it feel more gloomy and real. 
I would like to combine ideas generated from this trailer with ideas of my own and other inspirations to create my own interpretation of it.

INSPIRATIONS!

when researching existing media we have found two different pieces which we really like. We have decided to combined these two pieces together whilst adding in our own story lines to create our own interpretations. The first piece we liked was a current story line happening in Waterloo Road and an existing trailer we watched via youtube. 

The Waterloo Road story line portrays social realism where an alcoholic teacher try's to cover up her mistakes by putting the blame onto her son. This story line shows the realism of a single parent struggling to cope with todays society and also shows what it is like for a child/teenager to be brought up in these conditions.

the existing trailer which we discovered called "This Life" also shoes the realism in todays society and has the main story lines running through it as we first thought of before researching exiting work. This trailer is similar to the ideas we have in mind and we would be able to produce our interpretation of it whilst mixing other ideas into it with the minimum budget we have. 

week 3!

This week we have finalised all decisions.  We have planned our main plot and ordered the senses. We have also allocated specific job roles as to which areas of constructed the soap trailer we are best at. 

Job Roles:

• Director - Rebecca Smith (me)
• Main Camera operator - Lauren Coleman
• Editor - Lauren Coleman/Rebecca Smith 
• Story boarder - Lauren Coleman/Rebecca Smith 
• Script Writer - Lauren Coleman/Rebecca Smith 
• Shot List - Lauren Coleman/Rebecca Smith 
• Producer- Lauren Coleman/Rebecca Smith 

For many of our job roles we are working together as we are a small group and get inspired from each others ideas creating a good blend. 

Characters:

• Alcoholic Teacher - Mrs griffiths 
• alcoholic Teacher's daughter/ pregnant teenager - Me
• Potential father 1 - Lloyd Glass
• Potential father 2 - Jordan
• Drug dealer 1 - Steve
• Drug dealer 2 - Lloyd Glass 

Story lines 

When Brain storming story lines we came up with a number of different story lines and picked the ones which we think would be the best for us to create with our budget. the story lines consist of; an alcoholic teacher who's daughter becomes pregnant, there are many potential fathers whom of which come from various different back grounds and we also include social realism of poverty and dug use backgrounds. We firstly watched a trailer for Skins and had inspiration for our story lines to be centred around a reckless teen party. We no longer have this idea in mind as we feel it would be out of our budget and we would be unable to get enough actors and actresses on board. 

South Philly - trailer

Watching this trailer I don't like that it is set in the 60's but I like thebuse of the captions added. This is an aspect I would look to caryout in my sopap opera teaster trailer.

Eastenders - Hurricane Sharon trailer

I have watched this advert for inspiration and to see what other existing soap opera trailers are out and what coeds and conventions people use. I like the way in which people move slower than normal and the abnormality in the East London weather which represents the storm on the arisen in the characters lives. I like the use of the close up camera shots showing the characters facial expressions but i find it weird that all the women in the advert are in dresses and summer clothes when they are in the middle of a storm. This could show people are unaware of something big which is about to happen. I don't like the way the advert looks too fake as in you can tell it's all especial effects. 

Week 2!

This week we arranged who was going to work in each group and started to brain storm all of our ideas. As a class we also watched various teaser trainers via youtube. I found that doing this helped me to properly understand the brief and start to discover the codes and conventions of typical TV soap opera teaser trailers. 
In our group we each created a Time Plan in which we are going to follow.

All dates are to be completed in 2012.

This is what Lauren and I brain stormed.

At home I then continued my individual research to further my knowledge my researching other existing soap opera teaser trailers.    

Research - Lesson One

The best was to research is to see first hand how big production companies actually go about filming. 

Our A2 media class were fortunate enough to go down the the Being Human film set to watch them film and meet people from every different department. We were lucky enough to meet Phil Davies,  the director, wardrobe mistress, make up artist, sound, lighting and camera man and also the main person in charge of everyones safety. We were able to ask everyone different questions and get good advice in all areas. The area which most shocked me was the Health and safety as i wasn't aware how detailed it had to be and how responsible the company has to be over everyones well being. In order for us to gain a greater understanding of the health and safety officer's job she gave us copy of her portfolio so that we can see all the main aspects involved in keeping everyone safe and all of the different procedures you have to go through when someone has an injury. If these procedures weren't in place the company could be sued for thousands. v

 I gained a lot from this experience which i can now carry on to my Soap Opera advert such as, care for the environment i am shooting in, ensure everyone is safe and not at harm, don't stick to the same shots, be careful with the props you use as they all have a meaning and are there for a purpose and lastly, even when you think you have the perfect shot still go back and do it again for a final time. 

I also saw how they would film senses such as someone jumping out of a window using a green screen.  After being shown around all areas of the set the director explained to us how the camera can fool us and said that they were originally looking for a hotel on Barry Island see front but couldn't find a suitable location and that is why they chose the Mardy Hotel in Pencoed instead. In order to keep their continuity they have built a 20ft wooden replica of the hotel lobby on Barry Island sea front, this allows them to shoot shots of characters entering and leaving the hotel giving the allusion that it is all at Barry Island sea front.They also put a fake front on the Mardy Hotel so that people can see clearly that it is Barry based.

Actionmedics
Actionmedics are a team of nurses which work on film sets but instead of waiting around to report accidents they are more active and prevent them from happening. They have to always we aware of what is going on and filling detailed risk assessments in order to minimise risks. There are also certain things that the team have to carry one them from first aid kits and dressings to medical drugs.