Start of Soaps

Soaps

Eastenders                                                                        

         

Coronation Street

Emmerdale

Home and Away                                      

  

Hollyoaks

The Bill

Holby City

Neighbours                                 

Casualty

I personally think that the role of soaps is to engage families and friends and to give the audience a wide range of personalities, so there is something for everyone, as some of the characters are funny, some are nasty etc. Also, the audience may feel as though they can relate to the characters in the soap, and therefore enjoy their actions a lot more.

However, many people think of soaps as a female genre. I personally disagree with this statement, however I am able to see why people would think that. The reasons could include that they stereotypically have more time on their hands to be able to watch such programmes, and the reason I think most is so that they can discuss and gossip about it with their friends. 

In class, we watched an episode of Eastenders to try and see how they manage to make the audience remember things that have happened in the past. 

- Charlie Slater lists history in an argument with Kat Slater. 

- The use of the characters names. For example, on the character 'Minty's phone', it reads 'Sam Calling' to let the audience know that there is something going on between the two. 

Camera work

- Close up of Kat Slater which shows the anger on her face, tension and the relationship with the person that she is talking to. 

- The previous example is also shown through two shots

Editing

- Shot-reverse-shots are also used a lot in Eastenders, and this is to show the two people having a conversation, and can show the tension between them too. 

- Eastenders tend to use a lot of simple cuts in their production. 

- Cross-cutting is also used a lot in this soap, as well as all the others, and this shows you what is happening else-wear in the community. 

Sound

- Most of the sound in Eastenders is diegetic, as it is pretty much people talking and having conversations. 

- In this episode of Eastenders I also noticed a sound-bridge, which is when you hear the sound before the clip. An example of this is when everyone is in church for Baby George's christening, but then you hear Stacey Slaters voice shout 'My Baby', and then it cross-cuts to the Slater house. 

Locations

- Soaps tend to have the obvious locations that you would normally find in any town or community, such as houses, pubs, parks etc. 

- However, there was a christening in this episode of Eastenders, which obviously took place in a Church. This is a different type of location because not everyone would feel comfortable in such a place. This location also helps as many of the different characters went into that location with their own problems, such as Max Branning having trouble with his girlfriend, Heather with Baby George, Minty with his female problems etc.