PLANNING - Soap Preliminary Task + Evaluation:

A2 Media Studies – Soap Preliminary Task:

Evaluation:

The next task was to film and edit a section of a soap, based on a particular section of a soap of our choice. This task was undertaken in groups.

• Planning:

In my opinion, the planning of our section of a soap went well. Firstly, we chose an existing soap to base our soap on. We chose a café scene from an episode of EastEnders, because the location was realistic, and there wasn’t too many characters. After this, we wrote a script, based on the script in the existing soap. We then allocated roles. The first roles that we allocated, were those of actors. We discussed this, and then allocated 4 people from within our group to act. I played the role of an extra, 2 male characters in our group played the characters of Alfie and Michael, and a female in our group played the character of Cat. After this, we decided on who would be the main director of our scene, although every member of the group had directorial input. We did not need to choose one person to film the scene, as we all had the chance to operate the camera.

The next task was to choose a location for our soap. This was important, because it needed to be realistic, as we were filming within the grounds of our College. Because of this, we chose a café scene, as it was possible to vaguely replicate this at College. We finally decided on using the staff room at our College as our location, which contained some of the mise en scene of a café. In my opinion, the canteen resembled a café more so than the staff room, however, the canteen was always busy, so it would have been impractical to film there.

• Filming:

In my opinion, the filming of our soap went fairly well. We chose to film the scene a few lines at a time, because it would have been unreasonable to expect the actors to learn a lengthy script. We tried to film each section from a variety of different camera angles. However, we did not film each scene from enough camera angles, so when it came to editing the soap, there is not much continuity, as the camera angles change too much from section to section. In my opinion, if we were doing this again, we could film more establishing shots, and use more of a variety of camera angles. So, when it came to editing, the shots would not change too much, from section to section.

Despite some problems, overall, the filming went fairly well. Firstly, we divided roles. We allocated the roles of direcors and actors. Despite this, because of the number of people in the group, we shared some roles. For example, whilst the director was obtaining a master shot, another member of the group would be obtaining a shot from a different angle. Throughout this task, I became more and more familiar with the features of a video camera, which I found helpful.

• Editing:

After planning and filming, we each edited our own version of the soap, using Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0. I encountered some problems whilst completing this task. The first thing that I needed to do, was to download each of the scenes into the editing software. This went well, as I used an external hard drive. Because of this, I bypassed any potential problems with downloading straight onto a computer.

I then edited my own version of the soap. The first problem that I encountered, was with continuity. Because we filmed each section of the scene individually, certain things changed from scene to scene. For example, between scenes, the position of one of the actor’s arms was an issue, because it kept changing from scene to scene. This meant that my edited version of the soap did not flow as I would have liked it to, as the arm positions kept changing. Another continuity issue was with lighting. The lighting was changing from scene to scene, because we were next to a window. This meant that some scenes were in dark lighting, and some were in very bright lighting. If I was to do this again, I would have discussed allocating someone in the group, the role of maintaining continuity. In this instance, I somewhat forgot about it.

The next problem that I had whilst editing the soap, was with title cards. I wanted to edit in a title card for my version of the soap, to set the scene. I had difficulty doing this, because I did not find any of the preset title cards suitable. Further to this, I did not have time to create my own, so I had to settle for a preset title card, which was, in my opinion, unsuitable. If I was to do this task again, I would allocate more time to editing, so that I could have more time to create my own title card, using desktop publishing software.

The problem that I had with title cards was similar to the problem that I had with sound – none of the preset sounds were, in my opinion, suitable, but, because I did not allocate anytime to find my own, I had to settle for a preset sound. Also, in terms of sound, background noise is a problem in my soap. This is unavoidable, but, if I would have allocated myself more time to edit, I could have maybe inserted a soundtrack over the top of my soap, to disguise any background noise.

For details of how I edited the soap preliminary task, and uploaded it to YouTube, please see evaluation question 4.