Question 1 – how did you USE, DEVELOP or CHALLANGE codes

and conventions of real media products

Conventions of Soap opera’s

Reference to region where show is set, e.g. Coronation street Manchester, Eastenders, London.

Story lines focus on day-to-day life such as jobs, money, marriages, family problems. However big story lines appear every few months .

Soap operas are continual dramas, they run all year round and air a few times a week, sometimes more when a big story line is happening

Each episode of a soap is around 30 minutes long including 1 ad-break in-between.

Soap operas are usually left on a cliff hanger each episode, this encourages audiences watch the episode following.

Lighting is used to reflect mood of scene

Focus on stereotypes within characters, e.g. Sassy, feisty landlady of a pub. Hunk, evil character, loveable character.

Camera shot types that are usually used are:•Close ups•Medium close ups•Establishing shots

Multiple story lines in each episodes

Costumes and makeup tend to be quite minimalistic to make the characters seem normal, this shows the realism of the characters.

Lighting around the face to illuminate beauty.

Empty tables around to make sure all focus is on the characters.

Makes the locations seem exclusive and luxurious, promoting a life style many people would like but can’t afford

Set up scenes to make the lives seem interesting and to make a situation

Trailers like a fantasy so demonstrate the glamour of their lives

Show emphasises objects of desire making the audience want what the stars have

Scripted reality or structured reality as it is also known, is a television series that has real people in that are not playing characters, that live real lives. Cameras and film crews follows the stars of the show around, filming there day to day lives, however some of the scenes and situations are set up for the enjoyment of the viewers.

Scripted reality conventions

Media productThe media product I made was a scripted reality TV trailer, however

as a group we decided that we wanted to produce a parody, we developed the conventions of scripted reality TV as we exaggerated scenes, dialogue, posers and costumes. We did this to make the trailer seem ridiculous and funny. We made the parody by exaggerating dialogue as well

The only way is Essex is famous for its phrases, such as ‘well jel’ ‘reem’ ‘shat up’. In my group we decided we wanted to play on this, we come up with a few different names that we could use, we thought about mancunian way, well manc or well jel. However we decided because we set our trailer in Manchester, we wanted to call it something with relevance to the location, like the shows the only way is Essex and also Made in Chelsea .We decided to go with well manc as it plays on the only way is essex phrase well jel which it is famous for, we also thought that well manc fitted in well with our parody.

Coming up with the name of the parody

Conventions of scripted reality storylines

Fights

Love triangles

cat fights

glamour Fake boobs

and features

Objects of desire Group

rivalries

Love rat friendships

Gossip

humour

Drama

In scripted reality, storylines are always based around real life situations, however they are usually exaggerated at set up. Characters are filmed doing their day-today-day lives, there are usually dramas involved where the characters will have an argument or gossip with friends. Everything is dramatised to make the lives of the characters seem exciting, and encourages viewers to aspire to be like the characters.

Stereotypes of scripted reality stars

One of the main stereotypes of a Scripted reality character is the accent from where the show is located, one of the main features of most scripted reality shows include where about the show is set. The accent and status and class defies what kind of area the stars are from. For example in Made in Chelsea; the fact that it is set in Chelsea means that already the audience will understand that the stars will be from very rich families and will be very wealthy. However, both stars are dressed reasonably smartly and can both be considered as good looking, wealthy men. Both stars will be idolised for being on the show and therefore female audiences may lust after the stars, and male stars may aspire to be/look like them.

Orange/fake tan

Dressed smart in a suit

Styled hair Confident pose

using codes and conventions of my media product: characters

For my media product I tried to make my characters match the ones of the show ‘the only way is Essex’ so that they fitted into the theme with scripted reality, however , my media product was a parody so we decided to exaggerate costumes and scenes to make the storylines seem silly. However, we did follow many of the same conventions that the only way is Essex follow, they were just more dramatised and ridiculous.

In my trailer we used exaggerated costumes to show the same conventions used in the only way is Essex. By dressing up the characters in ‘tacky’ clothing and dressing them ridiculous I am following codes and conventions as well as developing them in the style of a parody as they are being dramatised.

Matching leopard print clothing with lots of makeup

Goggles that have no relevance to the storyline

Q1- similarities and differences between my magazine and an existing magazine

My magazine An existing magazineBoth magazines have Similar texts, fonts and

imageBlack and white/greyscale images make stars look more glamorous, features stand out meaning that black and white pictures stars features look better and more

beautiful. Quote from star on the cover giving taster of what the interview would

containFeatures on side of magazine highlighting what else the magazine

contains e.g. posters, fashion featuresEven though we based the magazine we made on that particular edition, there

are some differences:

My magazine was made slightly more cheesier (pose/clothing) as opposed to the existing magazine that looks classy, as the star’s pose look as though he's staring at th3e audience, smartly dressed as well as quote that makes the star seem nice and genuine, however we made our star look slightly arrogant as his quote states he can have ‘the pick of any girl he fancied’ this is also part of our parody theme as it dramatises the codes and conventions of scripted reality TV.

My media product against an existing one- green screen

the opening g of both mine and the only way is Essex's opening scene of the trailer is a character who is dressed quite smartly counting down from 5, in the TOWIE trailer, the character ‘arg’ mess’s up the counting and starts again, this uses the convention of a scripted reality star as stereotypically scripted reality stars are shown as unintelligent, therefore we played on this and had our star say ‘is that right?’ at the end of it make it seem he is also unintelligent. The fact that both stars have to count down with their fingers also suggest that the stars are unintelligent.

Having a number of people in the trailer saying ‘ummmm’ once again implies the low level of intellegancy, it also shows that the stars cannnot think on the spot and therefore have to be told what to say or have to be given time in order to come up with an answer to a question.

Having a scene set in McDonalds develops the codes and conventions of a scripted reality parody, we decided to shoot a scene here as it is seen as a tacky place as it serves fast food, and is very cheap. As characters in the only way is Essex seem to go to posh places even though they are seen as ‘tacky’ people, we thought this would add humour to our media trailer.

Close up shots are used frequently in TOWIE. In this scene there is about to be a fight and it has jump cuts to each star to build tension. The shots get closer and closer to show the fight is escalating, to add on to the tension of the scene and show that something is about to happen and add to the drama.

Then the scene quickly cuts to an establishing shot of the drink being thrown to show the fight has come to a end.