The Evaluation
My intention was to create a soap opera intended
for young adults aged 18 – 28. The show was inspired by TV drama Coronation Street as well as Skins, which influenced me to base the cast as college students and also film some scenes in college because I noticed that when Skins did it because of the familiar surroundings it was more relatable for the audience. Skins also inspired me when it came to dialogue, moving me to include slang and crude language. The show Gossip Girl inspired the whole he-said-she-said aspect of my show, I felt that the way they portrayed the spreading of rumors would be more interesting to my audience.
I wanted to follow as many soap opera conventions as possible, which is why I created a murder mystery who-dun-it plotline, where not only the characters are blaming one-another but the audience are also left guessing, until there is the unexpected twist at the end. In order to incorporate the Baudrillard; three strand/flexi-narrative theory into my show, I re-positioned the audience three times in the show, by putting them into three different scenes following three different people. This meant that I had to be cautious of the time and with a dialogue heavy production, it's easy to exceed the limit therefore I had to cut some parts of peoples conversation and I also decided to not include a flashback of how the girl in plot died and instead tried to create an enigma from it which was revealed at the end. However, I feel as though this change worked well for the story and I believe I managed to execute the swaps to the different scenes effectively so that there weren't just awkward jump-cuts. Although, I would have wanted to add more people's perspectives if I had the time.
The ending was quite awkward to edit. Some people understood the plot, while others were unsure about it and only got it once I stated my purpose and showed it to them a second time. What happens is that the victim's boyfriend who had just been beaten to a pulp and is heavily panting, looks across the room to see this girl hidden in the dark corner of the room.The camera then zooms into her face and then we see a flashback (her own flashback) of her getting drugs which were used to kill the victim. This is meant to act as an enigma with audience members and have them wondering what her motives were, which were only to be answered further into the episode. I believe if I had reshot the scene of the victim's boyfriend looking at her and made it more of a reaction shot, it would've looked much better.
While the narrative was something similar to typical soap operas, I wanted to create something unconventional to the genre which would be to make it modern and liberal, focusing on inclusivity. In order to have inclusivity I included different ethnicities and showcased a range of social classes through the register of certain characters. For example the bully had a low register, whereas the friend of the bully had a more normal/higher register with what was intended to also be shown as a more formal Cambridge dialect. The main point however was to include a cast that will not be portray their racial stereotypes, instead focusing on specific modern sensitive topics such as bullying, toxic relationships and drugs.
For my magazine I wanted to create convergence through the topic of this "new era of TV" where shows are more socially aware and are addressing these topics, but also the idea that actors/activist/ and just millennials in general are also addressing the need for this movement. This was reasoning of the main masthead which said "Millennials Speak Up and Show Out", and then at the side I included other well known millennials within the media who openly speak on said topics and would therefore resonate with the readers. Within the magazine Thisath and Rebecca are shown as the leaders of the movement and through the show they encourage other shows to do the same and since those certain topics are mentioned in the show they also mention how to overcome those challenges to the reader. Basically, I tried to portray the show as also being a movement for TV productions and also for those in society.
In terms of design, I was very much inspired by Glamour and Teenvogue, although I also had my own design in mind. I wanted to create something loud like the magazines I previously mentioned which is why the main masthead is bold and centred I at the bottom of the page. I also wanted to create something minimalist, which is why I stuck with a restricted colour palette and used only a selection of fonts. In terms of the pictures, I found photoshop difficult and wished that I was able to brighten the under eyes in certain pictures, however I do believe that they came out fairly well. Although, for the front cover I thought that it would look more like a conventional magazine if I put Rebecca's head of the font instead of having it go across her eyebrows. I wished that I could have executed that better so that only one word would have been covered but that was mainly an issue with the photo itself.
Overall, the process of creating the magazine was my favourite process mainly because it's something I would also want to do in the future. Even filming was a fun experience and knowing what I know now I believe that i could've definitely done a better job but i do still like what i created.
I wanted to follow as many soap opera conventions as possible, which is why I created a murder mystery who-dun-it plotline, where not only the characters are blaming one-another but the audience are also left guessing, until there is the unexpected twist at the end. In order to incorporate the Baudrillard; three strand/flexi-narrative theory into my show, I re-positioned the audience three times in the show, by putting them into three different scenes following three different people. This meant that I had to be cautious of the time and with a dialogue heavy production, it's easy to exceed the limit therefore I had to cut some parts of peoples conversation and I also decided to not include a flashback of how the girl in plot died and instead tried to create an enigma from it which was revealed at the end. However, I feel as though this change worked well for the story and I believe I managed to execute the swaps to the different scenes effectively so that there weren't just awkward jump-cuts. Although, I would have wanted to add more people's perspectives if I had the time.
The ending was quite awkward to edit. Some people understood the plot, while others were unsure about it and only got it once I stated my purpose and showed it to them a second time. What happens is that the victim's boyfriend who had just been beaten to a pulp and is heavily panting, looks across the room to see this girl hidden in the dark corner of the room.The camera then zooms into her face and then we see a flashback (her own flashback) of her getting drugs which were used to kill the victim. This is meant to act as an enigma with audience members and have them wondering what her motives were, which were only to be answered further into the episode. I believe if I had reshot the scene of the victim's boyfriend looking at her and made it more of a reaction shot, it would've looked much better.
While the narrative was something similar to typical soap operas, I wanted to create something unconventional to the genre which would be to make it modern and liberal, focusing on inclusivity. In order to have inclusivity I included different ethnicities and showcased a range of social classes through the register of certain characters. For example the bully had a low register, whereas the friend of the bully had a more normal/higher register with what was intended to also be shown as a more formal Cambridge dialect. The main point however was to include a cast that will not be portray their racial stereotypes, instead focusing on specific modern sensitive topics such as bullying, toxic relationships and drugs.
For my magazine I wanted to create convergence through the topic of this "new era of TV" where shows are more socially aware and are addressing these topics, but also the idea that actors/activist/ and just millennials in general are also addressing the need for this movement. This was reasoning of the main masthead which said "Millennials Speak Up and Show Out", and then at the side I included other well known millennials within the media who openly speak on said topics and would therefore resonate with the readers. Within the magazine Thisath and Rebecca are shown as the leaders of the movement and through the show they encourage other shows to do the same and since those certain topics are mentioned in the show they also mention how to overcome those challenges to the reader. Basically, I tried to portray the show as also being a movement for TV productions and also for those in society.
In terms of design, I was very much inspired by Glamour and Teenvogue, although I also had my own design in mind. I wanted to create something loud like the magazines I previously mentioned which is why the main masthead is bold and centred I at the bottom of the page. I also wanted to create something minimalist, which is why I stuck with a restricted colour palette and used only a selection of fonts. In terms of the pictures, I found photoshop difficult and wished that I was able to brighten the under eyes in certain pictures, however I do believe that they came out fairly well. Although, for the front cover I thought that it would look more like a conventional magazine if I put Rebecca's head of the font instead of having it go across her eyebrows. I wished that I could have executed that better so that only one word would have been covered but that was mainly an issue with the photo itself.
Overall, the process of creating the magazine was my favourite process mainly because it's something I would also want to do in the future. Even filming was a fun experience and knowing what I know now I believe that i could've definitely done a better job but i do still like what i created.
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