Codes & Conventions In Soaps

In the U.K. for the last 20 years or so, soap opera's have become the most watched programes on television.
On average, Soaps attract between 8-9 million veiwers a night, so it's important the producers get the show perfect before they broadcast out on air.



One of the most popular soaps in the United Kingdom is Eastenders which has been running for 27 years next February. Eastenders broadcasts every weekday, except for Wednesday and usually attracts the most viewers on weeknights beating rival English soaps, Coronation Street, Emmerdale & Hollyoaks in the ratings. Eastenders is also one of the biggest and most popular long running shows on the BBC.

The longest running soap in the U.K. is Coronation Street which first broadcast on 9th December 1960. After Coronation Street, Emmerdale is the next longest running followed by Eastenders then lastly Hollyoaks which began in 1995.

   

Codes have an effect with what you think and how you feel whilst watching a film, a televison drama or a soap.

Here, I am going to look at the codes and conventions in soap operas.

Some things to expect are known as conventions.

The Conventions in soaps are:
- Cross Cutting in scenes                        - Different camera shots to show reactions
- Affairs of married characters                - Death of well established characters
- Murders (usually a who done it)           - Mystery that viewers know that characters don't
- Meeting places such as a Pub, Cafe     - Cliff hangers (usually end of episodes, mainly Eastenders)
- Recognisable themes for openening      - Gossips (usally older characters like Dot in Eastenders)
- Villain and a bad guy                             - The soap Bitch (character like Janine Butcher)

 These characters had an affair in Eatenders.

The codes in soaps are:
Cliffhangers - This leaves a viewer on the edge of their seat wanting to know what is going to happen and leaves them feeling excited to the next episode. The audience of a soap expects this when an episode ends to get them excited for the next. Eastenders are usually best for cliffhangers and episodes continuing from the previous to the next.

Dialouge - The audience expects dialouge in soaps, as that is the main way the community's comunicate. It is always use as characters speak to each other but used in other ways to. For example, characters spread gossip about one another as word spreads around the town/street everyone finds out and always has an opinion.

Themesong - Each soap has tehir own theme song so it is easily recognisable to viewers and stands out. For example most television watchers will know the Eastenders themesong.


I am now going to look at and analyse two extracts of Coronation Street from the past.

The First Extract is from 1961.

At the beginning when the theme song was playing, the opening credits for Coronation Street were black and white, and looked quite a boring area. The houses were packed showed poverty. All around the street, the apperence was dull, cloudy and misty. By the look of it, it showed the street wasn't really cared about. You could see a factory, which indicated that the characters on Coronation Street work in there so they don't earn much money. The paves were not like London, as they were run down and coulerless. The cobbles on the pavement and roads were also looking chipped and very out of date and not cared about. This shows the audience that Coronation Strret is not really a street where rich people live in and work needs to be done.
Once the opening titles were over, the first scene of the soap had wobbley camera movements and was not steady, unlike how Coronation Street is today. This shows that it was oldern days, because they didn't have the technology, camera equipment and money to make the shots smooth. They had an ensomble shot which showed the first convention, they were at a pub. That is a convention because it is a meeting place for the characters. In the pub, it showed a group of characters talking over each other. It then cuts to a shot of two women arguing in the street attracting passers by and the people in the pub to come out and watch what is going on. There are no close up shots used, it is just one shot, looking at the group as a whole watching, and the two woman arguing facing each other. One of the woman arguing is not a big woman, but she is shown in a low angle shot to make her look big and imtimidating to whom she is arguing with. Lastly from the 1961 extract there is a shot of the crowd to show what character is on who's side, and it shows support for the woman on the left.

The next extract i will be analysing is from 1979

In the opening sequence 18 years later from extract 1, Cornation Street has a bit more colour than before. It still shows that it is quite dull and grim though because the colour pallet is grey. Grey is quite a boring colour when wanting to make something look nice. The houses still remain looking tight packed. There is a cat that is sitting on one of the sheds alone and still which shows lonliness and shows Coronation Street as a street has a boring atmosphere just looking at the street they live in, even though they have interesting characters living there. It shows a simple title showing the words 'Coronation Street' in white writing. To make it more interesting and appealing, i think they should have the writing have some colour to it like Hollyoaks does. A positive change though from extract 1 is that there is more camera movement in the first scene when the title sequence has finished. There is a silence to build atmosphere and shows one character who clearly should not be where he is. The shot they used to film it looks more like a movie as British film makers in the 1970's used this technique to film their films in the olden days. A difference is a close up shot is used on the man in the scene to show his expression, and he is clearly looking for something or someone and is where he shouldnt be. The silence of this scene builds up tension and creates intrest for the audience watching. The next part of the scene, we see a little, vulenrable old man who is clearly shocked and confused to find the man in his house and confirms to the audience he should not be in fact in that house. The pictures frames the old man has around the house immidentaly makes us feel sorry for him to show he is lonley and dont have much family around him in person.