Hollyoaks is a British Soap Opera, an example of Fiction: TV Drama. Conventionally a soap opera on a commercial station will have the following narrative structure:
1 A 30 second intro is used to get the audience ready to watch at a predictable time. For example, Hollyoaks has a regular slot on a commercial channel with 7 minutes allowed for ad breaks – 6.30-700 Adverts are what generate profit for Lime Pictures and Channel 4/E4.
2 Camera angles and movements which help to tell the story in an overt way. Establishing shots are used at the start of each new scene and then close up angles to show emotion. An example of this from the Wedding Crash episodes in 2012 were that we saw an establishing shot of two vehicles racing down a country track, then we saw very fast cuts of less than a second each of the two drivers realising that they were going to crash into one another.
3 Multiple storylines with very short scenes with fast cuts between each. An example of this was that there were two weddings – one a gay couple and one an older couple who had been married before. The older bride was not convinced that she should get married and we had over the shoulder shots of her repeating her wedding vows into the mirror and it was obvious that she was unhappy, and this cut to the happy wedding of the young gay men who had finally been able to make things work out.
4 Cliffhangers (2 per episode – one at the ad break and one at the end of the episode). An example from the Wedding Crash scenes were that the cars crashed just before the ad break and the audience didn’t know what would happen next. They kept tuning in to see the aftermath. Again at the end of the episode things were much more serious and there was debris and shouting. As the screen faded to a silent black the audience knew that someone had died but would have to tune in the next day to find out which character had gone.
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The use of colour and camera angles help to shape the audiences understanding of what is going on in all the different stories. – white is used to show the innocence of the little girl about to be knocked down and white is used to show that the bride looks stereotypical even if she has behaved badly by having an affair. Black is used to foretell death of various characters such as Ruby’s bf. The very quick cuts between characters and action sequences keep the audience on their toes. In the Hollyoaks Wedding Crash episodes some cuts were less than a second between one person driving and the other in a different vehicle. This gave the audience the impression that they were in the car with the other driver and seeing the view that the person about to crash would see. Furthermore the stereotype of the bully had been developed over months and when she runs away in a cowardly fashion and then the camera shot implies that a piece of the exploding car is coming down on her head, that reinforces the audiences dislike of her so that they feel pleased when she dies. The bully was often shot in such a way that the audience at home knew more than the characters about how she was behaving. She often wore black which has connotation of evil and was dressed in black in this episode. This contrasted with a little girl wearing white who ran out in front of the racing vehicles as she represented innocence. The bully, Maddie, often seemed angelic to the adults and her friends on screen but was mercilessly ruining the life of a weaker character getting the blame for the things Maddie did. Sometimes the characters had been filmed through bushes or with people walking in front of the camera so it seemed like the audience were part of the show. It is almost like a pantomime when a nasty character has few redeeming features like Maddie so the audience feels justified in feeling pleasure at her death.
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Hollyoaks has a mostly teenage and young adult audience. Their needs and expectations are met through the use of recognisable characters and situations that they will be familiar with in real life. Soap operas like Hollyoaks show major life events so that the audience feels a real connection as “their life is like mine”. Non-diegetic sound is often used in Hollyoaks to set the mood and give the audience a clue about what is going to happen. The lyrics in a soundtrack may often foreshadow something about to happen. In the Hollyoaks wedding in November 2013 the song playing on the soundtrack was “Cheating” by English soul singer and musician John Newman and this gave a clue that one of the characters was going to find out that the other had cheated so the wedding would be called off. The characters also use mobile phones at the start of the episodes to send messages to one another and this helps the audience who might have missed the previous episode to catch up with what is going on very quickly. In the Wedding Crash 2012 episodes we see an over-the-shoulder shot being used as a bride repeats her vows over and over towards the mirror and the audience immediately knew she was having second thoughts. The mirror image tells the audience that there is something “not quite right” and this foreshadows the sad events to come later on. This scene was juxtaposed with the first gay wedding in UK soap history where the two male characters looked so delighted to be getting married. The younger characters had decided to drive off and elope because they had caught “wedding fever” and this eventually led to the dramatic scenes where a car full of teens crashed through the wedding marquee causing mayhem and destruction. Cliff-hangers were used to keep the audience watching as it was not clear who would survive and if the secrets and lies of some characters would be revealed at the moment of death. The episode faded to a silent black screen but we were still not sure which characters had died. As many storylines arc at different times, it means that the audience keeps on tuning in and for this reason even the newest soap opera in the UK has been broadcast five times a week since 1995.
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The institution needs to make a profit but also comply with the law: that the ad breaks before/in the middle/at the end of the episode generate income for both Lime Pictures and Channel 4/E4 which show the soap opera. The audience figures were less than 850,000 in 2012 and have risen to over 1.1 million. The regular slot comes at 6.30 on Channel 4 and there is a “first look” episode at 7 on E4. Both of these appeal to the audience as they can go easily to back-to-back episodes and Lime Pictures know that they need to comply with the law as both slots are before the watershed. Any episodes which need to deal with overt sexuality, violent death or drugs are shown as “Later” episodes which are shown around 10 at night. “Hollyoaks Later” specials tend to be on every night for a week but are additional storylines so that those who are considered too young do not need to know exactly what has happened. Hollyoaks tries to engage with their young audience differently to more traditional soaps like Coronation Street. They have a website where is it possible to watch missed episodes. The actors who play the roles also have twitter accounts where they talk about what exciting events are coming up. Unusually for a soap opera, Hollyoaks makes “behind the scenes” episodes and shows how important episodes like the crash were filmed. They also run trailers on E4 and Channel 4 to show that something important is “not to be missed”. This all helps to raise the audience numbers shown in BARB. Advertising revenue is calculated on the size of the live viewing audience so when the figures of these weeks are used, it means that Channel 4 can charge more for adverts to appear. Increasing audience share also happens when people watch online on 4OD or on a “Demand” or “Catch-up” service on their TVs. All of this helps to earn more money while still being legal.
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Hollyoaks developed the gay romance and wedding over several months. This plotline was important because there had been no gay weddings in British soap before and there was a lot of anti-gay marriage debate in other sections of the media, such as the Daily Mail. As the audience watched two regular characters falling in love and deciding to get married their sexuality was not a barrier to the audience understanding that the desire to make a commitment to another person is a universal hope. Soap operas are good at showing that deep down people are “just like us” and whether the person is typical or atypical that common desire should unite us rather than divide us. Because a drama developed over months can take the time to look at all the prejudices and expectations of various stereotypical characters, it can reach out to an audience in the way that a documentary or a one-off drama might not. A soap opera is a good vehicle for swaying public opinion in favour of what changes the media might want to bring about. It only works when the audience has grown to care about the characters and are entertained by their trials, tribulations and triumphs.
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