Cliffside Trailer

Existing Media - Charlotte's Influences.

The main character within our trailer is young teenager Charlotte. Charlotte is a representation of the stereotype, ‘troubled young woman’ – taking influence from a range of well-known soap characters.

Lucy Beale, a current teenager in soap, Eastenders is one of a character that influenced the creation of Charlotte. Similar to Charlotte she is “stuck between two worlds” (words taken from Charlottes monologue within the trailer) however deals with it by rebelling. Beale has, throughout her time on Eastenders, already been involved in a number on relationships with various stereotypes of rebellious male teenagers such as a ‘Goth’ and ‘Chav’. One of her boyfriends was linked to drugs; this became an influence for Charlotte’s boyfriend Smithy. Lucy has also lost friends over her relationships and rebellion, another influence for Charlotte’s story shown within our trailer. The Beale family is a parallel to Charlottes family, both thinking there ‘above’ the rest of the community in class and power and push their children into academia. However, Charlotte and Lucy differ due to Lucy’s eccentricity; we wanted the audience to sympathise with Charlotte and therefore made her less angry and rebellious. Within the program the symbolic code will be used to develop Charlottes unhappy, controlling home life in comparison to her dangerous and exciting freedom she gains whilst being around her boyfriend and friends to denote to the audience the difference in the two worlds she lives in and her struggle to fit it.

Libby Fox is another key influence of Charlotte’s from Eastenders. Libby represents the stereotypical female, A grade student with Christian morals and a caring heart. We chose this influence for Charlotte as although she does not retain Christian morals she is an A grade student with a caring heart, which shows a more mature and committed side to her, which is not portrayed in the trailer. We chose to use Libby’s good qualities within Charlotte so that the audience would sympathise from with the character when things begin to turn dramatically wrong.

Although the trailer alludes to domestic violence between Charlotte and her boyfriend this was a theme we chose to portray due to current social issues in modern Britain. Domestic violence is an issue that is becoming increasingly recognised in Britain, especially within teenage relationships; like Charlotte and Smithy it is often associated with drug use. We chose this issue as we wanted to include a theme that was relatively new to soap operas, and raise awareness for a crime becoming increasingly noticeable in current media and campaigns. We chose this as after our research into soap operas it Is clear that although they are a form of entertainment they also inform and educate; “ vehicle that can not only entertain but educate” Watching Daytime Soap Operas – The Power of Pleasure Louise Spence. Soap operas are constantly recognised and noticed for raising awareness on controversial, current issues and commended on their compassionate, realistic portrayals.

By choosing for character Charlotte to fall pregnant and consider suicide we took influence from a character Katy Harris in the early 2000’s of Coronation Street, a girl who fell pregnant after a range of difficult situations in her life. She argued abortion inside her head for a long time due to her worry about whether her partner would stand by her, this is a direct influence to Charlotte. Katy in the end choses abortion and then realises she’s made the wrong decision, this was something we did not include in Charlottes story as we did not think it was fitting with her character. As she is a clever, intelligent student we realised that unlike Katy she would not make any rash decision. However, also like Katy Charlotte commits suicide because of all the trauma she has endured. Although Charlotte does not have an abortion, like Katy her pregnancy is a huge influence on her death as she chose’s to die with her baby because although she wants to continue her pregnancy she no-one to support her.

We chose to use such memorable and controversial influences for our main character Charlotte was this meant we had proof they worked. We further developed the character to keep things fresh and interesting for our audience, and portray a range of current issues to educate and raise awareness. Our method behind using such a traumatic opening storyline, based all around one teenage girl is that it will attract a large percentage of audience through sympathy. The trailer has been produced in a way which instigates a relationship between audience and character whilst with-holding information that they have to watch the program to find.

Design Process - The use of the programs

This course has worked through the use of three key adobe programs: Indesign: Photoshop and Premier Elements 3. My skills in each program have developed since the beginning of the course, especially the print based programs and I now feel competent in using all three programs.

I have previously used the program Premier Elements 3 during my AS coursework and therefore had a basic understanding of how to operate the program before we began editing. However, throughout the course I have learnt a variety of new editing techniques which were helped along by my further knowledge in film e.g. the aesthetics of a finished piece. Some of the new skills I have learnt include speeding and slowing shots, an example of this is the tracking shot along the high street within the opening montage, which has been speed up (see right image). Within the montage in Charlotte’s bedroom, various shots have been slowed down to emphasise her emotional state, creating a tense atmosphere. Another technique I have learnt and used within the trailer is the manipulation of transitions, making them longer or shorter, allowing the continuity of the trailer to flow appropriately to the pace. The mock CCTV shots used within the trailer also demonstrate more advanced skills, the numbers run up accurately in seconds in the left corner and one shot uses a screen spilt into four (see left image). I learnt a lot about sound manipulation within the A2 coursework, something I had little experience with, I learnt as I worked trying and varying a range of sound editing techniques until finding one that did not disrupt the continuity of the trailer, and created the appropriate atmosphere. I hope that my improved skills will work in my advantage to make the trailer look professional and unique, therefore attracting a larger audience.

Photoshop was another program I had basic, knowledge on from previous use. Photoshop was the program that we used the least, using it mainly to isolate text from its background meaning it could be transported straight onto our poster or magazine cover. I also used Photoshop to change the colour of my text and create some of the shapes used within the magazine cover, such as the star puffs in the bottom left corner.  

Indesign was a program that prior to the course I had no experience in using. At first I found it really hard to operate, struggling to create the mock magazine covers I practised on. Once I began to work on our own magazine cover the basic became easy to use. Primarily my main confusion was the different layers you have to create and use, however through the use of trial and error I managed to improve my skills and actually found that the use of layers made using the program easier when trying to delete or move an object. Another advantage of using Indesign is the frames you use to paste in your picture, the circular frames allowed me to incorporate a circular theme on our magazine cover, connoting life and death – a theme linked with the main feature. The layers and frames allowed me to manipulate our main image so that it fit the visible frame at the bottom but was layered over the visible frame at the top (see left image). The program also allowed me to create a highlight and shadow around text, a technique I used to make the media appear more professional (see right image).