The Industry - Soap Conventions

Soap Conventions

• Producers always think very carefully about mis-en-scene making sure it is as realistic as possible by focusing on costume and setting.
• The lighting is always as natural as possible in connection to the place and time, ensuring the soap looks realistic.
• Soaps focus on communities and how each person has their own role to play in each community.
• A variation of characters is always used, different ages, genders and races are included to make sure the theory absence presence is not picked up on and to avoid what the viewers could interpret discrimination.
• Common stereotypes are used but in reverse countertypes must also be used in order to keep the audience interested and guessing. A recent example is Syed from Eastenders, a homosexual Muslim.
• Stock characters such as villains, heroes, nosey old women and business men are used in soaps to portray wide varieties of the population. It also helps the audience become emotionally attached to the characters, allowing them to form feelings and opinions about them.
• The storylines are always realistic yet focus on the more dramatic elements of real life such as weddings and arguments. Soaps often have three to five storylines running parallel to each other at one time.
• Soaps are often commended for raising awareness on the more serious issues of human nature such as homosexuality and HIV.
• Soaps are based primarily based around relationships and feelings amongst their characters.
• Soaps are often on around prime time, in between seven and nine, this can sometimes cause problems due to the watershed and the controversial storylines they often carry.
• Sound within soaps is mainly always diagetic, created from ambient sound and the characters dialogue. However, soundtracks can sometimes be used when a big storyline or significant event has happened. Soaps often use radio’s in the background to create a sense of atmosphere; they also use them as a technique of irony for example, on Eastenders, in the Queen Vic before the fire Sophie Ellis-Bextors song ‘Murder on the Dance Floor’ featuring the lyrics “gonna burn this god dam house right down” could he heard via the pub’s sound system.