Primary ResearchSurvey Results

By Asuka Young candidate No: 4149 centre No: 64135

Q1

This question helps me to understand exactly what sort of information the audiences expect to see/hear in a trailer. In summary of the 11 people that answered was: the use of actions and dialogues to inform the audiences about the upcoming episodes, the multi-stranded narratives and drama. (including deaths and arguments). In other words, it is compulsory to have a range of characters to achieve this, and throughout the trailer I am going to introduce their characteristics, through mise-en-scene features such as actions. Attention grabbing dialogues are also important to emphasize a character one person said, which in my opinion, would have a lot of emotions through the dialogues to make the audience feel something in one way or another. Some people said that cliffhangers are an important factor too.  On the other hand, visually, two people said that quick cuts, close-up shots, strong use of lighting and locations can promote an audience appealing soap trailer as well. This means that there shouldn’t be shots with long duration, and the more different lightings and locations are used, the more interesting / informative the trailer will be.

What are the conventions of a soap opera trailer, in terms of visual and oral conventions?

Q2What do you think of the gender roles in soap

operas? Are they stereotypical?

This question lets me think about how to represent my chosen characters in the trailer. For example, 8/11 people agreed that there are stereotypical elements to gender roles in soaps, saying that it should be stopped and is taken quite negatively. However, some said that there are strong female characters (Rebecca Feasey - 2007) are often involved in the storyline, which leads to the fair representation of the female gender. In this respect, one person stated that when the characters are being portrayed stereotypically, they are to the extreme, and so is on the counter-stereotype. From this survey, I took it that some soaps are giving negative feelings to the audiences using stereotypes, so I would like to consider the possibility of counter-stereotypical characters, because they create a new. hence memorable characters. However, I don’t want them to be overly stereotypical/anti-stereotypical, as it may offend some audiences, but on the contrary Soaps are there for escapism and one of the factors may be to watch someone that has a more extreme personality than the audiences.

Q3What sort of information do you expect from a soap opera trailer?

This is probably the most important question, and it really helped me to consider overall, exactly what to include in my trailer, that the audiences wants to see. 6/9 responses stated that presenting the hinting of the upcoming narratives are important information of a soap trailer. As most people agreed, In my opinion that’s the purpose of the trailer, and therefore it is important to include multi-stranded narratives. Two people specified that disasters should be included in the trailer.  I will include some links to disasters / something going wrong, within the narrative. Other people stated that the mention of what channel it’s going to be streaming on and when is important too. For my view, there is no point in creating a trailer without these point of call, because it is impossible to get spectators without it. Lastly, one said that a cliff hanger can be another important element for a trailer. A cliff hanger can leave the audiences to a mystery, that they can only solve by watching the soap. In my trailer, I would like to leave the audiences with a cliff hanger.

Q4Rank the most common themes for a soap opera in your opinion.

From this chart, it came to a conclusion that conflict within relationships and conflict within families was the most common and perhaps, popular, theme for soap operas. In my opinion, this may be because it is the most ‘personally identifiable’ (Katz) everyday issue that audiences can relate to. The reason why the spectators often seek to relate to characters, is because they can sympathize for the character and have a feeling for the soap characters at a personal level. In my trailer, I would like to portray some scenes of everyday life, (relationships and family issues mainly) in order for the audiences to ‘personally identify’ (Katz) themselves with it, and for them to remember some of the characters.

Q5How does a soap opera appeal to teenagers?

I posed this question in order to find out how to target a segment of the audience as successfully as possible – Age, Gender (Hartley’s subjectivities). 7/10 people answered that there should be issues and narratives that they can ‘personally identify’ (Katz) with. One said that it helps having teen actors in the trailer. One said that in some cases, teenagers seek comfort in characters that they have a connection to. In the trailer, I would like to include (if it’s going to be targeting teenagers) some scenes with a range of emotions that teenagers can identify, using certain situations as reasons behind the emotions. Teen actors would be crucial if I am going to target these audiences.

Q6How does a soap opera appeal to adults from 20’s to 40’s?

This question was asked in order for me to know how to target adult and middle aged audiences (Hartley’s subjectivities). Again, 6/10 answered that typical story lines with middle aged issues are important. Some suggested that these issues can include family and finance issues. These kind of situations can lead into arguments between characters, resulting in conflict. This narrative could go into my trailer, as reasons for the characters to have arguments. One person stated that interesting settings, such as those of a historical drama and context like Downton Abbey, could be good for audiences of these age groups. Two people said that one of the purpose of these age groups watching soap operas is for ‘escapism’ (Diversion - Katz), and relaxation. Another stated that it is a release from everyday issues- which is the opposite to what other people said. However in my opinion, perhaps watching others’ suffering the same issues as the audiences are a form of escapism, knowing that they are not the only ones, or perhaps seeing them in the worse situations releases them from the pressure concerning everyday issues. In my trailer, I would like to use the typical middle aged conventions to attract this age group.

Conclusion

By Asuka Young

In conclusion of this survey, I will clearly present the narrative whether it’s linear or multi-stranded or not, that appeals to my target audiences (most likely to be middle aged group), perhaps with more than one themes, making prominent use of mise-en-scenes and editing. (As well as sound and cinematography). The way I am going to make this appeal to the male gender as well as females, are by including narratives that applies to the relatable feelings of a male gender, such as scenes of husband’s anxiety of his wife’s affairs and work scenes in terms of representing daily lives, but also having a good balance of happiness and struggles, as people answered that escapism (Katz) is an important element, as well as identification (Katz). This survey has clarified me with what I have to include in my trailer, and how to appeal to that the target audience.