A soap that breaks the broadcasting being 9pm convention is Night and Day. This soap broadcasts twice, once before the watershed and once at around midnight. By doing this they can include scenes of violence, nudity and swearing in the late broadcasting, which would not be allowed to be shown before 9pm. This would hopefully attract another different type of viewer, which would boost their ratings.
Storylines.
All soaps have multiple and continuous storylines, that usually intertwine which each other.
Many storylines don’t have resolutions, for example Marc in Eastenders has Aids and the story always pops into episodes, where he goes to get new drugs, has to tell his partners about it and recently he has been told there and no new drugs on the market for him.
All the time in soaps there are large and small plots and storylines happening. In one episode of Eastenders, I counted at least 8 or more storylines. The story lines are moderately realistic; they tackle many issues for their wide range of viewers. Some common storylines include pregnancies, abortions, death, disease, euthanasia, drug abuse and rape.
Cliffhangers
At the end of all episodes there is a cliffhanger, an enigma that is there to encourage you to watch the next episode. The most well used cliffhanger is when a character finds some bad news out; the viewer will have to watch the next episode to find out how that character takes the bad news, and what he or she will do about it.
Characters
In the very popular soaps there is always a wide range of strong characters. Characters usually cover a wide range of ages, races, religions, professions, stereotypes, backgrounds, relationships and more. For instance in Eastenders there are black white and Asian characters. Characters go from very young - Nitta’s children to old - Dot. There are teenagers, parents, doctors, landladies, market stall owners and more. As Eastenders is set in London, is has to represent the sort of people living there, for example there are a lot more ethnic minorities in London then in Emmerdale which is set in Yorkshire. Characters are seen as stereotypes, but on closer look they do have their own individual personalities. The older viewers tend to see past the stereotypes more then a newer viewer would.
Time
Time and seasons are parallel to those in read time. Some soaps are filmed as long as three months before they will be shown on TV so soaps go to a lot of trouble to make sure that the scenery looks like the season at the time. For example if the episode will be broadcasted on Christmas day the scenery will be arranged so that all the scenery looks like its winter. Christmas trees, cards and decorations are put up in private and public locations like homes, the café and the pub. The characters behavior and what they do would be the same as if it was Christmas day when they filmed. Characters will go to parties, open presents and would generally do anything that they would be doing on Christmas day. If it was autumn, the trees would be becoming bare and extra leaves will be placed in the outside scenery to reflect what the scenery would look like in the time of broadcasting.
Locations
In all soaps there are a range of different locations that will be filmed. All the locations can be placed into one of two categories, private and public. Private locations include characters houses, back rooms of bars and cafes. Public locations are places like pubs, cafes, markets and streets. The advantage of having these two types of locations is you can hold different types of conversations and actions in both. For example in public areas you can show people meeting and having public discussions. In private areas you can show love scenes and more, that wouldn’t be shown in a public scene like a pub.
Realism
Soaps are meant to seem very real for the audience so they go to a lot of trouble to make the soap as realistic as possible. The word mise en scene means everything that creates the scene, this is something very important to consider when making something realistic. For example some of the older soaps like crossroads had scenery and props that used to wobble, fall over and generally look unrealistic. Newer soaps such as Eastenders use partly real scenes (Albert Square) and partly made up scenes in the studio. Some soaps even go to the trouble of buying a whole street of houses to film in, to make it more realistic looking.
Although in convention soaps are meant to reflect real life, many of the storylines are very unbelievable, but they are essential to draw in more viewers.
