Ligher Moments

As EastEnders is a soap opera, portraying lighter moments as well as dramatic moments is essentially needed to reflect the realism of contemporary society, as life is not always dramatic. Therefore, elements of heartwarming moments along with subtle humor effectively show the buildup of character relations. In addition, as these valuable scenes give the characters a persona, it allows the audience to grow with them and witness their life as though they are real life people. For example, the clip below showing Ricky, Bianca and the children having a food fight is effective in proposing the lighter elements of family life within the community.

Dramatic Moments

Due to EastEnders focusing mainly on social realism, viewers are instinctively made to feel connected to the characters and the storylines indulged within the soap. In life, dramatic experiences are faced by everyone, which is why dramatic elements are required in soaps to reflect everyday life. An example of a dramatic event in EastEnders is when Max and Stacey’s affair is exposed of Christmas day in 2007. Whilst the Slater-Brannings all gathered around the television to watch Bradley and Stacey’s wedding DVD, which contained the footage of Stacey and Max’s final kiss in the Brannings' bedroom shortly after she married Bradley. This resulted in the breakup of the marriages of Bradley and Stacey and Max and Tanya.

Heightened sense of drama

In order to keep the viewers entertained, a dramatic event is essential with the use of gradual increasing tension to reveal heightened sense of drama. The occurrence of these events is significant in making the soap a success. An example of this is the appearance of deception in Eastenders, where Angie lies to Den, telling him she only has six months to live.  

The audiences seem to have a birds-eye-view of the lives of all characters, almost seeming as though they are all powerful and all knowing. The fact that the truth of Angie’s lie is exposed to the audience makes them question themselves as to what may happen next when the lie is revealed to Den. This heightened event progressively builds up more tension, and may be promoted by the media through magazines and newspapers, showing that the soap effectively distributed dramatic tension.

Storylines

EastEnders was first broadcasted in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19th February 1985, and is still continuing today. The first episode began with the introduction of badly beaten Reg Coz, who later died in the next episode in Albert Square.      

The storylines for EastEnders explore the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London. This soap has been successful in terms of creating storylines which directly emphasize the issues of contemporary society. This is an effective element in proposing a soap opera based on a particular society with issues relating to that society, increasing the interests of the viewers.

Creator/producer Julia Smith declared that "We don't make life, we reflect it”. She also said, "We decided to go for a realistic, fairly outspoken type of drama which could encompass stories about homosexuality, rape, unemployment, racial prejudice, etc., in a believable context. Above all, we wanted realism".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastEnders#Social_realism)

For example, Arthur Fowler’s unemployment proposing the recession of the 1980s, the rape of Kathy Beale in 1988 by James Willmott-Brown, Michelle Fowler’s teenage pregnancy, Peggy Mitchell’s battle with breast cancer and Phil Mitchell’s alcoholism. Other issues include prostitution, domestic violence, drug addiction, euthanasia, homosexuality and Stacey Slater’s bipolar disorder, which won a Mental Health Media Award in September 2006.

These effective storyline, which reflect realism, keep the audience enticed, almost teasing the audience as to what may happen next. This is also successful with the use of cliff-hangers between episodes, as well as within episodes, where the story is slowly unfolding, creating suspense and tension.

Characters in Eastenders

Female characters are usually central to the program, as expected in traditional, British soaps. The characters tend to be strong, brassy and long-suffering, however, they seem to propose diva-like behavior and go through a lot of tragedy and misfortune. This includes characters such as Angie Watts, Kathy Mitchell, Sharon Rickman and Pat Evans.

  

Kathy Mitchell  

Pat Evans 

Sharon Rickman 

There are also female characters who do not handle tragedy as well, shown as eternal victims and endless sufferers, including Sue Osman, Little Mo Mitchell, Laura Beale and Lisa Fowler.

Little mo mitchell

Laura Beale

Another recurring character is the ‘tart with a heart’, which is often popular with viewers. These characters often hide their vulnerability and a desire to be loved, such as Pat, Tiffany Mitchell, Kat Moon and Stacey Slater.

Tiffany Mitchell

Kat Moon 

Stacey Slater

With the inclusion of various ‘macho’ male personalities, such as Phil and Grant Mitchell, ‘bad boys’ such as Den Watts and Dennis Rickman and ‘heartthrobs’ such as Simon Wicks and Jamie Mitchell, a gender balance is maintained in the show.

 Phil Mitchell

 Den Watts

Jamie Mitchell

The smartly dressed businessman often involved in gang culture and crime is another male character type, mostly viewed as a local authority figure. Such characters include Steve Owen, Jack Dalton, Andy Hunter and Jonny Allen.

Jonny Allen


The ‘loser’ or ‘soft touch’ males often controlled by their female counterparts, is another frequent male character presented in EastEnders, including Arthur Fowler, Ricky Butcher and Lofty Holloway.

Arthur Fowler

Other characters that have been presented in the serial are ‘lost girls’, including characters such as Marv Smith and Donna Ludlow, criminals such as Many Salter, Stacey Slater, Jay Brown and Lola Pearce, villains such as Nick Cotton, George Peters and Trevor Morgan, bitches such as Cindy Beale and Janine Evans and cockney ‘wide boys’ or ‘wheeler dealers’ such as Frank Butcher, Alfie Moon and Kevin Wicks.

Lola Pearce

There are many different types of characters in the soap opera ‘Eastenders’. As Eastenders has been aired for 27 years, new characters are constantly being introduced. However, with our soap trailer, it will be difficult to get as many characters since it is just the beginning of the soap. Therefore, there cannot be as many characters shown in the trailer as this can become quite confusing for the audience. Nonetheless, as the soap progresses, this allows more characters to be added later on throughout the episodes.

Eastenders - How did it all start?

EastEnders consists of seven main families, and is set in a cul-de-sac fictional borough in East London. The series mainly centres around the residents of Albert Square and Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighbouring streets, such as Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street, which comprises of a pub, street market, night club, community centre, café and various small businesses, as well as a park and allotments.

Here is the EastEnders family tree, including casts that currently are in the show, and also those that are not:

Tony Holland created and developed EastEnders. He wanted a large extended family to be a primary focus of EastEnders, a representative of the type primarily found in the East End of London. Holland grew up in London with a large family himself, and he was able to use his own experiences to inspire EastEnders central clan the Beales and the Fowlers in creating some of the shows characters. Holland used family stories of his past and present when creating stories and characters. His aunt Lou Beale produced the EastEnders character of the same name, as well as her two children Peter (Pete) and Pauline. Also, to create the dynamic pairing of Den and Angie Watts, the owners of the Queen Victoria, Holland used some of his experience as a barman in London’s pubs and clubs. 

As we can see, Tony Holland used his own experience to actually come up with the idea of creating a soap. The location, family stories, community, ect, was all something he brought into the soap from his own life. Similarly, I think that when creating my group soap, it would be best to base the soap around our everyday environment, which is in the North of London. As I am a student, and so are my group members, we spend majority of our time in school (sixth form), therefore from this research, I feel that it would be more easier to establish social realism if we base our soap in the school environment of North London.

Main Conventions of Soap Operas

Before we even begin to start planning our soap trailer, it is essential for us to be aware of the typical conventions of a soap opera.
Below are a few conventions that are found in soap operas:

1.       Soap operas are serialised drama that usually runs throughout the year, week-in, week-out.

2.       Continuous narratives are proposed which deal with domestic themes and personal relationships.

3.       It normally has a well-recognised theme tune and introduction sequence which has only changed slightly over the years.

4.       There is a limit to the number of characters shown at any one time, even though the casts for soap operas tend to be larger than for drama series. This allows more time to be spent proposing each character as a smaller number of them are shown, thus the audience will engage with the character s better and the storylines are able to be more detailed, as well as there being several over time.

5.       The plots in soap operas are open-ended and many stories are told or even interlinked in an episode, often following the same issue. For example, the soap may show a break-up of a relationship, showing the two characters dealing with it. In these cases, stories run parallel.

6.       The setting is often around a small, central area. For example, a square, such as EastEnders, or a cul-de-sac, such as Brookside.

7.       For events taking place in the real world such as Christmas or the Millennium, soaps often show special episodes. Some of these episodes bring in long-departed characters, or current characters that travel to a location which is not where their usual surrounding is. These episodes are often acknowledged as ‘soap bubbles’ as they usually do not have much of an impact on the on-going stories of the usual show.

8.       Common, ordinary, working-class characters are mostly proposed in British soaps, in contrast to American soaps, where richer, flashier, more fantasy-inspired characters are proposed. This reflects the preferences of their target audience.

9.       British soaps focus on realism and aim to display a realistic story

10.   Many storylines will be in progress in the duration of one episode, with the action switching between them. After one narrative is resolved, a completely different one with different characters will already be in progress.

11.   There is usually a ‘hook’ to begin an episode in a soap in which narratives from the previous episode are continued. The end of the episode will be a ‘cliff-hanger’, which leaves the audience questioning themselves on what will happen next.

The purpose in making note of the conventions in soap operas is so that I can look back at these for reference when planning my own thriller. My aim is to use as many of these conventions in my soap trailer in order to create an effective final product, which consists of all the vital elements needed to display the soap genre.

What is a Soap Opera?

A soap opera is an ongoing work of fiction, which is episodic and is portrayed in serial format on television or radio. The name ‘soap opera’ originates from the original serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers such as Colgate-Palmolive as sponsors and producers. These early radio series were broadcast during the day at weekdays when housewives would be the most listeners; hence the series were aimed at and consumed mainly by a female audience.

Soap operas are stories proposed over a long extended period, where different characters are presented at different times. It is not likely for soaps to comprise a quick wrap-up of a storyline, and it is most likely a storyline consists of several characters with possible connections to other stories. The most common trait of a soap opera may be that each ending of an episode promises the audience for more drama in the next episode, rather than a clean tie-up at the end of the episode’s story, which is more of the case with sitcoms or other dramas.

Before creating a soap opera, we must first understand what a soap opera is. Therefore, I decided to have my first post as “What is a soap opera?” to explain exactly what it is. This is helpful towards developing my own soap opera as I now know exactly what I am going to be creating.