An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay Example for Free

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay In this essay I intend to explore the genre of Soap Opera and some of the conventions that determine the genre. The Soap Opera genre is defined as A serialized drama usually dealing with domestic problems. Eastenders and Coronation Street are prime examples of the Genre. Soap Operas originated in America in the late 1950s and started being shown in England in the late 1960s. Soap Operas are named after the sponsors of the shows were Soap Products. These shows were a marketing strategy to sell the soap products. The ratings for the 2 Soap Operas mentioned are constantly at the top of the list. The ratings for particular episodes in which a story line is thickening have been up to 10 million viewers watching one episode. Increasing popularity in this genre has provided a phenomenon in spin-off products such as magazines devoted to the soaps. Actors and actresses are becoming celebrities and are appearing on talk shows because of their increasing popularity. The Soap Opera Genre has its own identifiable conventions, some of which will be explored. My particular soap that I will be analyzing is Eastenders. The episode that I will be analyzing is the episode on Monday 25th of November 2002. The time this episode was on TV was 8:00pm. Eastenders has a great slot in the channel schedule. Prime time t. v. is from 7-9pm and Eastenders popularity has also come from the time it is broadcast. The episode is half an hour long. This soap opera is shown before the watershed, which means there are certain things, which cannot be shown. There is never any swearing and hardly any violence used. I selected this soap because it has been going on for over 30 years and is one of the most popular soaps in England. The story lines that are used in this episode are: Phil Mitchell wants to find out what the postcard from Lisa says. Laura and the Doctor are having a meeting to find who wrote the poison pen letters. In the scenes that I will be focusing on the conventions of character will now be explored. There are mostly characters that have a history and meaning they are more rounded characters. There are 2 or 3 stereotype characters. Phil Mitchell is a very aggressive person that few people like. When people that he doesnt like tell him what to do he gets angry and threatens them and doesnt care what trouble he can get in. When he talked to someone about a postcard that had been sent from Lisa he was very aggressive and demanded to read it. The other man said no and told him to stop interfering with his life. Phil told him maybe he would maybe he wouldnt. He does what ever he wants and doesnt care who he tramples along the way. He loves his mother and protects her. He thinks that he can control everybody in the square. He has got into trouble with the police before and is a recovering alcoholic. He has 2 children and when with them he is made to look as if he such a soft character and a loving father rather than what he is everywhere else. Different camera shots are used when filming Phil to make him look powerful and menacing. He is filmed to look as if he is more powerful than anybody else in the same room. He is one of the main characters of Eastenders and is there to cause trouble and tension in the soap. I will now analyze my chosen 5 minutes where there is tension and many conventions used. The 5 minutes that I have chosen are where some of the people from the square are having a meeting to try and find who is writing poison pen letters. As the tension builds up the scene changes to the pub breaking the tension and prolonging you from knowing what was going to come if the scene hadnt been changed. The camera shots used only show 1 or 2 peoples faces to let the viewer see the facial expression of the person. When the scene changes to the pub the camera shots change and a panning shot is used to distinguish who is in the pub. The shot stops to people having conversations in the pub. When the scene changes you can see the lighting is different. It gets darker but there is enough light to see the people and their expressions. The camera focuses in on one of the people when they have something to say. The camera at the beginning of the scene turns around showing all the people in the room but from then on the camera doesnt turn but cuts from person to person. As the scene gets to the end someone is walking in to the room hearing something that shouldnt have been heard. The camera changes back and forth from the person speaking, to the person walking into the room. Eventually when the person walks into the room the camera angle is changed and shows the person who walked into the room taller than anybody else making the rest of the people in the room feel small. The camera cuts very quickly to all the different peoples faces showing their surprise and emotion. The camera stays on the person who walked in on the people until she has finished what she has to say. Then the camera cuts back to the peoples faces. This gives the effect of the people being caught out and the person who wouldnt normally be in this situation the person who caught them out. I think that Soap Operas will be an important part in the TV industry for many years because it has domestic issues and provides entertainment for a whole variety of people and for most age groups. It will also be popular because it opens up many conversations on suggested story lines and what will happen next in the next episode. The soap opera has become more than a marketing strategy for selling soaps.

The language paper -- essays research papers

Language is one of the most powerful mediums in the human world, and not only can language be expressed through words, but also visually and musically. Language is everything from words that are spoken and the silence that lies between one phrase and the next. I find out odd how in our culture, we try to label things black and white. It’s either this or it’s that, yet when there’s something lacking in language, we try to assign colors to it instead of letting things be how they are. I have two types of mediums that I feel shows the idea that things are visually and audibly black and white, but it’s difficult to leave it at that.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first medium I chose is in fact a color picture, but what makes it similar to a black and white picture is that there’s mostly black in the picture. When my dad got the roll of film developed, I started looking through it and not even stopping to look closely at any pictures, but then I get to this one and I found myself just staring at it and looking for something that might not even be there. When I first glanced at it I just saw a person wearing black and their arm with her head not captured in the picture. When I looked at it again I saw myself in the background with a look of distress and sadness incorporated with the look of reality finally setting in. I think the reason that I didn’t quite look at myself in the background first was because I’m positioned off center in the picture. I look carefully to see body language, since I can’t tell what words are being spoken, and I see that my hands are by my mouth, almost seeming like I want to hide my emotions from the world, but at the same time I’m overwhelmed with the emotions that I feel that I can’t help but break down in silence. The second thing that my eyes seem to land on is the person to the right holding the other person’s hand. I somehow got a flash as to why I started crying again. It’s not because it was a funeral and that my lifeless grandmother’s body was right there in the open, but it’s that the person who is standing to the right of me (my aunt), is holding the other’s persons hand (her aunt, my grandmother’s sister). I remember taking one quick glance at her and just seeing my grandmother in front of me because of the close resemblance of the two. It was almost like a walking ghost was right in front of me. That’s when reality se... ... they have in front of them isn’t so bad. I guess this song is more directed to people who feel like they’re outside of the box or that they don’t really belong. The song has this meaning that says to embrace their differences because it is what makes them unique and to stay true to themselves.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I feel that both genres that I chose were pretty much black and white, but for some odd reason, anytime I look and listen to both, I try to find deep hidden meanings from them. These meanings that I find might not even be there. The meanings I find might just be cultural influences that are programmed in my head. Maybe if someone from a different lifestyle or culture were to listen or hear these genres, they would get a different meaning from them, maybe something that I might have not even seen. I think as part of our society, we constantly try to look for hidden meanings or meanings that aren’t even there in something that is as simple as a black and white photo. No one could label something clearly black and white, nor can they determine the set meaning in a photo, song, advertisement, etc. because it all depends on the cultural background of the reader or l

Summary of leaders and followers

Summary of â€Å"how to cultivate effective follower† April Wang English Composition I Professor Hampton October 25th, 2012 cultivate effective followers† 2 Summary of â€Å"How to In the article â€Å"How to cultivate effective followers†, the writer Christopher Lorenz identifies that followers who could not follow a parade in the past is playing a remarkable role during recent years, that is to say, since the followers are taken into fully account nowadays, they are becoming more efficient and play a key role in the many.However, the author also stressed that he was not going to have a debate with anyone who had great passion for leadership. According to the author, followers are divided into five types in this article: sheep, yes people, alienated followers, survivors, effective followers. In that case, some recommendations are also given to help foster efficient followers. Truly, most of the time, we do not act as a leader but a follower. Viewing that issue, Kelly, who is an industrial administration in Pittsburgh at Carnegie-Mellon University, did a research about it.Basically, it is separated in to five different sorts according to followers' various qualities in Kelly's study. First, sheep only do, if any, what the leaders let them do. They do not have their own opinions and depend on their leaders all the time. Yes people, obviously, are also a group of people who concern nothing but the tasks are given. Only when the leader is â€Å"blind†, this type of followers may be popular. Alienated followers are cynics–they hold their own ideas which are always the opposite of their leaders and never drop them. Survivors depend on their traders' tempers.Their motto is â€Å"does anything that can please leaders†. Effective followers, who are probably only imaginations, are the most ideal ones. They 3 are not afraid of taking risks, for they claim that they have equal duties for their organizations. Hence, Kelly provided some strategies to us to develop more effective followers. First, the most important thing is to create a common value which can help them work toward a same goal. For example, give customers best services and make them feel at home. Second, aim for making independent and decisive followers.For instance, leaders can allow followers to speak out, which mean they can discuss strategy plans together. Third, leaders should be willing to share powers to others. At the same time, followers will have much more opportunities to make decisions. This is a beneficial way to get everyone involved. Generally speaking, followers should be paid more attention not only by leaders but also by our whole community. When talking about this, I strongly agree with him. Here are my reasons. First, evidently, in a company, only leaders can achieve nothing. Leaders and lowers hold each other tightly toward a common destination is a best way.Thus, the author evidences us some ways, which are studied by Rober t E. Kelly, to make efficient followers. I also learnt it in my leadership class. An efficacious company needs appropriate followers to work with leaders actively to overcome obstacles. If the company is a manufacturer, it needs people to do a single thing day and night. Then, sheep followers are popular. Second, as we can see, in this article, Kelly (1989, Para 3) said, â€Å"What distinguishes effective followers from leaders is not intelligent, ability or any other qualities, but the role they play'.Definitely, everyone should 4 have the opportunity to take control, make decisions and give advice. They can choose someone who has a specialization on the task to help achieve the goal effectively, someone need not to be a leader, someone who are brave and responsible enough to take actions and changes. Last but not least, the time of being identified as a follower is much longer than being a leader; hence, everyone has the necessary to learn how to be both popular leaders and effic ient followers.When I was a freshman, I Join the student association as a leader in one of the student groups. At the same time, I also had a leader in the whole association. I should learn how to be benign to my followers, how to get along well with my colleagues, and how to be credible to my leaders. To achieve the author's goal, he does use some available writing styles, but not everything is so perfect. Logos is the most extraordinary style in this article. At first, he used two clear lists to introduce us the different kinds of followers and the ways to achieve effective followers.Second, his langue is terse and perspicuous. For example, â€Å"sheep are passive and uncritical, lacking in initiative and responsibility'. Only one sentence can tell the main characters of sheep. There are also some drawbacks. First and foremost, I think there should be some examples, when talking about different types of followers. It would more clearly. Moreover, from the whole essay, the author used too much Kelly's words. It would be better to add more opinions about himself. To sum up, I forcefully believe that followers are also taking a big issue.For one thing, no matter how little the company we stayed is, followers should be regarded as 5 equal as leaders. For another, it is strongly suggested that more attention should be taken on followers, since we are more likely a follower rather than a leader in a company. In addition, here is a virtual advice. If a leader is not willing to share power with his followers, it is hard to build ideal followers-?effective followers.

Ancient Greece