Coronation Street Textual Analysis
Coronation Street is a British soap opera which airs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at both 7:30pm and 8:30pm for 30 minutes each. The show is set on Coronation Street in a fiction town called Weatherfield; it follows the story of working-class people and the city streets in which they live.
The show has a variety of achievements such as becoming the world's longest-running tv soap opera and the most watched programme on British television, therefore is quite respectable. The show averages 8 million viewers per episode.
I decided to watch Coronation Street as it is one of ITV's most well known shows and in terms of my coursework I may make something similar to it. I think a soap opera would be a good genre to look at as on both ITV and Channel 5 there are a few soap operas (e.g: Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Home and Away and Neighbours) which already gain praise which means that there is an audience which enjoys them. In terms of the brief a key turning point is easy to incorporate as there is a lot of drama, gossips and problems that take place in soap operas.
For this textual analysis I looked at the episodes which aired on 9th July 2018 (episodes 9502 and 9503). When watching the show I noted the main things that I noticed, however rather than writing about camerawork and mise-en-scene there was more of a focus on dialogue and storyline. The focus on narrative makes me worried in making a soap opera as then you aren't able to show as many techniques or skills.
In terms of settings and familiarity the show continuously return to the same places with the same characters. For example the key settings included: cafe, house, hospital, outside hospital, streets, salon, prison and the pub. This means that regular viewers almost know the town as if they lived there and understands the nature behind each character. You can almost associate certain character to certain place as they frequent there often. The show mainly uses medium shots of the characters where the background aren't focused on.
I think the familiarity is useful because it is easier to understand how the narrative combines together, plus you see the characters interacting in their own familiar places to the characters as well.
The show expected you to already know the characters therefore continues the story line where it previously had left of. As someone who doesn't regularly watch Coronation Street there was a lack of understanding in what relationship some characters had with other characters, however I could still understand the struggles or problem they were going through through the use of dialogue and emotions (acting, body language and facial expressions). The issues that each character were going through were the primary focus such as needing to find a job, needing to find a place to stay, work, money, amputation of a child's leg, being in prison etc.
In relation to my own production I think it would be easier to not make a soap opera and instead focus on a genre with more defined conventions. After watching this episode of Coronation street I think it was beneficial in showing me how well established soap operas do well due to their relatableness as well as being used for escapism. It presents ordinary people and their hardships whilst audience feeling like they have personal relationships with the characters. I think a soap opera would be interesting to create however with the 3 minutes that I have it would be difficult to understand what is going on and instead of using dialogue I wish to visually portray something.
In conclusion, I like the use of familiar places (as a use of equilibrium) but also so that the characters seems natural in their settings. I wish to create characters which look comfortable in their settings which are also recognisable as something familiar to the audience. As well as this I want the audience to almost feel connected to the main character/s as a personal relationship (uses and gratification) so that they actually have an interest in their story.
After coming to the conclusion of looking at other genres other than soap operas I think I'll look into crime dramas so that I can incorporate both familiarity but also uneasiness.
The show has a variety of achievements such as becoming the world's longest-running tv soap opera and the most watched programme on British television, therefore is quite respectable. The show averages 8 million viewers per episode.
I decided to watch Coronation Street as it is one of ITV's most well known shows and in terms of my coursework I may make something similar to it. I think a soap opera would be a good genre to look at as on both ITV and Channel 5 there are a few soap operas (e.g: Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Home and Away and Neighbours) which already gain praise which means that there is an audience which enjoys them. In terms of the brief a key turning point is easy to incorporate as there is a lot of drama, gossips and problems that take place in soap operas.
For this textual analysis I looked at the episodes which aired on 9th July 2018 (episodes 9502 and 9503). When watching the show I noted the main things that I noticed, however rather than writing about camerawork and mise-en-scene there was more of a focus on dialogue and storyline. The focus on narrative makes me worried in making a soap opera as then you aren't able to show as many techniques or skills.
In terms of settings and familiarity the show continuously return to the same places with the same characters. For example the key settings included: cafe, house, hospital, outside hospital, streets, salon, prison and the pub. This means that regular viewers almost know the town as if they lived there and understands the nature behind each character. You can almost associate certain character to certain place as they frequent there often. The show mainly uses medium shots of the characters where the background aren't focused on.
I think the familiarity is useful because it is easier to understand how the narrative combines together, plus you see the characters interacting in their own familiar places to the characters as well.
The show expected you to already know the characters therefore continues the story line where it previously had left of. As someone who doesn't regularly watch Coronation Street there was a lack of understanding in what relationship some characters had with other characters, however I could still understand the struggles or problem they were going through through the use of dialogue and emotions (acting, body language and facial expressions). The issues that each character were going through were the primary focus such as needing to find a job, needing to find a place to stay, work, money, amputation of a child's leg, being in prison etc.
In relation to my own production I think it would be easier to not make a soap opera and instead focus on a genre with more defined conventions. After watching this episode of Coronation street I think it was beneficial in showing me how well established soap operas do well due to their relatableness as well as being used for escapism. It presents ordinary people and their hardships whilst audience feeling like they have personal relationships with the characters. I think a soap opera would be interesting to create however with the 3 minutes that I have it would be difficult to understand what is going on and instead of using dialogue I wish to visually portray something.
In conclusion, I like the use of familiar places (as a use of equilibrium) but also so that the characters seems natural in their settings. I wish to create characters which look comfortable in their settings which are also recognisable as something familiar to the audience. As well as this I want the audience to almost feel connected to the main character/s as a personal relationship (uses and gratification) so that they actually have an interest in their story.
After coming to the conclusion of looking at other genres other than soap operas I think I'll look into crime dramas so that I can incorporate both familiarity but also uneasiness.
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