Cultural Changes (Soaps)

It used to be that the family would sit together to watch soaps when they were aired on the television, however nowadays there is almost always more than one television in a house, nearly every bedroom in the house has one, this means that even if families are watching the same programme they probably won't be watching it in the same room. Also the introduction of catch up TV online like BBC iplayer means that people can watch any programme whenever they want. The internet also means that social networking is used while watching TV, people sit in solitude physically but virtually they are surrounded by hundreds of friends. All this means that television is no longer a physical social activity the virtual aspect has overtaken.

Advances in Technology (Print)

The printing Press was an early form of printing, it allows the printer to change the work that is being printed by choosing the letters and symbols and arranging them in different orders.

This is where the term upper case and lower case letters was created because the capital letters were stored on the top shelf and the 'lower case' letters were stored on the bottom.

The Rotary press was patented in 1847 it is made up of a printing plate, sometimes more than one, and other rollers that guide it through the press. As the printing plate revolves ink is spread across it and the paper is pulled between the compression cylinders and the plate.


This press allowed more and more items such as newspapers to be printed quickly, it meant that newspapers could be designed overnight and printed  to be published in the morning.

Structure of Media Products

Print.The order of items in a newspaper tend to go from larger hard news stories at the front through to smaller softer stories in the middle. I

n the tabloids there is also a glamour section at the front. all newspapers have an advertising section towards the back there is a sort of second headline page for sport.

However when you get to the online version of the newspapers, the main headlines are set up on the top of the page, this is different because you get to see all of the h

eadlines at the same time weather it be sport, gossip or hard hitting political stories. When you scroll down the page you see the smaller, less important issues.

Audio Visual.

The term POV refers to the camera angle Point Of View, it is used to show the image of what a person would actually be seeing, like in the channel 4 series 'Peep Show' the use of POV in this show it makes things seem more real life, like it was more of a documentary of the lives of these people.

Example this image shows someone sitting at a bar with a friend, but you don't see the main character because your seeing it from his Point Of View.

The term Cutaway refers to when a film or television program takes the viewer back to a memory or a fantasy, for example the adult cartoon Family Guy is a cutaway based program, it uses cutaways as jokes either using a memory or a fantasy. 














A cutaway can also be to an important item in the scene like keys or a knife. A cutaway like this will be used quickly in a scene to identify an important item and to make the audience think about the item.

Coronation Street First for Polecam.

How have new grip technologies impacted on production?

Polecam is a technology that allows a camera to be lifted up and moved around, similar to a crane but it is smaller and lighter and more mobile, this allowed Corrie to film a dramatic end to a major character from the rooftop of the Granada studios, normal cameras could not get the shots they wanted and the cranes could not get close enough.

Polecam is just one of the new technologies around and it has already had a great effect on a major show, this shows us that the future of filming is changing, in a good way with easier tools giving better images than ever before.

Advances in Technology - Format (Coronation Street)

Picture Format

From 1960-1969 the programme was broadcast in 405-line Black and White, it was displayed in 4:3 SDTV size, which was common of most if not all of the household in Britain.

In 1969 it was broadcast in 576i Colour in SD in 4:3 size until 2001 you could still watch it in Black and White however and 4:3 would still be common for a large majority of houses in the U.K.

In 2002 the size of the picture was scaled up to 16:9 SD because there was a huge rise in the amount of widescreen tv's in Britain, However it was still broadcast in 576i quality.

2010 saw the start of a new era for 'The Street', the HD era the picture quality was upped to 1080i High Definition but still on the scale of 16:9, it was broadcast on the ITV1HD channel and if you had a SDTV you could still watch the 576i colour version on ITV1.

What has changed with HD?

With the introduction of HD filming, many things have had more detail added, most notably are the chimneys on the houses, they used to be made out of fibreglass because the set couldnt support brick, however in HD you would notice the lack of texture, so in preperation for HD support was added for real brick chimenys to be added to the set.

makeup and set making will have been tightens up as any inperfection will now be noticed where as before you might have got away with a small blemish because of the poor quality of the picture.

What impact has HD had on production?

The switch to HD has made working on Coronation Street much easier, now that the cameras are filming straight onto 64GB HD SD memorycards the images can be cut and edited as soon as filming is complete, there is no waiting, for instance there is a editing vehicle on set so as soon as a card is full up the editing team can start work on the show immediatly, this is crucial for a fast paced production show like Coronation Street. This allowes the actors more time to get a scene right, and also the editors can take more time to get the perfect transition.

What is the impact of HD on Coronation street?

High Defenition has transformed the way the public watch Corrie, The shows first HD Broadcast attracted more that 500,000 viewers to ITV1HD channel on monday the 31st of May.

The change of Coronation Street has had a major effect on the amount of viewers, the Coronation Street sandwich in-between Britain's Got Talent both sides made nearly all other main channels viewer ratings were slashed considerably. This has given Corrie and also ITV a huge boost.

Advances in Technology - Sets (coronation street)

1960-1980

From 1960 through to 1967 all the episodes of Coronation Street were filmed in the Granada studios in Manchester. The houses were reduced to 3/4 scale and the actors had to walk slower than normal so that it looked real. The street was too big to be set up in one go, it was split into two halves the pavement and road was actually painted onto the floor, although it was small there were some dramatic episodes filmed on this small set, e.g. the collapse of no.7 in 1965 and the train crash in 1967.

in 1967 Granada made an outdoor set on some old railway sidings in central manchester, the transition from the studio to the outdoor set was made easier by linking it in with a storyline in which the raincoat factory and mission hall were demolished and new houses built on the street.

1968 saw the use of the outdoor set for the first time, the only real difference was that there was natural light on the street. The actors disliked the set and named it 'the coldest place on earth' because there was a constant wind straight down the 'street'. Granada preferred not to actually film on the outdoor set for two reasons, one - Filming outdoor was a lot more expensive than filming in the studio, two - The actors disliked filming on site due to the cold winds.

1980-Present

in 1982 there was a full scale set built in the Granada backlot, the cobbles ran in the right direction alongt the houses, The set was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Because the new set was intended to be permanent Granada reclaimed Salford brick and the roof slates were ment to look real. However the houses dont have many interior walls and ones that dont take a major role in the show are used as store rooms for props and offices for writers.

The take away, betting shop and butcher shop are all built to be filmed in. The chimneys were originaly fibreglass because there wasnt enough support for brick ones, but in the preperation for High Definition tv they were converted to brick.

In 1989 the factory and community centre were demolished and were replaced with 3 new houses 2 shops a garage and a new factory. This was the brainchild of new executive producer, David liddiment.