BROUGHTON PRODUCTIONS

TREATMENT
-BON APPETIT-

BY
SARAH BROUGHTON
 OUTLINE OF PLOT,
CHARACTERS AND NARRA TIVE
THEMES

OU T L IN E OF P L OT

Bon Appetit is a continuing drama (soap opera) which senses around the
day to day lives and activities taking place in the Bon Appetit restaurant. The
Bon Appetit restaurant is a British restaurant that offers a wide range of
different cultural foods; the restaurant is struggling due to competition
within the town its based in. Bon Appetite used to be the best restaurant in
town but with competition forever rising the restaurant has lost its amazing
atmosphere, the standard of the food has gone down the drain and its under
staffed.

The soap opera plot will be open-ended with several stories running at
the same time over multiple episodes. As one storyline comes to an end
another will start, this will keep the soap opera entertaining for the
audience. Each scene within an episode will be 2 minutes per scene purely to
keep viewers interested so they do not lose interest in the programme. Each
episode will end on a cliffhanger to keep the audience waiting and interested
in seeing the upcoming episodes.

S ETS :

Restaurant, Kitchen and Restaurant Office

T H EM ES :

This soap opera offers a lot of scope when it comes to themes. There
can be many running storylines covering different issues occurring in the
restaurant and issues partaking in staff lives and the customers that use the
diner on a regular basis lives. The soap opera also allows returning
characters and permanent characters to feature.

This soap will have continuous narratives covering domestic, personal

and family relationships and also incorporating real life issues in society
such as unemployment, crime, racism, drug abuse and sexuality. Having
these kind of issues makes viewers connect with characters which could
potentially make them more attached to the programme.

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 C HA RA CT ERS : (P ERM AN ENT )

Boss- Rich: Rich owns Bon Appetit, he is very bossy and career
orientated which puts stress on his and Lindas marriage. Hes very serious
and is trying his best to improve the restaurant and get it back to how it
used to be. As a boss, he is very arrogant and says what he thinks. He is
always making sure all the staffs are doing what they should be and he
doesnt like workers than slack.

Bosses Wife- Linda: Linda helps run the restaurant; she takes over the
boss role when Rich isnt able to. Linda mostly spends her time in the office
doing the restaurants finances but she also waitresses and greets people into
the restaurant. Linda is the typical wife, she loves and cares for Rich but
their marriage is sometimes on the rocks due to the amount of stress
running the restaurant causes therefore Linda is sometimes seen upset &
stressed and can take her mood out on the other staff.

Waiter- Luke: Luke is a waiter at the restaurant, he is Rich and Lindas

only son and only child so he is wrapped in cotton wool a lot of the time and
gets away with a lot more than the other workers do. Luke is quite rebellious
and can sometimes be rude to customers; his parents dont think he can do
no wrong though so conflict can sometimes occur between the other staff as
they feel like theyre being treated unfairly.

Waitress- Jasmine: Jasmine is a waitress; shes your average 20 year old

girl. She has a soft spot for the chef, Carlos. Jasmine is very friendly and
outgoing; she is also popular within the town and knows most of the
customers that come into the diner which gives her something to gossip
about with the other staff.

Waiter- Mani: Mani is a waiter; he is a student and is incredibly bright.

Mani is good friends with Luke and is only working to help him fund his
university lifestyle.

Chef- Carlos: Carlos is the main chef at Bon Appetit, he is good looking
and quite flirtatious. Carlos is a new edition to the restaurant after Rich
fired the old head chef due to the poor standard of food, its Carlos job to up
the standard of the food and try to bring the restaurant back to life.

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 TARGET AUDIENCE
The target audience for Bon Appetit is people aged 16-24 either female or
male who enjoy soap operas. The reason for this is because young people are
usually going through similar issues that the soap portrays therefore the
audience can connect with the soap very easily. This particular soap doesnt
have any older cast members in it therefore an older audience wouldnt
watch because it wouldnt be relatable for them as there are no older
characters for them to connect with. Having young characters attracts a
young audience. Having real life issue also helps an audience connect, for
example if theres an issue on pregnancy on the soap an viewer whom is
going through the same thing is going to connect with the character quickly.

Bon Appetit would most likely be aired on channel 4 at 6.00pm as thats

when the target audience would most likely be in front of the TV. Most
people aged 16-24 either go to school, college, uni or work and will most
likely be home by 6 and eating having a soap opera that the audience could
sit and eat to would be beneficial because they would sit and watch through
the whole episode and it wouldnt just be on in the background they would
actually be engaged with it. Hollyoaks have a similar target audience;
Hollyoaks is aired at 6.30pm on channel 4 every week night. This tells me
that it would be appropriate to air Bon Appetit at 6.00pm on channel 4.
Channel 4 is a channel mainly aimed at the younger audience so I believe
this would be a suitable channel to distribute Bon Appetit on.

WHAT HOW MUCH

Studio Hire 1,250 per day

Camera (x3) 450 per day
Tripods (x3) 105 per day

Actors 5,000- 10,000

per episode
Camera Operator (x3) 1,125 per day

Director 380 per day

Lens Pack (x3) 225 per day

Lighting Operator 360 per day

Sound mics per actor 10 for 1

Table 1: Bon Appetit Budget

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 LEGAL, ETHICAL AND
COPYRIGHT ISSUES

The BBFC would rate my soap opera as a 15, purely because there is the
potential for sex & nudity, violence & gore and alcohol, drugs and smoking.
These things stereotypically are shown in soap operas and whenever they
are they arent in too much depth so it is fine to be aired at 6.00pm.

This soap opera will be diverse, offering a cast with all different types of
ethical backgrounds for example Mani is of Asian ethnicity, Carlos is of
African ethnicity and some of the other cast members are of different races.
This offers a diverse and ethical view of the soap not making it all white
Caucasian.

Most soap operas have a theme tune which is either original and has been
especially made for the soap opera or it is royalty free. Its rare that
copyright music gets played in a soap opera. On Bon Appetit the only music
that might be played is either background music in the restaurant or the cast
humming/singing. There will be no copyright issues as I will be avoiding
using copyrighted music.