Analysis of trailer

For my soap opera research I'm going to analysis an Eastenders trailer from 2009, it is a trailer involving one of Eastenders most famous characters, Peggy Mitchell played by Barber Windsor. I chose this particular trailer to analysis as it is modern but completely separate from the soap, people who don't even watch the soap would be able to enjoy this advert. Without knowing the storyline of this soap we know it involves a wedding day, Peggy Mitchell's, and about how the man she is about to marry has changed her from, loud and fierce to a quiet old woman. In this advert we can see the physical changes that happen to Peggy, this is a metaphor for the mental changes that have happened to this character. Below is the trailer and full analysis:

The trailer starts with a pitch black room, in the middle of the room is a woman it appears, she is wearing white sitting on a cream white chair at at a vanity table of the same colour. A non- diagetic 'plinky' almost wound up music box music is played through out the trailer, - this piece of music is called I'll tell you a story by Colleen, I think the name of the song fits well with the trailer, it is not a stereotypical trailer that uses a lot of scenes that have already been filmed, this trailer is surreal and completely separate from the soap itself - The next scene is a medium close up of the vanity table, there are pink flowers on the table and our eye is drawn to the glass perfume bottle centre of screen, the bottle is picked up and the next shot is of Peggy Mitchell dabbing on perfume, she is in white and face and make up is done. It is clear that it is her wedding day she is preparing for, she smiles as she puts the perfume on. Next shot is an over the shoulder shot of Peggy looking into the vanity table mirror, a silhouette of a man in a wedding suit is seen in the mirror, at the opposite end of the room, he is illuminated by a single white square. Peggy looks up at him and her face changes, she is immediately saddened.

The man in the background of the shot is not clear to see, how
ever watchers of the soap who have followed the story line know
that the man is Archie.

The next shot is a medium shot of the man, the audience can confirm their ideas that it is Archie, Peggy's fiance. He is the juxtaposes with the shot of Peggy who is in white surrounded by the black, the only light of Archie's shot is his face and white shirt. The white of Peggy shows her innocence and vulnerability, whereas the black that surrounds Archie suggests dark, dangerous and makes the audience not want to trust him. After this we have a long shot, Archie is in silhouette again and before him white squares light up. Peggy, in wedding dress walks from the vanity table across the white titles towards Archie.
As Peggy watches towards Archie, almost 'robotic arms' come towards Peggy, the first arm on the left of he removes a big white corsage. As the arm removes things from Peggy's outfit there is the diagetic sound of the arm moving, it contrasts with the picture as the scene using two members of the older generation at a traditional vanity table in traditional wedding wear. The robotic arm is cold, modern and alien. There are shot reverse shots between Archie and Peggy being stripped of her personal touches on her wedding dress, we can see the shot in her face and a growing anger as the train of her dress is taken away, she has her tiara swapped for a much more dumbed down, older version and a frilly piece of material is placed over her chest, Peggy looks down confused, shot reverse shot of Archie smiling at this. There is a medium close up of Peggy's face, a laser goes across her face followed by another long robotic arm that sprays some sort of liquid across her face. As the mist clears a plastic face that can't move is revealed. It is shiny and 'perfect' looking. An over the shoulder shot from behind Peggy shows Archie looking very smug, the next shot we see him placing a pearl necklace around Peggy's throat, he looks menacing as if he might strangle Peggy. Through out the advert the audience can feel the tension rise as Peggy is changed, we grow to hate Archie by the end of the advert for what he has done to Peggy.
A woman voice over says "He's got Peggy under control, but for how much longer?" As this is said there is a close up of Peggy's left eye, the pupil dilates and the BBC red background swirls itself around  the black pupil until all the screen says is 'Thursday 2nd April. Eastenders: The Wedding.' The final non-diagetic piece we hear is the famous drums of the Eastenders theme tune. This trailer is only 0.41 seconds long, however it tells a lot in such a short time, if we can create a grabbing trailer like this, our teen audience that we have chosen to aim, are bound to love it.

Auditions

To get the best actors and actresses for our soap opera trailer, we thought it would be best to hold auditions. We are going to mock up a script for people to read and see who is best to star in our trailer.


MOCK SCRIPT:

Alo: We are the children of the revolution!

Anwar: I'm praying to my God here, Cass.

Cassie: Oh... wow... is he listening?

Anwar: I hope not, otherwise he'll know about all those pills I necked last night.

Cassie: Think quietly.

Red: [narrating] I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

Our mock script includes a line from our actual trailer, a conversation from a skins episode to see how well they act and react and a monologue from the film Shawshank Redemption. If we are happy with the way they have preformed we'll ask them then to be in the filming process, also if we particularly like anyone, we might get them to read our voice over if we chooose to have on over the top of our trailer.

Here are some of the auditions we filmed:

 

The Valleys

Due to the new release of the MTV's welsh 'The Valleys' we looked at the trailer for the new series as it follows a party scenario and is filmed so close to home. Although it is degrading it is a very well put together sequence.

Final Idea with Scenes.



Here are the stills of the 1st scene we want to recreate.

1. Crabbing shot of Zak and Paige (in bed, must see photo of Zak and Brandon) phone ringing, lots of missed calls from Brandon. Zak closes eyes - fade to party.

This scene is inspired by a particular scene from Skins series 4, where there is a crabbing  shot of a bedroom across to the bed where the characer Freddie is sleeping, he opens his eyes and there is a cut to the next scene. I have posted this scene in other posts, it runs from 0.16 - 0.24 in the video, and here are some stills of the scene we want to recreate.

This is the 'we are the children of the revolution' scene we which
to make our own.

2. Establishing shot, of keep out sign camera follows someone running to party - pool with people - Karl at the top of the pool 'We are the children of the revolution'

3. Low angle shot - general party

4. Pan - general party

5. High angle shot - Brandon and Zak - close up establish relationship

for shot 8, running scene inspired by this shot.

6. General party scene

7. General party scene (climbing out of pool.)

8. Running to church - lead by Karl.

9. Cut to inside church - (drugs in a separate room)

10. Ben walks off with Hannah.

11. New scene in bed, Ben wakes up, phone call 'it's positive' he says 'f***' he hangs up - he closes his eyes.

12. Hannah and Ben alone, 'suggestive intimacy' closes eyes.

13. Ben in room, phones Hannah -goes to voicemail.

Shot 15, we like the idea of a window shot, as it creates
alot of new ideas, layers and meaings for the soap.

14. Slo-mo of Karl and drugs.

15. Our effy character Paige at the window, smoking. Zak leaves room looking distressed.

16. Kiss between two characters.

17. Brandon texts Zak.

19. Hannah smokes pipe.

20. Paige walks towards Zak

21. Title.

E4 Company

The company we are going to show our soap opera on is E4.

E4 is a British television channel, it is a companion to Channel 4 and has been live since 18th January 2001. The 'E' stands for entertainment and the channel is mainly aimed at the 15-35 age group. They include both British and U.S programming such as The Ricky Gervais Show, Glee, Scrubs and formerly Friends. British shows include Shameless, Hollyoaks, Skins, The Inbetweeners and Misfit.

The age range is perfect for what we want to aim at, plus we are mimicking a 'Skins' like soap and E4 are a company that are willing to show some more 'cutting edge' storylines that we want to portray.

Soap Opera Titles

A lot of soap operas use place names as their titles, such as East Enders and Coronation  Street.
We thought about this a lot when trying to come up with a name for our soap, we looked at different titles and fonts to help decide a name.
Titles normally include a easily readable font and a background of where it is set.

However as our soap is aimed at teenagers we need a more appealing 'logo' we are going to stay away from the conventional title on background of where it is set, and perhaps stick with a simple logo. 

The title of our soap is going to be 'Boys Village' which is where we are actually filming our soap, we also like the sound of the name and the word 'boy' suggests a younger audience already without even showing the trailer.  

Below are a few ideas of fonts for our title:

When looking at a tag line our current idea is Boys Village, 'where the girls come to play'

Music ideas

For our soap opera we would like to use music by a welsh band called 'Kids in Glass Houses.' Stevie went on twitter and asked for their permission to use their music, this way we don't breach any copyright restrictions.

Here is the tweet and it's reply, from the bass guitar player saying it was fine for us to use their music. 

Below are some youtube videos that include the songs by K.I.G.H's music. 

This song is 'Teenage Wonderland' by Kids in Glass Houses, we like the upbeat rocky song and also the songs title would fit perfectly with out theme and teenage soap.

This song is called Not in this World, it again has a rocky upbeat. 

And this is song is called Diamond Days, another great song that we might like to use. 

Trip to Boys Village

We took a trip to Boys Village in St. Athens to see if it would be acceptable to use as a film location.
St Athan Boys' Village was a village-style holiday camp located in West Aberthaw, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It is now all derelict and abandoned, bands like Deaf Havana and Funeral for a Friend have filmed music videos there which I have embedded.
While at Boys Village I took a lot of photos below I have uploaded them.

Here is the old swimming pool which is where we would like to base our party

We like this shot, it is in one of the old dormitory's, we'd like to shoot some footage here.

Here is a map image of where boy's village is in south wales.

The old church

We liked this room, the title floor gives it a retro feel that we could also film the party in.

Here are two music videos that have both been filmed at 'Boys Village' 

This is a music video for the song 'I'm a bore, mostly' by the band Deaf Havana who filmed at Boy's Village. 

And this is the Funeral for a Friend music video for serpents in solitude. 

IDEA

Our idea that we are going to work on for our soap opera trailer is a party scenario, as this is the easiest way to introduce all of our characters in one situation without a particular reason for them all to be in one place. We are making our soap to aim and include mostly teenagers, we are making our audience teen based as we can think on our level what teenagers would want from a soap.
We are going to follow three story lines through out the party scenario uses flash backs and cut away shots. The story line ideas that we are most likely to use:
After auditions we have based and altered our characters for our idea, and here is the final idea.

• A love triangle between three people; two proud gay men, the one then wakes up in bed with a girl the morning after the party. We feel this storyline has not been looked at before in a way that we want to portray it. We have Zak, Brandon and Paige who are going to star in our trailer, we are basing each character on different characters from soaps and series, or taking an element of a character. We are basing Paige on the character Effy from skins, she is the troubled character of Skins who is idolised and has some hard hitting story lines. We are basing Zak on two different characters both from Skins. The character of Tony from series one, he is the sort of 'ring leader' of the group of friends, very cool but has an under lying evil side that we can see bubbling. We are also basing him on Freddie from series two of Skins, he again is a cool character but also very loveable. 

Effy from Skins

This is Zak, he will play our gay character.

 

This is Tony, the other character we are using to base Zak on.

This is Freddie, one character we are basing Zak on.

This is Karl who will play the Drug Dealer

• Another story line we are looking at is a Drug Dealer played by Karl. He is the 'leader' of the group of friends and the party, we are taking elements from the character Chris from series one and two of Skins, he is a 'druggie' character but very loveable, his attitude for life that he often reminds the other characters in Skins is 'F*** It' we are also basing Karl on Alo from series 5 and 6 of Skins. He is loud, funny but like the rest of the characters has underlying problems that will arise in the soap. He brings the comic relief to the dark soap we are aiming to create. We want to give Karl some one liners to shout in the trailer as we think this will fit well with the trailer and his character. One direct line that we will use that Alo says is "we are the children of the revolution'' we think this will link with our theme of our soap. 

Alo, 'funny' character.

Chris series one of skins

• Our third and final story line that we are thinking of using is the transmission of an STD. We are having our character played by Ben, after having 'relations' with Hannah (myself) (our other character) we are going to have Ben receiving a phone call, the only thing we'll hear is "the results were positive" and then we see Ben leaving to find Hannah to 'break the news.' 

We are pretty certain on our first two ideas and need to develop our third idea accordingly.

Influence from other trailers

During the reasearch for our soap opera I have come across alot of scenes and clips from existing trailers for soaps and series that I would like to recreate in my own soap opera trailer.
Below are the full adverts and stills of my favourite bits that I would like to recreate and make work for my own soap:

1. Hollyoaks 'messy' trailer is what our idea is originally based on. We like the idea of the bouncy music and a party in a derelict building however on more research we preferred the darker theme that skins offered us.

We particularly like this shot of a girl kissing another boy,  the 'dirty' look she gives to another girl clearly shows a love triangle story within a matter a moments. Below is the full trailer.

2. Another Hollyoaks trailer we really liked was the 'Enchanted' 2012 trailer, it was very surreal and kept us engaged through out.  Here is the trailer below: 

We love this scene of letting the lanterns off in the sky.

3.  Skins 'Breathe Me'. Although this isn't a real trailer it has been very well done, and a particular scene we would love to recreate is the crabbing shot of the bed to the skins character 'Freddie' opening his eyes. Below is the entire 'trailer' and a screen shot of the panning shot.

4. Below are some screen shots from lots of the different skins trailers from all the different series, some shots we'd like to recreate and some we purely like as they are well done.

We love this running up the hill scene and would like to recreate it at one point.

We like the bed scene again.

I like this idea to end our trailer and promote when it might be on; something falling on the floor that sums up the entire trailer.

We would like to recreate this shot, the dark lighting and the characters running in. 

Why are soap Teaser Trailers used?

For our A2 media project, we have to create a trailer introducing a new soap. Soap trailers are incredibly important in the world of media as they entice in existing and new audiences to watch the on going soaps. Teaser trailers for soaps let audiences know when something exciting or dramatic is going to happen in the soap without giving away the actual story like. Normally the theme of the storyline is suggested.
Below are some soap teaser trailers that I particularly like:

This advert is for the very first series of Skins, we like this advert as its fast paced, young and idolises every teenagers dream of 'sex, drugs, rock and roll' My favourite part of this advert is the close ups of the slow motion scenes that fit with the pace of the music.

This advert is very different to the Skins advert, it's almost a behind the scenes look on Hollyoaks, again it is fast paced, it's up beat and fun. However the more we watch this trailer the more we dislike the upbeat idea, we prefer the darker side of the soaps like the Skins advert. 

This is the Being Human series 3 trailer, its dark and quite comical towards the end. The light verses dark in the different scenes works really well, you also get a good sense of the three main characters.

And we also researched existing A Level Soap Opera trailers, our favourite is one called This Life:

We love all the different camera angles, the dark colours used and the story lines of pregnancy, drugs and the breaking  into a house. They are very simple story lines but the angles and camera angles create a brilliant A grade.

What is a soap?

What is a trailer?

Eastenders is a famous British soap

According to the web, a trailer is 'used to advertise an upcoming film, tv program, video game or product.'

What is a soap?
The soap opera genre originated in American radio serials of the 1930s, and owes the name to the sponsorship of some of these programmes by major soap powder companies. Tv soap operas are long running serials concerned with everyday life. The serial is not to be confused with the series in which the main characters and format remain the same from programme to programme but each episode is a self contained plot. In a serial at least one storyline is carried over from one episode to the next. A series is advertised as having a specific number of episodes but serials are potentially endless. Successful soaps may continue for many years: so new viewers have to be able to join in at any stage in the serial. In serials the passage of time also appears to reflect 'real time' for the viewers.

TIME PLAN

	Completion Date	Date Achieved
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Trailer	30th September	26th September
Listings magazine front cover	31st January	26th Febuary
Poster	31st January	27th Febuary

	Completion Date	Date Achieved
PLANNING
Trailer	22nd October	20th October
Listing Magazine front cover	31st January	13th March
Poster	31st January	13th March

	Completion Date	Date Achieved
CONSTRUCTION
Trailer	20th December (end of term)	between 1st December - 31 January.
Listing magazine front cover	14th February	22nd March
Poster	14th February	22nd March

	Completion Date	Date Achieved
EVALUATION
Trailer	28th March	15th April
Listing magazine front cover	28th March	15th April
Poster	28th March	15th April

This time plan is liable to change due to factors beyond our control.