Soap Opera Trailer Analysis

In order to gain a better understanding of what conventions are included in a soap opera trailer and the editing style we will need to use, I have evaluated 4 trailers of current soap operas and placed the information in a table so that's easy to read and draw comparisons between each trailer.


EastEnders (Christmas Special, 2008)

Coronation Street (50th Anniversary, 2011)

Emmerdale (The Crash, 2010)

Hollyoaks (Newt's Breakdown, 2009)

Comparing the 4 Trailers:


Narrative: All the trailers include an open, fractured narrative allowing the audience to guess what the plot is and keep them active (Uses and Gratifications Theory). The suspense and intriguing tone that's created engages the audience and encourages them to find out what the trailer is about and, therefore, watch the soap opera. Forking paths, in Coronation Street particularly, gives the audiences different perspectives, more characters and more story lines which is more engaging and leaves the audience asking what happens to all the characters. When we come to produce our own soap opera, I will ensure that our trailer demonstrates an open, fractured narrative, potentially with forking paths. Like Coronation Street, basing the narratives around one particular, dramatic event can create an effective trailer (or soap opera episode) and leave the audience asking what happens to all the characters. This curiosity would lead to higher ratings for that soap opera or, at the very least, the episode being advertised.

Characters pulling crackers at the
Queen Vic in EastEnders

Mise-en-Scene: The locations of the trailers vary slightly and include more exterior than interior locations, such as pubs and family homes. This is probably due to the episodes being specials, in which an event normally happens outside the conventional settings and puts the characters in a more exciting situation for the audience. However, the EastEnders trailer uses nearly all interior shots and is more fitting with soap opera episodes. If we decide to advertise our soap opera with a special episode, we should try and use more exterior locations but be aware that not all dramatic events occur outside the conventional settings.

The costumes of these characters
from Coronation Street are dark to
connote distress but the brighter
colours may also connote innocence

The main characters who are directly involved with the dramatic events wear dark costumes in the trailers to connote death, misery or dark times ahead for them. It isolates the characters and also helps set the serious tone of the trailer. Any lighter coloured costumes connote innocence or ignorance from the situation. For example, in EastEnders, the character who finds the birth certificate is wearing grey, neither showing them to be victim or a villain leaving it to interpretation to the audience (the reception theory) and also interesting them as to finding out whether he is the father of the baby or not. These trends with dark and light colours not only appear in soap operas but all media texts. When we come to produce our own trailers, I will ensure that any villainous characters or mysterious characters are wearing darker costumes to connote their involvement with the event and that victims or bystanders are wearing lighter colours to connote their innocence.

Newt from Hollyoaks with low key,
natural lighting creating dramatic
 darkness and a sense of loneliness

The lighting varies in each trailer depending on the atmosphere being set. The juxtaposition of high key, artificial lighting in EastEnders creates contrast between the happiness of Christmas and enhances the shocking reveal of the baby's father. In Coronation Street, the low key, natural lighting coming from the fire of the tram wreck highlights the crash and creates a tense atmosphere. This lack of lighting creates a lot of darkness and shadows, connoting death, signifies a horror-like moment and further reinstates the gloomy atmosphere. Emmerdale also uses low key lighting from the moon on the character running to create shadows and make the audience question who it is, why he is running and build suspense in the trailer. This juxtaposes the high key, artificial lighting in the pub, creating contrasts between the two scenes and encouraging the audience to watch the episode to find out why things went from one extreme to the other. Finally, Hollyoaks uses the lighting in the trailer to emphasise the loneliness of Newt's character and interest the audience to see how he copes with his illness. The dark shadows and scenes create a tense atmosphere and this builds suspense. In our own soap opera trailer, I will consider our story lines carefully to decide which form of lighting will be the most suitable to build suspense, engage the audience and encourage them to watch the soap opera.

Characters in EastEnders wearing
Santa hats to set the atmosphere

There appear to be few props in the trailers of these soap operas that the characters handle as most appear in the background as objects for the settings. The few props that are used directly by the characters are mainly for the equilibrium scenes of the trailers, such as the beers in the pub scene of Emmerdale and the crackers and santa hats in EastEnders. However, the car and train in Emmerdale, the birth certificate in EastEnders and the tram crash and bridge in Coronation Street are all central props denoting the disruption of each piece (the disruption of Hollyoaks is the illness and voices which are therefore represented through Newt's character). The specifically chosen props help set the mood and atmosphere of each trailer and also highlight and signify what the problem is in the episode being advertised. In our soap opera trailer, I will pay close attention to which props we use in order to set the right tone for our trailer, as well as any props that will clearly display the disruption without giving away the story line.

A mid-shot from Hollyoaks
showing this character's emotions
and body language

Camera Angles: The shots used in the trailers are shots from the soap opera episode itself and are therefore mainly close ups, mid-shots, two-shots and over-the-shoulder shots. These are used in soap operas so that the audience feels involved in the scenes and so emotions and body language are easily presented to the audience, involving them more. The feel of the 'observer' is created in the trailer which engages the audience and encourages them to watch the episode. In our own soap operas, we will use predominantly close up and mid-shots in order to mimic the soap opera style and engage the audience.


Sound: All 4 of the trailers include a non-diegetic soundtrack which plays throughout the trailer in order to set the tone and atmosphere. EastEnders uses an eerie version of a well-known Christmas song to signify the Christmas season as well as juxtapose and connote that there is a sinister element to the Christmas special. It also includes the famous EastEnders jingle at the end of the trailer to signify to the audience which soap opera it is and a non-diegetic voice over to highlight the disturbance in the episode and make the audience what to know what happens next. The soundtrack of Coronation Street's trailer is dramatic and movie-like in order to emphasise the drama of the situation and pull on the audiences emotions. It's classical and of slow pace, building in tempo until the end of the trailer to create suspense. Emmerdale's soundtrack is in a similar classical style to Coronation Street and also begins with a slow tempo and increases in speed towards the end to build suspense. It heightens the mystery felt from the car crash and the running character, engaging the audience. Finally, the soundtrack in Hollyoaks is more modern and in the heavy metal genre, contrasting the previous trailers but also targeting a younger audience. It reflects the character's state of mind in the trailer, sets a distressing tone and builds suspense for the audience. Also, similarly to EastEnders and Emmerdale, a voice over at the end of the trailer helps to sum up the trailer and explain the time at which the audience can view the episode. In our trailer, depending on the story lines and circumstances of the characters, we will choose a suitable soundtrack to set the right atmosphere and I will also consider the use of juxtaposition to set a potential eerie tone to the trailer and interest the audience further.

Friends laughing in the pub
in Emmerdale

The diegetic sound in each trailer also helps to explain the dilemmas that the characters face and set the tone for the trailers. EastEnders uses the diegetic conversation and laughter in order to set a happy, Christmas atmosphere and also to enhance the juxtaposition between the season and the disturbance. In Coronation Street, diegetic conversation helps to distinguish each of the character's problems. Diegetic screams and shouting also helps to heighten the tense and panicked atmosphere. Emmerdale uses diegetic conversation and laughing in order to set a happy tone in the pub, introduce the characters as friends and also juxtapose the next shots of a car crash and a train. Lastly, the diegetic conversations exchanged between the characters in the Hollyoaks trailer helps to explain the psychological problem of Newt and establish relationships between the characters. This engages the audience and encourages them to find out what happens to the characters in the episode as they reach the climax of their disturbance. In our soap opera, I will ensure that we use diegetic sound wisely in order to set the right atmosphere for our trailer and to highlight the disturbance in the episode as seen in these 4 trailers.

The final titles at the end of the
EastEnders trailer

Titles: At the end of the Emmerdale, EastEnders and Hollyoaks trailer, there is a shot of the logo of the channel broadcasting the soap opera, including the time and which day the audience can view the episode. Channel 4 also includes a website so that the audience can watch the episode online and find out more details about other programmes. All this information is made clear to the audience so that they know when the episode advertised is being broadcasted. Furthermore, they details are read aloud by a non-diegetic voice over to reinforce the details. As well as the final information, the trailers for Hollyoaks and Emmerdale use titles throughout the trailer in order to help communicate the dilemma to the audience and interest them more. They use fonts appropriate to the mood of the trailer but they appear twice in each trailer, at irregular timings but close together due to the diegetic conversation informing the audience of what's happening in the episode. If we choose to have titles in our soap opera, we will include them only 2 or 3 times in order to keep with the generic conventions of a soap opera trailer. We will also include the titles at the end informing the audience of the channel, time and day that the episode is broadcasted.


The three titles that appear in the Emmerdale trailer:

Other comments: The editing style of each trailer is similar, using shots of a longer duration at the start before quickening to 2 or 3 second shots. Razor cuts are predominantly used, with fade-to-blacks and fading between shots which are generic editing techniques seen in all trailers. There are no special effects used and text is in a simple font. If the episode is an hour long special, this is stated through titles as seen in the trailer for Emmerdale. I will ensure that in our soap opera trailer, we will use these editing techniques and emulate the same simplicity as seen with these trailers.


By comparing these trailers and evaluating them, I have managed to identify the main conventions of soap opera trailers which I will ensure we use them when creating our own. 

Props Research

To get an idea of what sort of props we should include as props for our trailer, I have looked at trailers of Emmerdale, EastEnders, Hollyoaks and Coronation Street and compared them.

By looking at the various props that appear throughout these trailers, I have discovered the effective use of juxtaposition between them and the non-diegetic soundtracks, as well as the connotations and denotations they can have which could alter the meaning of the trailer. Colour specifically, as with the black petals in the Hollyoaks trailer, can alter the meaning of a prop and the way in which it's handled by the actor allowing an effective use of the enigma code, feeding messages to the audience in order to be deciphered. Since the reception of these messages from the props may be varied, this will help us to build suspense and encourage the audience to watch our soap opera if our props are chosen selectively. Props can also connote aspects of a character's personality, such as with the mirror used by the female in the EastEnders trailer. When it comes to choosing our props, I will make sure that we choose the right ones in order to portray the right message to the audience.

Locations Research

To help me research into possible locations for our soap opera, specifically our trailer, I watched an episode of EastEnders and Coronation Street, as well as looking at my previous research of their locations to find the generic locations as a guide for our trailer.


EastEnders

This is an exterior location of a home in the square, a key location in EastEnders for bringing together the character's relationships, occupations and story lines. At this moment in the episode, the characters are looking over the square, commenting on a story line affecting other characters in the soap opera. In our own soap opera trailer, it could be effective to use one central location in which we could show each character's narrative crossing, in order to create a forking paths - a common trait of soap opera trailers.

These locations are the interiors of homes of some of the characters, specifically the kitchen and living room. As these are family rooms generally used socially in ordinary homes, they repeat throughout the episode in order to create verisimilitude for the audience and a familiar setting when events occur. They could also possibly play a bit part in our trailer, since they appear frequently throughout normal episodes.

This location is the exterior of a police station, connoting serious themes or stroy lines. In regards to our soap opera trailer, if we include any serious story lines or themes we should choose our locations sleectively to connote them to the audience. This includes the enigma code, feeding information to our audience in order to convey a message without telling them the story line and giving too mcuh away.

This cafe, like the living and dining rooms of ordary homes, is a location easily recognisable by those in demographic groups B to E, and can be associated with gossip and socialising. Like the exterior shot of the homes or 'the square', a cafe could be used in our trailer to signify the crossing of narratives, or forking paths.

The shop, also like the cafe, could be seen as a location for socialising and bringing the various characters' stories together, again like a forking paths narrative. 


To compare the episode with the trailer, I have used this table from my previous research.

The similarities between the locations include the interior locations of a home, but not a pub which wasn't featured in the episode at all. However, since these the episodes are from different times, the story lines will have differed, changing the locations they were set. Though it's apparent interior of homes repeat in both trailers and episodes of soap operas, I also know from previous knowledge that it is common to see locations of pubs and cafes. Depending on the story lines we decide, we will choose our locations accordingly, including signifying and conventional ones, so that it's easily recognisable as a soap opera trailer.


Coronation Street

As seen with EastEnders, there were several interior locations of homes in the Coronation Street episode, mainly using the kitchen and dining room. These family rooms also create verisimilitude for the audience and allow them to identify more with the characters, via the Uses and Gratifications Theory. 

These exterior locations of homes on Coronation Street also create verisimilitude and allow the characters who wouldn't normally meet to cross paths and create new story lines. It also acts as a tool in denoting the forking paths narrative in the episode.

Finally, this cafe is again a recognisable location for demographic groups B to E, creating verisimilitude for the audience. In this scene, a disturbance has been caused by one of residents of Coronation Street and so we should consider typically calm locations and juxtaposing them with a disturbance, using Todorov's theory of narrative.


To compare the Coronation Street episode with the trailer, I have used this table from my previous research.

Interestingly, both EastEnders and Coronation Street include interior locations of homes, such as the living room, dining room and kitchen, in the trailer and episode. This would indicate that they are conventional locations for soap operas in general, not just soap opera trailers. The trailers also use exterior shots of the homes and a cafe in the episodes to create a forking paths narrative and link the various characters together suggesting that when we create our own trailer, we should try to incorporate them as much as we can. Things that appear differently in the episodes and trailers include a pub in the episode of EastEnders and a restaurant in the Coronation Street trailer. This was due to the varying story lines being broadcasted at the time and I know from previous research that pubs and cafes in particular are conventional locations for soap operas. When we create our own soap opera trailer, I now have a better understanding of the iconic settings that soaps are set in and what we should try to include in our soap opera trailer so that the audience can decipher our message the way we intend (the reception theory and enigma code). 

Lighting Research

In order to investigate lighting for our soap opera trailer, I have looked at trailers for EastEnders, Emmerdale, Home and Away and Coronation Street promoting different story lines to see the different effects lighting can have on a trailer.

It appears from these trailers that the use of lighting reflects the mood, themes and story lines used in each trailer and so when creating our own, I should be aware of how we use ours and the effect this will have on our audience. For example as in the EastEnders trailer, low-key lighting often creates shadows on characters and this builds suspense for the audience with connotations of mystery, danger or death. I have also taken note of how we can use lighting effectively, potentially integrating it with the use of transitions, as with the Home and Away trailer, in order to make our trailer appear to run more smoothly if we cut between high and low key lighting.

Costumes Research

As research for our costumes for our trailer, I have looked at a trailer for Emmerdale since it's of a similar setting to our soap opera, as well as EastEnders for the character of Rachel Mannings as she is from an urban location.

The females in this Emmerdale trailer wear predominantly black, connoting sinister themes and perhaps preofessional occupations. One female also wears checkered shirts green to denote the farm setting, as well as an apron in one scene connoting her house wife status. She also wears a silver, heart necklace connoting the affair story line being advertised. Another female is wearing a pearl necklace, potentially connoting she is of a higher demographic grouping, possibly B.

In comparison to the females in the Emmerdale trailer, the women in the EastEnders trailer appear to wear brighter colours, such as white, pink, blue, and orange, connoting happier themes and story lines, as well as happier personalities. The costumes include small jakcets, long tops as well as scarves and gillets aand hate which also reflect the urban setting of the soap and suggets that the characters belong to demographic groups C1 and below.

In order to portray that the character of Rachel comes from an area such as Essex, to a place such as Emmerdale, we will need to emmulate the styles seen in EastEnders, such a small jacket and plain top, but use colours , like black, to connot that she is durturbing the peaceful area.

Stock Characters Research

In soap operas specifically, stock characters are the stereotypes that appear in each episode which usually reflect the area they live in. For example, common stock characters are:

- The Pregnant Teen
- The Single Mum
- The Girl Next Door
- Jack the Lad
- The Pub Owner/Business Figure
- The Homosexual Couple
- The Bad Boy
- The Old/Wise Figure
- The Damsel in Distress
- The Golddigger

In order to understand these characters more, I have found an example of each from various soap operas and then an example of each, focussing on Emmerdale in particular as this is the current soap opera with the most similarities to ours in terms of settings, themes and characters. When I have found all the information I shall feed back to my group my findings and help to decide which stereotypes and characters we will be including in our own soap opera.