Trailer Analysation

Before starting planning my own soap opera trailer, it is important that I am aware of how a tv trailer is put together. I searched and viewed a variety of different soap opera trailers on the interenet, so as to gain a better understanding of how the are formatted and how I could use them to create my own product. My task was to analyse some of those trailers, which are here.


Desperate Housewives Promo:


This is the promo trailer for Season Four of 'Desperate Housewives'.

The first shot of the promo is of a mysterious black car pulling into a street. This is an establishing shot, as the street that the car is driving down is 'Wisteria Lane' which is the main setting for Desperate Housewives. The camera is following the car in a sequence shot with a slight tilt, as the car drives into the street. The car being black and mysterious adds suspense to the promo, as we are being introduced to a potential new character, but are unable to see who they are. We then see the car driving into the street from a different, more close up angle, where we don't see the street around the car, but just the front of the car. The headlights of the car are very bright in this shot, which prevents the audience from being able to see who is driving the car, which adds to the suspense of the shot. There is a close-up shot of the car's headlights, where the lighting of which, leads us into our next little snippet.

We are then introduced to one of the show's main characters, Edie, who is re-enacting a piece of action that took place at the end of the last season where she hung herself with a scarf. The car's headlights from the previous couple of shots are used as the main source of light in this scene, as the shot is very bright and dreamy-looking, which is effective in the first shot we have, which is a medium close up of our character. Edie is shown wrapping a scarf around her neck, which again, is re-enacting the action from the last season, to remind the audience of what has happened to the characters. We are then given a kind of establishing long shot of Edie and the room in which the action of these shots are taking place, which is her bedroom presumably. We see her standing on a chair, with the scarf round her neck, although this is not done in a way that is overpowering to the shot and is made to be extremely graphic or vulgar. The whole series of shots are filmed and edited in a very sophisticated manner, which suits the character's personas and lifestyles as they are all middle-class sophisticated women. The light from the car's headlights is used in this shot again, but this time it is as though the car is passing Edie's house, as the light goes from being really bright to dimming so as the car passes by. We then see a close-up shot of a chair and Edie's ankles. The chair falls, and as does Edie, which is the instance where she has hung herself, The next shot is an extreme close-up shot of the chair having fallen to the floor, and a shoe dropping off her foot. This symbolises the fact that Edie has hung herself without actually showing the main action of it, which again is in fitting with the glamourous and sophisticated style of the show and the promo. The shoe used in the shot is also significant to the type of woman being represented in the shot. Edie is portrayed as being middle-aged, middle-class, glamourous and sexy, so the shoe fits in with this idea, as it is expensive looking and looks like the type of shoe that a woman like Edie would wear. The car's headlights are seen again here, through the bottom of the chair, although not as bright as before, as though the car has passed by Edie's house. The significance of the car's headlights in this shot is almost as though the light has stunned Edie, and that is why she has fallen off the chair and hung herself, as though it was an accident.



Home and Away Promo:


This was the promo trailer for 'Home and Away' that aired in early 2008. The trailer was advertising a string of exciting episodes of the show.


Hollyoaks Later Promo:


This is one of the promo trailers advertising the 2009 series of 'Hollyoaks Later'