1. In what ways does your product
USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE
existing codes and conventions?

2. Soap is a feminine genre – this Storylines are relatable – audiences can
genre is primarily aimed at watch and understand what is
women happening, and empathise with
characters or hate them
Catharsis: emotional cleansing. The
purging of negative emotions by someone
Use of POV
going through something similar or worse
shots and
Reverse Angle
Interweaving storylines Naturalistic Light Edits
and parallel narratives
Use of soundtracks
Soap operas run continuously, in the same time to create a
slots, on the same days for years. As they are mood/genre
repeated so often, they become part of the
cultural psyche.

3. Camera
The Only way is Essex
Beech Mount
The distance between the
To follow the soap characters in Beech Mount
conventions, we used implies there is something
many two shots in our wrong between them.
trailer. This was to try However in the Only way is
and establish the Essex trailer, the closeness of
relationship between the characters shows the
the characters closeness of their relationship

4. The over the shoulder shot was a prominent
feature of the trailers we looked at, so we
tried to include them in Beech Mount as this
was a good way of telling the audience they
were in a conversation
We also used reverse angle
editing to show character
intimacy reactions and
emotions.
This feature is very prominent in
hollyoaks trailers etc. So to
match conventions and make
our trailer as realistic as
possible we used this type of
shot editing.
Hollyoaks

5. Beech Mount
Misfits
Big Close Ups are important
features of Soap trailers ,as it Point of View shots are also a
quickly shows the emotion of prominent convention of
the characters involved, and trailers, it is a way of establishing
gives the audience their a scene and engaging with the
perspective audience.

6. Edit
The edit of my trailer is to match the
music, with the scenes fading to black
at the start to match the beats of the
music. The track I used was
„Undisclosed Desires‟ by Muse. It has
quite a powerful sound, and is more of a
minor key to represent the sadness of
the characters. Also I have tried to
match the parts of the music with the
edits in my scenes, like when the vocals
kick in I sped up the edit of my shots.
This sort of edit was used in the
coronation street tram trailer crash
trailer. It creates a dramatic
atmosphere for the viewer.

7. I used title cards to set a
theme in my trailer, and to
establish the parallel
narratives with the
audience. Like the made
in Chelsea trailer I used
repetition, with words
beginning with
„D‟, whereas Made in
Chelsea used the words
„brand new‟ in all their title
cards.
However the way my title cards
are used are different, as it is
used to create drama, with a
vertical zoom, whereas the
Made in Chelsea cards are
more light hearted with a
brighter background colour

8. Mise En Scene The gay character Gary
The costumes
used for the
characters
were used to
create a
stereotype for
the viewer, and
could tell what
the character
was about.
This matches
conventions, like in
hollyoaks the bad guy is
dressed in black, Gary is
dressed up in quite feminine
clothes, to represent his Hollyoaks
homosexuality

9. Beech Mount
The lighting was a naturalistic
tone, to try and give a sense of
realism to the trailer. The mise en Made in
These same features are used in the
Chelsea
scene and character costumes were
Made in Chelsea trailer. It creates
used to make it seem as much of a
the setting for the type of soap it is.
normal everyday scene as
However in our trailer the Mise en
possible, and something that the
scene was used to create character
audience could relate to. Also the
stereotype whereas Made in
settings of the scenes were naturals
Chelsea is more to represent wealth
places, such as peoples houses or
etc.
parks.

10. Sound
Having watched other
trailers, I realised there wasn‟t
a need for a lot of dialogue.
Most of the scenes are just
looks between characters and
actions to represent the
relationships between them.
This matches the soap
Beech Mount
conventions
The backing track needed
to be ducked when the
dialogue was played. I also
felt we could have included
more dialogue as it
became harder to follow
without it
Hollyoaks

11. Genre
The use of intertextuality, of the
phones of characters was
another way of setting the mood
and indicating to the audience
what was happening. Also the
use of i-phones and blackberries
is a way of representing the
persons culture e.g. i-phones –
younger generation in the
trailer, and is something a Beech Mount
younger audience could relate to
which is a way of locating target
audience
This sort of thing is shown in hollyoaks to
represent a character POV and engage the
viewers with the soap and the drama. Hollyoaks
has a similar target audience to mine
Hollyoaks

12. This feature is also shown in
Made in Chelsea. However
we challenged conventions
by having very contrasting
storylines ; an affair and
homosexuality, whereas the
Made in Chelsea storylines
were more similar
The use of Parallel Narratives in trailers
is a common feature, as it keeps the
audience interested and makes them
want to watch the actual soap. We had
two main story lines in Beech Mount and
a couple of smaller ones, interweaving in
and out of each other.

13.  Also the music I have used
as the soundtrack is a minor
tone, Muse and Undisclosed
Desires. This sets the mood
as sad and gives the trailer a
dramatic feel, and works well
with the clips I have edited
together.
 This tell the audiences to feel
a sense of pity and empathy
for the characters
This is unique for the
The Images and clips from my target audience, and is
trailer give a depressing feel and more conventional in a
there is a theme of despair soap like eastenders or
running throughout the trailer coronation street.
This is backed up as I use the
words “Despair, Denial, Deceit”
However it is still
in the title cards between the conventional as viewers
stories. want an emotional
catharsis.

14. Examples are when Gary
told spencer that he was
going to come out. Also the
texts received looked at
through a POV shot, to
show the audience what has
been read.
We used many closed narratives to
give information to the audience the
characters didn‟t know
This feature is often used to engage
audiences and tell them the parallel
narratives quickly. It is often featured
in The only way is Essex

15. Real life soap magazine The audience
already knows
who the people
Lots of are
pictures
Quite a vibrant
colour scheme
It has a
trashy
layout
Attention
grabbing

16. Following conventions Large
masthead
Vibrant colours
Colour coded
Button days of the
week
Lots of
pictures
Attention
Trashy layout grabbing

17. Real life ancillary
Characters in
Same mood/genre
Large picture costume to
as the soap
represent the soap

18. Following conventions
Characters in
costume
Settings
represent
narratives
Large picture
E4 branding
and logo