The Skins promo trailer represents young people in a particular way through its use of camera work, sound, editing, and visual elements. Specifically, it portrays youth as reckless and lacking control through fast cuts between shots, a song about being out of control, and depictions of sex, drugs and partying. However, this representation only depicts a certain type of young person and lifestyle, and cannot be generalized to all youth. While it shows the fun aspects of teenage life, it ignores other possibilities, potentially giving outsiders a negative impression. Overall, the trailer uses film techniques to construct a portrayal of young people as irresponsible and focused only on pleasure, though this is an incomplete picture.

1. How does the Skins promo trailer create representation of young
people?
There are many aspects to a video sequence such as a promo trailer that can
be considered when creating a representation of social groups; in this case young
people. Camera angles, camera movement, sound, editing and mise-en-scene all
need to be considered in order to create the desired representation of a group.
In the Skins promo trailer of the first series not much can be said
about the camera angles & movement due to the fast cuts between shots during
editing not allowing much time for the camera to move around. However, when we
can see the camera move, it tends to move with the characters in shot; for example,
when a guy stumbles and falls to the ground the camera moves side to side and then
downwards to follow him. Also, throughout the majority of the trailer the camera
pans and sometimes slightly zooms into shots until the last shot/frame where all the
main characters are laying down – here the camera zooms out. Before this last frame
most of the shots tend to be very close to people’s faces so we can see what they’re
doing and their expressions. These movements could symbolise that we’re going to
get very close to these characters’ lives throughout this series. About the characters
themselves, as the camera is so close to their faces, it could symbolise their
personalities; they might be quite bold or ‘in your face’, or perhaps the camera
placing means their expressions are important as they have changeable moods.
There is also a point in the trailer where one character is laying down, with the
camera looking directly down on him as somebody writes ‘virgin’ on his forehead.
This is the only time a character is shown in this way, such a camera shot
undermines this particular character (and combined with what’s being done to him)
and makes him come across as a slight outsider of the situation he is in. All the other
characters tend to be met face on or when the camera is slightly below them,
emphasising their importance or perhaps popularity. The whole meaning of this
could be to demonstrate or represent a kind of hierarchy that might be found within
the social group of young people – whether this representation is accurate of all
young people is debateable. This kind of hierarchy is further represented in later
aspects of the trailer’s composition (mise-en-scene in particular). There is also a
contrast of low angle shots in the first exciting half of the party emphasising the
boldness of the characters and high angle shots in the worse half of the party which
makes the viewer look down on the characters (perhaps in judgement of them or to
make them seem not as strong and more vulnerable).
Sound is also a part of building up the representation of young people in the
Skins trailer. The track is actually called Standing in the Way of Control; this title fits
well with what is going on in the trailer- a party that is out of control. This makes
young people appear to not have control over their lives or what they do, and not
really care either. At the point where darkness starts to flash in the shots, where the
good half of the party ends and the bad part begins, the beat in the song also drops
helping to emphasise that things are about to change. The beat then picks up again
at the crash of a symbol, which is in sync with the smashing of a vase on the floor in
the shot which further symbolises that things are turning nasty. On the last shot the

2. song stops almost entirely, leaving a simplistic heart-type-beat low in the
background helping to show that the party is now over- this links to an opposition of
what a heart might beat like in the previous half of the trailer while it’s rushed and
exciting.
There isn’t a great deal of editing in this skins trailer regarding hue and other
aspects but the editing that is there is definitely important in building up the
representation of youth. The most obvious part of editing we can see when watching
this trailer is the massive amount of cuts there are between shots, not only are there
many of them but they also move very fast only allowing a second or so for each
frame to be seen. This creates a sort of strobe-like effect which is very suitable to the
party setting. However, other than creating this effect these cuts can also be
considered to be very symbolic. The number of cuts there are could symbolise how
many different things there are going on in a young person’s life, and hence that it is
a very busy life to lead with many different people and activities. The speed of the
cuts could symbolise how fast youth seems to go in one’s life, and how fast-paced
young people may live their lives. However, these kinds of cuts can also symbolise an
alternative to fast-paced in that it can create a total non sense of time. Because we
do not see what happens between each cut we cannot say how long the party lasts
or create much of a time scale- the clips may not even be chronological. Therefore,
these cuts could create a representation of young people in that they do not
recognise time which could lead to the assumption that they aren’t organised or
responsible.
Mise-en-scene is a fairly important factor in this particular trailer in
representing young people- as what we actually see in the shots show what young
people supposedly do with their spare time. One of the first things we see in a shot
in the trailer is a record, a pretty safe symbol of music, which (combined with a song
being played in the background) leads a viewer to think young people enjoy and
have a good with the addition of music to a situation. This generation is one that is
very much centred on music, especially when sub-cultures are concerned so this is a
pretty important symbol in the representation of youth. There is also a vast amount
of kissing, nudity and drugs shown in the trailer which fits right into the saying of
‘Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll’. The sheer amount of this type of thing shown in the
trailer definitely represents youth in rebellion in the form of sex and drugs- and with
these come connotations of irresponsibility, education dropouts, fun, illegality and
potential danger. Because the majority of activity shown in the trailer is of this sort,
it makes it seem as if young people don’t do much else with their time apart from
get drunk and have sex- which is pretty counter-productive and could easily be
looked down on by outside audiences (audiences not in this age group). In some
shots there is darkness in the background highlighted with things such as fairy lights,
to me this provides its own representation of a teenage life in itself- there are many
dark and miserable times as a teenager but the things you remember are the
(perhaps few) good times (represented as pretty fairy lights). There are also a
mixture of items that have connotations of still being a child and growing up. For
example, the water pistols and tricycle symbolise childhood and immaturity where
as symbols such as high heels symbolise sophistication and smart-dress. This mixture

3. of items demonstrates that of what a young person is- the gap between childhood
and adulthood and hence the growth from immaturity to maturity.
In conclusion, the exclusive content shown in this trailer made to represent
young people definitely shows them in one particular light- that being mainly
irresponsible people that only want to have fun (the kind that often has bad side
effects) and are therefore reckless. The trailer uses all aspects of camera angles,
sound, editing and mise-en-scene to create this representation. In my opinion, this
representation is not entirely accurate as it cannot be generalised- it only represents
a certain type of young person at a certain time; not all young people behave like
this and those that do are not like it all of the time.