The Skins promo trailer uses fast-paced editing and upbeat music to represent the fast-paced lives of the characters and their lack of control. Various camera shots highlight themes like drug use and sexuality. The scenes show teenagers partying, having fun, arguing, and one person throwing up, depicting both the positive and negative aspects of losing control. Mise-en-scene details like the household setting of a house party, as well as props involving childhood toys, portray a sense of immaturity and reluctance to grow up.

1. How does the ‘Skins’ promo trailer create representation of
young people?
The Skins promo trailer is incredibly fast paced and is edited this
way to maybe give a sense of a fast paced life for the characters of
this drama. It gives a sense of lack of control which also fits in the
choice of music over the clips.
The song over the clips if
‘Standing in the Way of
Control’ by The Gossip, a
modern song that adds pace
and an upbeat vibe to the
clips. As the music slows so
do the clips, it’s almost as if
they aren’t in control of their
lives but the music is. The music could of course be a
representation of the media and stereotypes that come with that.
A lot of the camera angles either show close ups of individual
characters making them more focal in the other general clips, or
are midshots showing 2+ characters. The shots are often shot form
a high angle which doesn’t make the characters appear that
powerful. The shots are rarely static and move with the characters
and throughout the party.
Some of the camera shots
emphasise and pick out
particular things, such as drug
usage or people
kissing/having sex. This them
highlights that these may be
themes in this drama. The
drug usage could emphasise
the ‘lack of control’ as the music does slow down as if someone is
having a reaction to the drugs. All of the shots show teenagers
having fun and having a good time, apart from in the latter shots
where you see people having arguments and throwing up. This
shows the negative sides of not being in control.

2. The Mise-en-scene in this promo trailer is pretty hard to pick up on
with such hard paced clips. However, we know that there is a party
taking place and that there are a lot of teenagers present. It looks
like a house party as
there are a lot of
household items,
most of which are
being destroyed, and
it generally looks like
a house. There are
close ups of drug
abuse and sexual
scenes which portray
re-occurring themes
in the drama, it also
presents an image of youth these days. Light is used to emphasise
characters and camera angles also highlight key characters. A lot
of the lighting flashes almost as if it’s a camera flash; from the
different camera movements and the lighting techniques used it’s
almost a POV take of the party from another person there.
The use of some of the props
in the promo shows a sense
of young, childlike behaviour.
The teddy bear, the tricycle
and water guns. It shows the
contrast of growing up,
making choices and escaping
childhood with the sense of
reverting back to it in some
ways. This represents
immaturity and not wanting to grow up. There is no real ‘costumes’
in this trailer and most of the clips show destruction and everything
in a fast paced blur.