Analysis of Home and Away trailers

Analysing Trailers - What? Why?

As a group we have decided to analyse trailers from our allocated soaps (Natalie M=Neighbours, Natalie N=Emmerdale and Coronation Street, Elena=Home and Away and Thegla=Hollyoaks). These soaps are from both the UK and abroad. We are hoping this will benefit us when we go on to deciding how we want our trailer to be. We hope to use these trailers as inspiration and as a guide as to how to make our trailer successful.

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Home And Away

Trailer from 1991:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DJbfUUADxQ

• The colour and quality is very different to the 2008 trailer as expected
• There is a narrator over the trailer
• No music
• Camera work is very basic
• Storyline seems plain
• No real drama with tension is shown
• Lies and secrets seems main issue
• based around the village area
  

Trailer from 2008:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX5hyur0rjc

• No speech
• Tension music throughout whole trailer
• Music creates an atmosphere for the audience as well as emphasising the acting
• Camera works are alot more advanced, under water shots
• Death, lies, injuries, weapons
• No love, happiness etc
• cliff hangers
• based around the sea

Evaluation

From this we can see how through technology, the trailers have changed, this can also have influence on the story lines and how different plots have become more popular amongst soaps and dramas overtime, with what is more accepted and common in society today.

How analysing trailers has helped us progress...

Analysing trailers has definitely helped us and guided us into making decisions about our trailer. Some of us have compared previous trailers to more modern ones and others have focused on one trailer. It was noticed that we usually see trailers for soaps when there will be a huge life changing event on that soap. for example, the Neighbours trailer was advertising the death of a loved character and the Emmerdale trailer was advertising the return of a character. Trailers are modern and according to their time period. This is done through the technology used, the music and the storylines advertised.

Analysing trailers has definitely helped us and guided us into making decisions about our trailer. Some of us have compared previous trailers to more modern ones and others have focused on one trailer. It was noticed that we usually see trailers for soaps when there will be a huge life changing event on that soap. for example, the Neighbours trailer was advertising the death of a loved character and the Emmerdale trailer was advertising the return of a character. Trailers are modern and according to their time period. This is done through the technology used, the music and the storylines advertised.

Analysis of Home And Away Opening Title Sequence & How it has helped us progress..

Analysing Opening Title Sequences - What? Why?

As a group we have decided to analyse opening title sequences from a few popular soaps, both UK and abroad. We feel this will benefit us when deciding on our own opening sequence. We hope to take ideas both positive and negative and apply them to ours to make it the best it can be. Things like music type, colours, pictures and even the length of it.

• Orange/red bright colours- based around the sun, sand and sea.
  
• Pictures kept basic, trees, sea, boats, pier, houses could represent in some ways relaxing and easy going.


• However, the pictures are puzzled, cut out in seperate squares moving around, this could show how the perfect images and scenery, are not soperfect in reality.


• They are also fast moving, could show how long the timeline of the show is, or how fast time flies.
• Trails to the right, its asif we are driving through their lives up to the end where it all breaks apart and zooms in.


• In one of the seperated boxes there was a close up of a net, this could represent the feeling of being trapped.


• There was also an image of a tree, which then was cut up and seperated into seperateboxes, this could show family breakdown and losses.


• The last image, is a picteresque, empty beach at sundown, could howloneliness, empty feeling etc.


• It then all breaks apart and zooms in, shows we are moving into these charaters lives.
• Boat sailing away, could be communicating trying to escape, break free?

Music

• Lyrics are catchy, contain soap title, theres a regular beat- both a man and a womans voice- complications? love? relationships?

Colours

• Red-deep, love, blood
• Orange-sun, happiness bright
• yellow-summer,peaceful innocence

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I also found the opening sequence from 1991 and 1995, i decided to compare them to the new opening because i feel this will help see how technology has developed overtime, and how some aspects have remained intact i.e. the theme song.

1991 Opening sequence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJOJekRZ_-c&NR=1

1995 Opening sequence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8M0rjrNu4&feature=related

In Both Sequences

• The soaps theme tune has stayed the same throughout all the new openings.
• They both portray clippets of a happy lifestyle.
• laughing, smiling, playing around
• friends and families all getting on together
• sun, sea and sand
• Doesnt show any problems

In the 1991 Sequence

• has a black washout around all the clips-could represent dark backround/secrets
• It looks asif a black screen has been rubbed away to reveal pictures of the characters lives.
• The characters stage names are written with the characters real names.
• All happy pictures
• Theres are sterotypes of women relaxing by the beach, kids playing beach games and the men on boats.
• No images of sadness and i couldnt pick up much that could portray any kind of sadness
• at the end the black around the screen zooms out to show the 'n'- all the black borders could have been a close up of the letters of "Home and Away".

In the 1995 Sequence

• There is a sun and a sea image at the bottom of the screen throughout, giving off the idea of it being based somewhere hot and at the sea.
• Again happy images
• family and friends happily together
• As the song plays along, the picture of the sun and sea at the bottom of the screen becomes a bigger wave, could represent difficulties and drama.
• At the end someone dives in the bigger image of the sun in the sea, then "home and away" zooms out.
• Theres is the same sterotype of women relaxing by the beach, kids playing beach games and the men on boats.

Evaluation
Majority of the soaps we have analysed, have shown me a similarity commonly used, they tend to base there opening sequences on the setting of their soap, or like Hollyoaks include all the characters.

Taking both the old sequences and new sequences into account i will definitly refer back to these to see what influence and ideas i can retract from them.

How analysing Opening Title Sequences has helped us progress...

I feel that it has definitly benefited us, we have looked at how the music differs between soaps, with 'Hollyoaks' using an upbeat tune, aiming it more at a teenage audience, and something like 'Coronation Street' keeping it very original and basic, aiming more for a mature audience but at the same time leaving it broad. We also saw how as technology has progressed through the years like in 'Home and Away' i found that they had a new opening sequence every few years, and each time it getting better and more advanced.
We can see that it is important to find a very catchy tune, something people will want to here and automatically recognise it as our soap. We need to make sure it appeals to our target audience as well as opening doors for different audiences aswell.
Written by Elena Christodoulou

Analasis of the soap ''Home And Away''

Analysing Opening Title Sequences - What? Why?

One of the main stages of production in my groups research and planning stages is the insight into current soap operas and their use of conventions in order to create a realistic viewing experience for the audience. From the viewing of current soap operas we hope to gain the correct knowledge and understanding of how to create an effective soap and also the efficient techniques to make our product either conventional or unconventional. The analysis of different types of soaps (e.g. Australian, English.. ) will broaden our knowledge and also allow us to understand how each is different through their use of convention elements.

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Unlike the majority of soaps aired on television in Britain the beggining of Home And Away shows what has happened on previous episodes to keep audiences updated and also introducing new viewers.


Audience:

Im not a regular viewer of Home and Away, but the first viewing gave me the impression it was aimed at teenagers, the first scene was a drunken teenage party. However the more i watched into it, i felt it opened out to a more mature audience , with worrying parents and family problems etc.





Its based around a small community, with locals meeting points being a school and a cafe. There are the common problems that arise in groups of friends, like gossip and rumours.


Representation:


Older characters are at home, worrying about the younger characters out partying.

The younger characters who are at a party drinking alcohol, dancing and acting disordely, sterotypes as a typical teenager.





Man is in the kitchen washing the plates, the woman sits down, goes against traditional sexist sterotype of women.

Narrative, storylines:




The storylines are realistic, troubled teenagers turning to alcohol, accidents and family fueds. There was interlocking storylines and also big storylines that viewers of a similar age can relate to taking advice, like underage sex. relationships. hospital check ups etc.


Evaluation

This soap like many other soaps contains cliff hangers, over dramatization, love relationships, family breakdowns etc...
The difference between this soap and a UK soap is the flash back reminders of whats happened in previous episodes, UK soaps such as eastenders and Hollyoaks tend to steer clear of these.

Overall from my research of soap episodes i have come to understand that the producers key target in creating an effective episode stems from their representation of creating a sense of realism through out the soap. From my research into the soap episodes i have clearly understood that producers create a sense of realism through a number of techniques codes and conventions

Minutes For First Group Meeting

Discussing general ideas, pitch and treatment

Tuesday 15th September

Start Time: 11:37am

People Present:

Elena Christodoulou, Thegla Savvides, Natalie Michael, Natalie Nicolaides

• As a group we decided to involve our soap around a teenage lifestyle, involving school, relationships and typical teenage problems.
  

• We discussed various locations and central meeting points like school, home and cafes.
  Characters we decided are based around a stereotypical teenager. leaving the audience the ability to relate to them.
  

• Heirachy:
  -Popularity Vs Geeks
  -Rich Vs Poor
  

• Popularity/Rich/Education
  

• Relationships/Jealousy/Revenge
  

• We also discussed targets for the week and allocated eachother different assignements in complete. e.g research (questionnaires, tv soap analysis, trailer analysis evaluation of questionnaire etc.)

Finish Time: 12:26pm

Group effort: by Elena Christodoulou