Soap Opera Target Audience Questionnaire

1) Gender?
a) Male
b) Female
2) Age?
a) 10+
b) 15-17
c) 18-21
d) 21-30
e) 30-34
f) 35-40
g) 40-50
h) 50+
3) Favourite soap?
a) Eastenders
b) Coronation Street
c) Emmerdale
d) Doctors
e) Hollyoaks
f) Neighbours
4) Do soap trailers encourage you to watch a new soap?
a) Yes
b) No
Why? ......................................................................................................................................................
5) What attracts you to a soap opera?
a) Always watched it so is routine
b) The storylines
c) Characters
6) As soap operas tend to use everyday issues and ones that affect society currently, do you feel you can relate the characters more?
a) Yes
b) No
7) Who do you watch soaps with?
a) Family\Children
b) On your own
c) Partner
8) Why do you watch a soap opera?
a) Part of your routine
b) Identification with the characters
c) Topical issues that you are interested in
d) To talk about it with others

I produced this questionnaire to find out the target audience for certain soaps and who would be influenced by a soap trailer, if they were to see one at all.

Conventions Found In Soap Trailers

Conventions you find in soap opera trailers are not what you expect to see in a full length episode.

In soap opera trailers, you get information fast and quick using conventions such as jump cuts and fades, which are mainly always black in colour. Furthermore, they are always focused on one character or one event, whereas in a full episode it includes a large cast of all story lines, ages and gender. One thing they both have is cliffhangers. Whereas the aim of a soap opera trailer is just one overall cliffhanger and a closure of the trailer, episodes always end in a cliffhanger and the narrative just continues. A soap opera is introducing a full storyline whereas the episode is normally the storyline or the build up to the storyline which may be running for a number of months, or perhaps years.

A soap trailer's main object is to encourage you to watch the full episode. It gives you a small amount of information quickly therefore causing the viewer to think about what is happening and not be passive and just take all the jumbled information. A full episode makes use of 'real time' where a trailer is mostly clips from different periods of time, such as the current Eastenders one featuring Peggy Mitchell and the "slap" from over the years. This makes use of different people and different periods of time and therefore, not in real time.


"Last Orders For Peggy" - BBC1, September 2010. This trailer is showing us immediately the character it is about, and for those who are familiar with the soap, and the return of her son Grant.




Soap opera trailers always use close ups to see the facial expressions of the characters. This builds a picture of the ongoing emotion in the storyline.
Ugly Betty (2010)

Last Years Soap Opera Trailers

This is the trailer from the previous media studies year and the trailer is for 'St Andrew's Road'.

This trailer takes you immediately into the storyline which makes you interested from the start. The non-diegetic music is effective as it builds tension as the trailer goes on, making you want to know more about what is happening or going to happen, which is clearly the main aim of a trailer. Also the fact that the non-diegetic music is continuous and doesn't change to something different is a positive as it is keeping it consistent but it reflects the emotions in the trailer with the tempo. For example the start it starts slow without a beat and then builds up with a beat as more action is involved. As the non-diegetic music is continuous is makes you consider if the story lines are linked or not and perhaps is they were separate it may have been effective to change the music for each one, but equally, it keeps the viewer in suspense. Furthermore, not too much detail is given away and the different shots of arson and what appears to be an overdose, keep the story ambiguous and this follows Barthe's 'Ball of Wool' theory in which the story is unraveled.

The shots used are points of view shots which make the audience feel included. This therefore makes the audience want to watch the soap as they already feel included and involved in the story lines. The mid-shot of the couple on the sofa shows their relationship as their body language is relaxed, also there is a mid shot of the two females at the start. The connection is made that this style of camera angle links together to show relationships.

Regarding Mise-En-Scene, the colour purple in the living room connotes romance and love and with the black curtain and table it connotes dark and hidden secrets and this is shown clearly when the male pushes the female away after he has read her phone. The setting of the wood was realistic and the bottles denotes there was a party within these woods.

I think the set for the living room could've been better and as as a viewer I wasn't convinced it was realistic. On the other hand, all the other settings and props were realistic, such as the car and the phone as they are everyday items and this follows verisimilitude as these are every day items. I think the simplicity of the title didn't work as well as ones that have been spoken or have had more depth into them, this is just a point that just draws the viewers in. I think also it would have been effective to have some speech within the trailer, just to make the viewers feel more involved with what was going on as they could remember a voice.

Their trailer is keeping in with the idea of homosexuality that is featured in majority of soaps we see nowadays, for example Syed and Christian in Eastenders (2010) and Sophie and Sian in Coronation Street (2010). They also use drug abuse, Phil Mitchell in Eastenders (2010) and relationship problems, which is mainly every soap available.

Overall, I think this trailer is excellent and follows the soap conventions of complex story lines and characters. The things I will consider and take from this trailer is the lack of speech. I think any form of speech is effective in soap trailers so I will aim to include some within our trailer. I also think we will keep ours relatively simple, with the trailer following one storyline which will be clear. In my opinion, the trailer should include enough detail as to not confuse the audience, but with enough detail they feel inclined and tempted to watch the soap itself.

Analysis of Eastenders Trailer

Christmas 2009, Eastenders.

The music in the trailer is mainly non and extra diegetic. The non diegetic music consists of a slower version of the Christmas song of "we wish you a merry Christmas". It gives an eerie feel which links to the problem the characters are facing, Archie. The dialogue is an echoing re-verb suggesting they are the voices of the characters that appear in the trailer as their lips don't move, giving the audience a further insight to what is going to happen.

The first camera angle used is a tracking establishing shot of the Queen Victoria Pub. This shows the audience that this is where the issue is. Every new shots is faded into the next using a black fade. We then see an over the shoulder close up of Stacey's worried expression and this close up of the same expression is mirrored on the other characters faces when they are revealed with a panning or tracking shot. The fact they are coming out from the shadows wearing the same or similar expressions, imply they are all in the same position or related somehow.

The Christmas decoration around the Queen Victoria pub showing the viewer what time of year it is and this is also backed up by the Christmas song. There is natural lighting which alludes to night-time which has connotations of despair and fright, foreshadowing the events that follow.

The BBC1 logo remains in the middle at the bottom of the screen so you know which channel it is on, but also the voice over at the end of the trailer with the title page of BBC1 tells you the time and when, "Christmas Day".