Hollyoaks Promo Analysis. I began by creating a visual, music and titling Hollyoaks Promo Timeline to help me write my textual analysis.
Visual timeline 0:00 – Hollyoaks promotion starts straight away. 0:01- Scene is extremely dark, straight away causing mystery. 0:02- Girls dressed in black, walking down the aisle. 0:05- The two girls begin to throw black rose petals down the aisle. 0:08- The best man puts a flower on to the groom’s suit. 0:10- The first time we see the pregnant bride, however in a black wedding dress. 0:11- The bride begins to walk down the aisle. 0:13- Close up of the baby bump. 0:14- Choir begin to sing. 0:16- We see the first bit of light throughout the whole promo. The sunlight is shining between the planks of wood. 0:19- Close up of the bride, we can see she is wearing heavy black make up. 0:20- We see four people, one of the women is smiling, however quite creepily. 0:22- A china doll, dressed in a black dress is dropped on the floor and the face smashes into pieces. 0:25- Birds eye view of the bride walking down the aisle. 0:26- Another close up of the bride and her facial expressions. 0:27- The bride looks towards her guests. 0:28- A man dressed in black, wearing black gloves begins to wave and stare creepily at the bride. 0:29- Close up and panning of the man giving the bride daggers. 0:31- Close up of the black wedding cake. 0:33- The bride holds on to her baby bump as she carries on walking down the aisle. 0:35- The groom begins to walk down the aisle with his bride. 0:38- Another close up of the bride. 0:39- Bride throws veil over her head. 0:42- A black tear begins to fall down her face. 0:45- The titling appears. Music timeline: 0:00- Music begins straight away. 0:14- choir begin to sing 0:20- The song starts properly with man singing. 0:28- music begins to quieten as man with black gloves on waves with a disturbing smile. 0:29- Church bells start to play. 0:31- Music gets increasingly louder, maybe a sign of tension in the air? 0:44- The voiceover begins to talk. Titling timeline: 0:44 – Hollyoaks :the wedding appears. Here is an example of a Hollyoaks promotion trailer. I have also completed a timeline of this promotion briefly outlining the visual scenes, the music and titling. I believe the promotion is clearly symbolic to the events that will occur during the programme itself. Straight away the promotion grabs the audience’s attention, by the unusual darkness of it. After watching 5 seconds of the trailer, I was intrigued and wanted to watch more. The thing that caught my attention was the usage of the colour black, especially as it is promoting a forth coming wedding. Black usually symbolises death and funerals. There is literally no other colour present throughout the promotion trailer, it’s exceptionally gothic in the way it portrays the characters. Even black mascara tears are shown to emphasise that this wedding is perhaps not all it seems and is going to end in tears or in a dark, emotional and dismal way. When watching the promotion, I couldn’t help noticing the emphasis on the brides baby-bump. As the bride walks down the aisle, she continuously keeps her hand on the bump. There are parts in the promotion where the camera completely focuses on the bump and nothing else. At 0.22 seconds, one of the guests drops a china doll. The face of the doll smashes into pieces. With the emphasis made on the baby bump, I believe that the doll breaking could be significant to something happening to the baby. Maybe the baby dies? However, the doll breaking could also symbolise that the family are going to be broken apart. The guests present in the dark church seem to know something about the bride, from the way they all turn to look at her. Usually at a wedding the guests are smiling, taking pictures, generally happy. However, not these guests. If you are a regular viewer of Hollyoaks, you would know about this storyline and know that the bride has cheated on the groom, with his dad. This could be another reason why there is emphasis on the baby bump. Maybe the baby isn’t the grooms? There is also an emphasis on the older man with glasses. We see him smirk at the bride pulling on his black leather gloves. When showing this man, the music is lowered and is almost in slow motion. Straight away, as an audience we are led to believe that a big event is going to happen involving this man. The black leather gloves and the way he looks at the bride, make him look like a murderer. If you are a regular viewer of the show you would know that the man with glasses (Silas) is actually a serial killer. I get the impression that he wants to kill the bride, or maybe even her baby? The music played throughout the promotion is completely significant; the song is called “White Wedding, by Billy Idol”. The music contradicts the promotion in the simplest terms as everything is black and not the typical wedding. However, if you listen closely to the lyrics it states “Hey little sister, what have you done, Hey little sister, who’s the only one? Hey little sister who’s your superman? Hey little sister who’s the one you want? Hey little sister shot gun! It’s a nice day to start again. It’s a nice day for a white wedding.”. These lyrics are completely significant due to the storyline of the bride cheating on the groom and the storyline of the serial killer. The voiceover right at the end of the trailer proves that this is not your normal, happy wedding. The words are “To love, honour and betray.” This promotion is a great way to grasp the attention of new viewers, as it’s so visually stunning and intriguing. As I’m not a regular viewer of Hollyoaks, this encouraged me to want to find out more about the previous storylines and future ones including this wedding. I believe this promotion may well have increased the viewing figures as it so well put together. In my opinion, I strongly believe that this promotion has done its job by enticing and grasping the audience’s attention and definitely encourages them to watch Hollyoaks. As someone who doesn’t watch Hollyoaks regularly, it has encouraged me to start watching the show again and get to grips with the storylines and characters. |