Research: Analysis of Eastenders Christmas special trailer

Above is the trailer on youtube. From this trailer, I am hoping to gain a better understanding of the kind of dramatic storylines that are used within conventional soaps such as 'Eastenders', and how they are used. 'Eastenders' has been running for 25 years, so it is obviously a successful soap opera, and I think it is good to look at as research.

The trailer begins with jolly, merry Christmas music and slow motion shots of characters embracing, hugging, kissing cheeks, shaking hands, putting the roasted turkey down on the table and wishing each other a merry Christmas, all muted, with the non-diagetic chistmas music playing. Many different camera angles and shots are shown portraying Christmas joy and festive happiness amongst the characters. Then the camera cuts to a shot of the characters sitting down at a dinner table like a family, all holding Christmas crackers together and moving their hands up and down, about to pull, and then, they crack the crackers and the camera cuts to a single character taking a piece of paper out of his cracker. At this point, a female voice over says ''Who's the daddy?'' and the music turns into a low eerie decellerating whirring noise. The audience see the character's expression, and because of the sudden almost-silentness, we can tell that the character has just found out something really bad and devestating from the piece of paper he has found in his cracker. The camera fades to black and back into action over and over, we see the devestated character kneeling down next to a female character looking into her eyes. He then gets up quicklyand leaves from our view at which point the voice over says ''The truth is out''. From this, we understand that a secret has been made known to this character, and he does not like it atall.

This trailer works because it is full of sudden tension and questions. The audience are constantly asking narrative enigmas after the trailer finishes, which makes them want to watch the episode when it plays.

This research has been useful because I have seen how useful a cliffhanger can be, because this trailer leaves the audience in great suspense, and this technique would be really useful within our own trailer. If we could incorporate a devestating storyline and have a cliffhanger at the end of our trailer, it would leave our audience in great suspense, and they would want to watch our new soap, which would make our trailer successful.