Eastenders Christmas Trailer

We open with an animated 'BBC One' channel ident, bringing a Christmas feel with snowballs being thrown at the screen.

We start off with a popular Christmas song as the soundtrack, 'Winter Wonderland',while shots of well-known 'Eastenders' families show everyone together, fading in and out into different families, showing friends and families joint in celebration at Christmas, laughing and joking with each other whilst having Christmas dinner, creating a cheery atmosphere. The mise-en-scene is all very Christmasy, mistletoe,tinsel and wreath everywhere, with characters wearing Christmas hats and pulling crackers. During this time, the 'BBC One' logo has appeared at the bottom of the screen, keeping in line with their brand identity.

It then fades into a family in a pub, all gathered around the table, cutting to shots of all of them from different angles of them pulling crackers together as a group, still conveying a sense of happiness and joy. Suddenly the music starts distorting, slowing ending altogether. The colour starts fading from bright to grey and the camera cuts to a close up of the man's hands pulling a piece of paper out of the cracker. A voiceover then says 'Who's the Daddy....The truth is out', whilst we fade from shots of the paper, to his shocked face and of other character's reactions. This has definitely created a lot of drama and a tense situation, keeping the viewers hooked on what will happen next.
It ends with a fade out from a zoom into the man's face, looking shocked and betrayed, finishing off with the typical 'Eastenders' score, that they always end with. Finally it cuts to the channel ident, again carrying on the Christmas atmosphere with snowballs and snow.

This trailer follows the conventions of current soap trailers as it is very dramatic and contains many of the well-known characters. However by having a slow-paced atmosphere, with a slow soundtrack it subverts the forms of usually upbeat and catchy trailers which work better in keeping the audience interested. Also it is common for soap trailers to have mutliple narratives, whereas here we have one main one, all revolving around the christmas storyline. This is different and makes the audience focus more on this narrative and it's characters.

This trailer follows a linear structure in which all the storylines run in order, this somewhat subverts the conventions as trailers tend to be non-linear and bring in storylines regardless of when it is actuallly happening.