Skins trailer- the representation of the youth

I chose a trailer of skins which was 1 minute long, showing a house party in full swing.

The trailer had only non diagetic sound which only one song was played throughout the whole clip. It was fast paced, with drums, guitars and synthesizers playing throughout sounding very modern and electronic – something which young people would listen to. Therefore the music represented young people.

The fast beat worked well with the editing of the trailer which was a fast paced montage of clips and made the whole trailer flow – the longest clip in the trailer was about 4 seconds. So the cutting was quick, disjointed and random e.g. Shots of people dancing, kissing or taking drugs. Not one cut followed through with the other cut. There are also shots of generally youthful behaviour: people having foam and water gun fights, there is a shot of a teen riding around on a tricycle with wacky glasses laughing and someone is dressed up as a teddy bear. There are kiddie like items used in conjunction with adult or supposed to be adult actions like taking drugs, smoking and drinking. This represents the teens in the middle of this transition from childhood to adulthood. It almost seemed like the fast paced blur of images would be what you would see if you were in a party and were drunk – this represents youth in the way that they are mainly stereotyped into drinking too much and being disorganized – like the editing.

The camera does only one establishing shot which was a high angle was shot showing the whole room – the shot shows the room of the house filled to the brim with people dancing, throwing pillows and standing on tables – showing the freedom, fun and immaturity of youth. All the camera work apart from that establishing shot is done from eye line height or from a point of view as if you were a person watching it all happen. Some of the clips shown have a bright light highlighting the detail they want the audience to pick up on i.e. There are pills on a table with hands scrabbling from them - this is shown with an extreme close up and the light which picks up the pills – adding shock. But to me it also seems like the same light you would see in a camera flash. Like party photos from Facebook. Where some of the photos taken are tilted, a close up of someone’s dazzled face or overly bright flashes but it is like instead of a photo the whole thing was filmed. There are also strobe lights used to produce the same effect. This adds to the chaotic, frenzied and hyperactive atmosphere of the party trailer and represents youths as being hyperactive, juvenile and irresponsible.

Youth is shown to be loud, carefree and energetic from the clothes that they all wear. The boys tend to wear relatively bright clothes, mainly t-shirts and sunglasses. However some are just wearing bright skinny jeans to nothing but y-fronts. The same implies to the girls who are over made up, wearing bright clothing, or wearing something like a brightly coloured bikini with jeans. They all seem to have wet messed up hair; probably from the water fight; sweat or spilt drinks.

One thing noticed about their clothing is that it all stood out with this bright light constantly on them and made the background colours of the furniture , carpet and wallpaper seem rather bland. The teenagers seemed to stand out even more so, this makes the audience focus on the teenagers and also making a their actions seem more extreme and exaggerated.

Towards the end of the seen we the irresponsibility of youth shine out as we see a large amount of people being sick or about to be, people arguing and breaking vases and glasses.

At the end there is a close up of the main characters all passed out which then zooms out to see the rest of the party group also in the same situation with a heartbeat sound effect playing. This shows how they are all still children and them being asleep shows how they are also still vulnerable even though they want to drink and party.