Comparison of the Opening Credits of Two British Soaps

Hollyoaks and Holby City are two very different soaps aimed at very different audiences, this can easily be established by looking at the title sequences in both programmes.

Hollyoaks' opening credits are made to capture the attention of a teenage/young adult audience, it does this effectively by doing it in the style of a photo shoot which is glamorous and all the characters look beautiful. These are the type of people teenage girls aspire to be and teenage guys want to look at and having them all dolled up doing their best poses in little clothing draws the audiences attention, and the camera angles and movement draw the audience in by zooming in on faces then zooming out from one eye to another revealing another beautiful face. It has a range of shots from long shots to close ups, Keeping a fast pace with lots of quick changing shots that lead into each other, and fast paced funky music reflects the youth its promoting. It's flashy with bright crisp non-ambient lighting that makes everything look inviting and upbeat. It has a purple colour scheme which connotes wealth and royalty, this isn't what Hollyoaks is about but it could imply that it has a high status or people that watch this will have status and be watching something important and that its a luxury to see.

Holby City is obviously not aiming at the same audience as Hollyoaks. Like Hollyoaks the titles are very modern with a great use of technology and graphics, but they are presented in a different way, the colour scheme is heavily blue and orange which could connote hot and cold, and how in a hospital things chan change very dramatically very quickly, blue is also a clean colour and is a hospital related colour such as nurses outfits and scrubs. Instead of having the characters one by one looking at the camera connecting to the audience Holby City's opening is close up shots of different hospital instruments which immediately tell the viewer what the programme is about, then it leads on to shots of the characters in action from clips of different episodes, this makes Holby's titles more meaningful than Hollyoaks and shows that Holby City is more focussed on the storyline and Hollyoaks is more focussed on the characters. Also the shots are inside the letters of the title which makes the characters seem closely intertwined with the hospital. The music is combined with the sound of a heartbeat, and it is based around the sound of a heart monitor so the music reflects the genre, and transitions between each clip are in time with the sound of the heart monitor, which makes everything very organised and easy to follow for the viewer, as they can keep up and the titles are like a story within itself it ultimately builds up the tension in the viewer setting them up for the episode that follows.