This advert came out well. The finish is a little pixelated, and is a bit dark. Also, the audio quality is a little quiet, but other than this, it came out well. I am pleased. It is funny and shows off the product, so that's good for me as it is what I was aiming for.
9 May 2012
8 May 2012
2 May 2012
Evaluation
1.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
With my media product being focused around a new kind of energy drink, I have created my own logo and bottle label, and attached it to an old sports bottle. From a slight distance, this actually looks like it could be a real sports drink. This is evident in both the screenshot for my second advert, and the still photo of the empty bottle. At the end of my second advert, the name of my product (Sportsade) is displayed over a still shot of the bottle, and the inspiration for this comes from challenging existing drinks adverts, where the name of the product is typically displayed at the end of the commercial. I feel like this gives my advert a more realistic ending to it.
Besides
this, my first advert has different shots, used to represent the character's
facial features and expression. The script is very similar to the famous speech
at the end of the movie Blade Runner, and I use this in a mockery kind
of way, which is the motive I use behind both adverts. Advertisements in the
past (such as Old Spice, or the John Barnes Mars
commercial) have carried elements of comedy, parody or dark humor in them,
and have minimal relevance to the product being advertised displayed in the
advert. I have taken and developed this approach with both of my adverts,
though I make it clear in the scripts what my product actually is. I believe in
order to make my product stand out from the other existing types of this
product's nature, it is more or less reasonable to be able to have and use
the ability to make your advert memorable and unique, whether it is through
song, an attractive person, or through referencing a well known movie. This is
the kind of advert my target market wanted, and this is reflected in my
audience feedback, which is found further on in my evaluation. Designing,
filming, and producing a drinks advert is a difficult yet broad thing to do, as
there are only certain things you can do in a 6th form A Level advert, and I
did not have the materials, skills, and machinery that existing companies such
as Powerade or Lucozade do. To say I had to do an advert with no budget, no
professional actors, or no actual existing product, I am very satisfied with
the outcome to my advert.
 |
| A still shot from my 1st advert |
I
use the same actor for both adverts, though I myself make an appearance in the
second advert (much to my disagreement). The fact that my filming partner does
a performing arts course helps a ton, as he knows exactly what to do, and what
I expect from him when filming (such as emotions, movement, attitude, etc.). I
wanted to keep the script simple for both adverts, and you can see the
direction I chose to head in by watching the advert embedded. The script and
acting in this advert is dry, yet the actions and final outcome are memorable,
and furthermore humorous. I match this in my second advert, with the simple
script and acting, followed by the main character's assistant deciding to walk
off after being disappointed. The humor in this is not only the assistant
slating the product I am trying to advertise, but also the desperation shown by
the main character when he goes off-screen to chase back the assistant.
Another
element from existing adverts which I chose to adapt from (and I mentioned this
briefly earlier), is the use of a final still shot of the actual product. I was
debating whether or not to put the tagline in underneath the product name, but
this was later cut out due to color-coding and color clashing reasons. In
comparison to the other photo, you can see the following motion I have tried to
capture.
 |
| The still shot of my product |
An
unusual convention I have used in my adverts (with the first one in particular)
is the amount of different shots, angles, and ranges. This makes the first
advert especially look more like a movie scene, especially with the music
covered in the background. I decided to get an emotional piece of royalty free
music, and this will be addressed further on in my evaluation. The reason I
chose the style of music was because I felt it fitted the adverts’ emotion and
content perfectly, and the music is cut out as soon as the seriousness and
emotion stops (followed by the TV error effects and sounds).
The
screenshot below shows the settings of the second commercial. I intentionally chose
to go for a bland looking set, as it was important not to over-do it. The
settings were also chosen to draw more focus and attention to the actors
involved (instead of the audience being more bothered about the "pretty colors
and magic unicorns"), hence the reason I didn't follow most of my fellow
classmates and use effects such as green screen and camera effects. There is
actually a coincidence within both adverts, as the first one has plenty of
lighting, and the second one is filmed in a dim theatre. It was important to
have a reasonable amount of lighting in both adverts, though looking back, it
would've made more sense to film the Blade Runner-inspired advert in an actual
performance theatre. This would've carried great relevance to it, instead of
filming it in a sports hall.
 |
| The environment chosen to film in |
2.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?
I believe that both of my main and
ancillary tasks match up well together, seeing as they don’t really have to
have too much relevance to each other. The ancillary task (my web banner) has a
more professional approach to it, and is more attractive so-to-speak. I would
say that the banner advert goes well with the 1st advert more, as
this advert feels more serious in comparison to the 2nd advert. When
combined together, I feel that the overall outcome can be very effective, and I
am proud of my own creative work.
 |
| My Web-Banner |
The web banner contained the
written side of the advert, reflecting how the adverts themselves contained the
practical elements in the coursework. I felt that the radio advert had less of
an effect on the project, as it seemed to bare little relevance to the actual
project as a whole. It was unique and random, but was also a little too unique and random. I like how the
web banner came out; as I could actually get any effect I wanted using Adobe
Flash Studio, meaning the possibilities were endless. The end product was (in
my own personal opinion) the best creative product I made in the course, mainly
as it was neat, bold, and aesthetically pleasing.
My Radio advert can be seen below.
In conclusion, I would've improved
little aspects of my created products/tasks, but nothing major. I feel this
conquest is a successful one.
3.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
The results of a questionnaire I
sent out to people who had seen my advert can be seen here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_Responses.aspx?sm=txhlKMj0LJ3TxlhfcauQ1mJOldu1CeiPUbICgRkpTwA%3d
The results were fairly mixed, and gave me a critical
feedback and understanding as to what I could have done to change my adverts, were I
given a chance to start over. The responses ranged from improvement of audio,
to different lighting, to the inclusion of green screen. Some of the critic
points I do agree with (for example, the audio was a little dim), but in
matters such as green screen and other special effects, I did not wish to
choose any of them in the filming process, as I was going for a simpler layout
and approach to my adverts.
Overall, the feedback has been a great insight and response, which reflects some of the stables faced by real-life companies who make these adverts.
4.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning,
and evaluation stages?
In the research side of the coursework, I mainly focused
around television adverts, and YouTube viral adverts which were both
professionally made, and were examples of other student’s coursework. This gave
me the ideas and inspiration for my own adverts, which seemed to be more
effective than starting with nothing. Some of the adverts were excellent and
memorable, but others were just downright horrific and shameful, most fell
somewhere in between. The better adverts were made by companies such as Coca
Cola and Nike, and on the other end, it was brands such as Maltesers which were
responsible for the horrible adverts.
 |
| Adobe Premiere Elements |
 |
| Survey Monkey |
 |
| Garage Band |
In
the overall project, I used creative designing programs such as Adobe Premiere
Elements, Adobe Flash Studio, Garage Band, and survey website Survey Monkey. These
programs all had individual methods required, and all had their individual
levels of difficulty. For example, audio editing software Audacity is fairly simple to use, as is Survey Monkey. In comparison, software such as Adobe Elements has its fair share of difficulties to use. The
survey I created (seen in the audience feedback section of my evaluation)
reflects on what real life people thought about my advert. This survey was
accessible through free survey creation site SurveyMonkey.com, and was very
easy to create. Editing the actual adverts was more complex, though fortunately
there were lesser skills needed on my account, as I didn’t include any special
effects/green screen editing. Using Garage Band for the radio advert consisted of
trimming the audio, and adding the odd tweak to the sounds used in the advert
itself. Using Adobe Flash Studio has been a skill I have been fortunate enough
to carry with me for my whole computing life. This required the most patience,
and at times the software would crash, causing me to lose my work.
Eventually,
I managed to complete all of the creative tasks and upload them to my blog,
where they are free to view and comment on.
19 Apr 2012
29 Mar 2012
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