Part 3 – Your production in the wider context
In order to gain a greater and wider opinion in regards to the quality and effectiveness of our adverts we decided to put our completed advertisements on the popular social networking site Facebook and the large video sharing website YouTube. We hoped this would allow us to gain opinions from not only those within our school but from others who have no relation to us whatsoever. Along with putting our adverts up on these sites we posed questions along with them asking the viewers to leave comments on what they thought of thought of the adverts and how they thought they could have been improved. The comments we received were fairly varied with some enjoying the adverts and others thinking they were quite poor. Others left balanced comments commenting on how they thought the humour was good yet the messages of the adverts were not communicated very well. Most of the negative comments were to do with how the ideology was presented and communicated to the audience with one person stating “I really didn’t understand the point behind the first advert and the characters confused me as to who was good and who was bad”. Another person commented on how they felt some of the filming was poor especially within advert 2 where the camera was shaky and the noise from the wind really disrupted the scene making it difficult to hear some of the dialogue.
We did subvert some of the codes and conventions in the fact that we used filming styles from movies rather than standard advertising and also advertised an ideology regarding the environmental safety of our world rather than just a simple product. One thing we did do the same as regular advertising was that we had an identical shot of the Earth at the end of our adverts in order to allow the audience recognise and associate with our advertisements.
Comments from others greatly influenced our decision making during the initial planning stages of our productions with many people putting forward great ideas on how to improve our adverts or add new content to them. These comments also allowed us to gain a greater understanding of what the audience would be looking for and what they would enjoy within our adverts which are key to creating a good advert.
We decided that would like to place our advertisements at strategic places within the market in order to gain maximum effectiveness. We place them at various times during the day in order to reach the largest market possible as our adverts are suitable to all ages, race and genders as well as being relevant to everyone as this issue affects everyone globally. Channels such as ITV and Sky 1 are channels that we feel would definitely be effective markets for our adverts as they reach such a large audience nationally especially if the advert is placed at key times around popular programmes such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks. These particular programmes attract many people from all different kinds of backgrounds and economic classes and therefore is an effective market to target our 3 advertisements at.
Overall our 3 advertisements were not particularly effective due to a variety of reasons ranging from the initial planning stage up until the process of actually filming. Various circumstances also hindered our work such as not having suitable actors or easy to access environments in which to film. Most of the reason why our product wasn’t particularly effective is due to our combined lack of organisation and suitable and effective planning where coming up with the concepts for our advertisements.
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Part 2
Part 2 – Critical Evaluation
Advert 1
The first advert opens with an establishing shot of what later appears to be Tony Montana lighting a cigar. The cigar lends itself to emphasising this dirty and unhealthy world that we live in and highlights the characters immorality. There is a dark and gloomy soundtrack overlaying this initial section of the advert which creates suspense and tension as well as adding an element of ambiguity to this opening section. This also makes the audience question who the character is and what he is going to do next. This cuts to a mid shot of Tony Montana throwing his cigar to the floor and then crushing the cigar with his shoe which works to accentuate his power on screen and also show his disregard for the environment. A straight cut is then used to quickly cut to a boardroom meeting of what appears to be two rich guys discussing expansion plans. Sleazy western non-diegetic audio is used to lay emphasis on how much the people with the power disregard the environment and are typically nothing more than profit hungry. A board with various statements such as “Extract more oil!” is also shown which shows the audience bluntly the character of these two men and further stresses the ideology behind this advertisement. Tony Montana proceeds to bust into the room as the two shocked ‘Fat Cats’ jump up in awe of his entrance. This leaves the audience confused as to the relation between Tony Montana’s and the two big wigs. Tony Montana proceeds to deliver one of his famous lines from Scarface, “Say hello my little friend!” while thrusting the globe towards to camera. This further increases the audiences association with the advert and heightens the sense of familiarisation with the character. He begins laughing maniacally while spinning the globe in his hands showing how the world is held within the grasp of mad powerful men who have a disregard for the safety of our fragile environment. Tony Montana’s renown for being a worldwide criminal could also be a metaphor for global warming and how it threatens us all globally. The final shot is of the Earth from space with the phrase “The World’s in good hands with friends like Tony Montana!” This phrase is sarcastic and works to make the audience think whether they want the world to be manipulated and controlled by mad men like this.
Advert 2
The second advert opens with an establishing shot of Mike, a young teenager knocking on a door hoping to take a girl out on a date with him. This initial mid shot establishes the setting for this advert. The non-diegetic audio that runs throughout this advert is fairly quiet and calm giving this advert a much less dramatic tone that advert 1. A variety of close ups and mid shots are used throughout the course of the advert with dissolving transition between each shot. The father character who is initially introduced upon opening the door is presented with a low angle shot. This shot has been used to portray his anger and concern for his girl. The father proceeds to grill Mike with various questions regarding environmental issues such as how fuel efficient Mike’s car is and how many miles to the gallon his car gets. Other questions relating to recycling are also asked to Mike who responds with various stutters to display to the audience how he scared and worried due to the looming figure of the father. Eventually after the series of questions have been asked Mike builds up the confidence to stand up for himself and exclaim to the father that he does indeed drive a fuel efficient vehicle and he does recycle. At this point it becomes apparent to the audience that Mike is actually a good character due to the fact that he is standing up for himself and is environmentally friendly. It may also be a metaphor for showing that the ‘little guy’ can make a difference and can stand up to the larger more powerful people in charge. Upon realising that Mike does care for the environment the father agrees to let his girl go out with Mike which turns out to be the globe. This is particularly symbolic as it shows that the ‘good guy’ can take charge and can look after the world. The advert ends with the same shot as advert 1 however the phrase this time is ‘The world is in good hands with Mike’ showing a stark contrast to the first advert as the world is really in good hands this time.
Advert 3
The third advert is essentially a montage of shots from the first and second advert. Various different types of shots are used during this advert ranging from low angle close ups to high angle mid shots in order to convey different statures and moods as well as emphasising the characters stance within the advertisement. Similarly to how the first two adverts close, the third advert opens with the same shot of the Earth with the text saying “Who will you be?” This has been used to draw the audience’s attention in and make them think about the upcoming content within this advert as it is directly referring to them personally. A close up shot of Tony Montana laughing maniacally is then used with the text saying “A MAD MAN” and then the long shot of the two rich men in the boardroom which makes the audience think about their personal position on this topic. A black screen with the word “OR” then appears implying to the audience that vast change in types of character is about to occur. This shot is proceeded by shots of Mike taking the globe off of the father with the words “THE GOOD GUY!” written over the screen showing the audience that this is what they should strive for in terms of environmental care. Another set of text appears telling the audience that “It will be worth it!” with shots of Mike walking off with the globe safely in his arms. Suitable non-diegetic audio is used throughout the advertisement to further enhance each of the characters and their roles within the advert. The advert closes with the same shot of the Earth appearing on screen with words “Protect our World” fading in with further angelic like music overlaying this final shot.
Advert 1
The first advert opens with an establishing shot of what later appears to be Tony Montana lighting a cigar. The cigar lends itself to emphasising this dirty and unhealthy world that we live in and highlights the characters immorality. There is a dark and gloomy soundtrack overlaying this initial section of the advert which creates suspense and tension as well as adding an element of ambiguity to this opening section. This also makes the audience question who the character is and what he is going to do next. This cuts to a mid shot of Tony Montana throwing his cigar to the floor and then crushing the cigar with his shoe which works to accentuate his power on screen and also show his disregard for the environment. A straight cut is then used to quickly cut to a boardroom meeting of what appears to be two rich guys discussing expansion plans. Sleazy western non-diegetic audio is used to lay emphasis on how much the people with the power disregard the environment and are typically nothing more than profit hungry. A board with various statements such as “Extract more oil!” is also shown which shows the audience bluntly the character of these two men and further stresses the ideology behind this advertisement. Tony Montana proceeds to bust into the room as the two shocked ‘Fat Cats’ jump up in awe of his entrance. This leaves the audience confused as to the relation between Tony Montana’s and the two big wigs. Tony Montana proceeds to deliver one of his famous lines from Scarface, “Say hello my little friend!” while thrusting the globe towards to camera. This further increases the audiences association with the advert and heightens the sense of familiarisation with the character. He begins laughing maniacally while spinning the globe in his hands showing how the world is held within the grasp of mad powerful men who have a disregard for the safety of our fragile environment. Tony Montana’s renown for being a worldwide criminal could also be a metaphor for global warming and how it threatens us all globally. The final shot is of the Earth from space with the phrase “The World’s in good hands with friends like Tony Montana!” This phrase is sarcastic and works to make the audience think whether they want the world to be manipulated and controlled by mad men like this.
Advert 2
The second advert opens with an establishing shot of Mike, a young teenager knocking on a door hoping to take a girl out on a date with him. This initial mid shot establishes the setting for this advert. The non-diegetic audio that runs throughout this advert is fairly quiet and calm giving this advert a much less dramatic tone that advert 1. A variety of close ups and mid shots are used throughout the course of the advert with dissolving transition between each shot. The father character who is initially introduced upon opening the door is presented with a low angle shot. This shot has been used to portray his anger and concern for his girl. The father proceeds to grill Mike with various questions regarding environmental issues such as how fuel efficient Mike’s car is and how many miles to the gallon his car gets. Other questions relating to recycling are also asked to Mike who responds with various stutters to display to the audience how he scared and worried due to the looming figure of the father. Eventually after the series of questions have been asked Mike builds up the confidence to stand up for himself and exclaim to the father that he does indeed drive a fuel efficient vehicle and he does recycle. At this point it becomes apparent to the audience that Mike is actually a good character due to the fact that he is standing up for himself and is environmentally friendly. It may also be a metaphor for showing that the ‘little guy’ can make a difference and can stand up to the larger more powerful people in charge. Upon realising that Mike does care for the environment the father agrees to let his girl go out with Mike which turns out to be the globe. This is particularly symbolic as it shows that the ‘good guy’ can take charge and can look after the world. The advert ends with the same shot as advert 1 however the phrase this time is ‘The world is in good hands with Mike’ showing a stark contrast to the first advert as the world is really in good hands this time.
Advert 3
The third advert is essentially a montage of shots from the first and second advert. Various different types of shots are used during this advert ranging from low angle close ups to high angle mid shots in order to convey different statures and moods as well as emphasising the characters stance within the advertisement. Similarly to how the first two adverts close, the third advert opens with the same shot of the Earth with the text saying “Who will you be?” This has been used to draw the audience’s attention in and make them think about the upcoming content within this advert as it is directly referring to them personally. A close up shot of Tony Montana laughing maniacally is then used with the text saying “A MAD MAN” and then the long shot of the two rich men in the boardroom which makes the audience think about their personal position on this topic. A black screen with the word “OR” then appears implying to the audience that vast change in types of character is about to occur. This shot is proceeded by shots of Mike taking the globe off of the father with the words “THE GOOD GUY!” written over the screen showing the audience that this is what they should strive for in terms of environmental care. Another set of text appears telling the audience that “It will be worth it!” with shots of Mike walking off with the globe safely in his arms. Suitable non-diegetic audio is used throughout the advertisement to further enhance each of the characters and their roles within the advert. The advert closes with the same shot of the Earth appearing on screen with words “Protect our World” fading in with further angelic like music overlaying this final shot.
Part 1
Part 1 – Research
During July 2008 the students of A2 Media Studies were set the task of planning, producing and evaluating either a music video or three adverts. My group consisted of two people, Atia Anzalchi and myself. After discovering the type of coursework we were going to do, we initially constructed a basic still image advert in order to get some insight into the kinds of things we would need to do for this coursework. We then took a brief look at some previous students work from our college and from other student across the country. This was done in order to get a feel for what our adverts needed to contain and get an idea of the various styles that exist and can be implemented in advertising. We also wanted to see what makes a quality advert regarding, camera angles, mise-en-scene and narrative. As well as examining other students work we also looked at real production adverts as to discover the codes and conventions which many adverts contain.
We began by listing a few ideas for adverts that are seen in magazine and on television often (see blog post Wednesday, 8 October 2008). We needed to think in-depth about the audience we were aiming at as the themes within our adverts affect everyone across the globe After much deliberation we decided we wanted to produce ‘corny’ and humorous adverts surrounding a current global issue in order to promote awareness. We decided upon global warming and climate change as it presented many possibilities and avenues for us to take our coursework down. One existing advertising campaign that heavily influenced our planning was the Brad & Earth advertisements (see blog posts Tuesday, 24 June 2008 and Wednesday, 8 October 2008) which were airing on MTV around the time we were set this task. We believed that the Brad and Earth advertisements are very effective as well as being entertaining. By being entertaining it works to draw in the audience and helps them to take note of what is being said as the advert is easily digestible and memorable. We proceeded to create a treatment in which we put forward our proposals to our teacher in order to gain his opinion on our chosen campaign. The treatment (see blog post Wednesday, 15 October 2008) outlined each of the advertisements in minor detail and provided a backbone structure from which to work from. We decided upon using various scenes from popular blockbuster movies that have been released over the years. Part of the reasoning behind these choices was that it would allow the audience to associate with our adverts better and we hoped it may add a deeper level of humour due to the fact that the characters would be shown in a more whimsical way (see blog post Thursday, 16 October 2008) From this we set out to produce a set of storyboards for each of our three adverts (see various blog posts). Atia took this task on as well as devising scripts for each of our adverts. We made various changes during the period where we were developing our storyboards. Such changes included changing our 3rd and final advert from shots of changing weather with a family’s facial expressions changing to an advert based on the famous scene from Scarface where Tony Montana busts out of his office in his final hour of desperation. We made this change due to the fact that it fitted in with the themes of our other two adverts much better. We also based this decision upon looking into the difficulties that would be presented during the production of this advert and decided that the hurdles we would face may be too time consuming and may compromise the quality of our other advertisements.
I proceeded to devise a shooting schedule which would be used to organise and plan the times at which we would be carrying out the filming. This was a great idea because it would allow us to keep track of the time we spent on our coursework and make sure we allotted enough time to our work so as to make sure it was complete by the deadlines set, however this was only beneficial if you stuck to the original schedule which, unfortunately, we did not. I also took on the responsibility of obtaining and looking after the equipment which would be used for filming which included all of our props, clothing, camera and tripod. We both took on the responsibility of finding and acquiring suitable actors for the roles in each of our adverts. This was difficult as we could only realistically use students from our college due to the time constraints placed upon us. Another things that made this task increasingly more difficult was the fact that other students obviously had their own work to progress with. The first set of actors we used were unreliable and unprofessional resulting in an advert of poor quality which we later scrapped.
Overall our planning stage went averagely as we did complete many of the essential things we needed in order to begin shooting. However our lack of effort and dedication impacted our work which became apparent when we actually began filming. The aforementioned difficulties such as unreliable actors, not sticking to our shooting schedule and a severe lack of dedicating time to our coursework were the most damaging factors through the planning stages and the realisation of our advertising coursework.
During July 2008 the students of A2 Media Studies were set the task of planning, producing and evaluating either a music video or three adverts. My group consisted of two people, Atia Anzalchi and myself. After discovering the type of coursework we were going to do, we initially constructed a basic still image advert in order to get some insight into the kinds of things we would need to do for this coursework. We then took a brief look at some previous students work from our college and from other student across the country. This was done in order to get a feel for what our adverts needed to contain and get an idea of the various styles that exist and can be implemented in advertising. We also wanted to see what makes a quality advert regarding, camera angles, mise-en-scene and narrative. As well as examining other students work we also looked at real production adverts as to discover the codes and conventions which many adverts contain.
We began by listing a few ideas for adverts that are seen in magazine and on television often (see blog post Wednesday, 8 October 2008). We needed to think in-depth about the audience we were aiming at as the themes within our adverts affect everyone across the globe After much deliberation we decided we wanted to produce ‘corny’ and humorous adverts surrounding a current global issue in order to promote awareness. We decided upon global warming and climate change as it presented many possibilities and avenues for us to take our coursework down. One existing advertising campaign that heavily influenced our planning was the Brad & Earth advertisements (see blog posts Tuesday, 24 June 2008 and Wednesday, 8 October 2008) which were airing on MTV around the time we were set this task. We believed that the Brad and Earth advertisements are very effective as well as being entertaining. By being entertaining it works to draw in the audience and helps them to take note of what is being said as the advert is easily digestible and memorable. We proceeded to create a treatment in which we put forward our proposals to our teacher in order to gain his opinion on our chosen campaign. The treatment (see blog post Wednesday, 15 October 2008) outlined each of the advertisements in minor detail and provided a backbone structure from which to work from. We decided upon using various scenes from popular blockbuster movies that have been released over the years. Part of the reasoning behind these choices was that it would allow the audience to associate with our adverts better and we hoped it may add a deeper level of humour due to the fact that the characters would be shown in a more whimsical way (see blog post Thursday, 16 October 2008) From this we set out to produce a set of storyboards for each of our three adverts (see various blog posts). Atia took this task on as well as devising scripts for each of our adverts. We made various changes during the period where we were developing our storyboards. Such changes included changing our 3rd and final advert from shots of changing weather with a family’s facial expressions changing to an advert based on the famous scene from Scarface where Tony Montana busts out of his office in his final hour of desperation. We made this change due to the fact that it fitted in with the themes of our other two adverts much better. We also based this decision upon looking into the difficulties that would be presented during the production of this advert and decided that the hurdles we would face may be too time consuming and may compromise the quality of our other advertisements.
I proceeded to devise a shooting schedule which would be used to organise and plan the times at which we would be carrying out the filming. This was a great idea because it would allow us to keep track of the time we spent on our coursework and make sure we allotted enough time to our work so as to make sure it was complete by the deadlines set, however this was only beneficial if you stuck to the original schedule which, unfortunately, we did not. I also took on the responsibility of obtaining and looking after the equipment which would be used for filming which included all of our props, clothing, camera and tripod. We both took on the responsibility of finding and acquiring suitable actors for the roles in each of our adverts. This was difficult as we could only realistically use students from our college due to the time constraints placed upon us. Another things that made this task increasingly more difficult was the fact that other students obviously had their own work to progress with. The first set of actors we used were unreliable and unprofessional resulting in an advert of poor quality which we later scrapped.
Overall our planning stage went averagely as we did complete many of the essential things we needed in order to begin shooting. However our lack of effort and dedication impacted our work which became apparent when we actually began filming. The aforementioned difficulties such as unreliable actors, not sticking to our shooting schedule and a severe lack of dedicating time to our coursework were the most damaging factors through the planning stages and the realisation of our advertising coursework.
Friday, 8 May 2009
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