- cool video
- lol at the end
- This is very cool, nice add!
- cool
- nice ad!
- nice use of the music
- Very nice - CharlieHarper NGU 8) (Y)
Here is some positive feed back from people who I don't know and they seemed to like it. After I had done my sample viewing I moved onto my evaluation.
Here is some of my evaluation;
Evaluation
I have been studying TV adverts and understanding the conventions inside a TV Advert and I have found this both interesting and challenging because there are so many things to consider when making an advert. During this process, I soon realised that I didn’t really have knowledgeable skills and experience to use in these units and I had a lot to learn and grasp in this new subject area.
After we had completed the theory, we were put into groups and started to learn the practical side of making an advert. The software which I used for these units was Adobe Premiere. I found Adobe Premiere quite easy and straight forward to use and I felt the Premiere skills I have now learnt will be really useful for future projects and other outside work. The people that were in my group were Shona, Danny, Hannah and me. I liked my group a lot because they were quite straight forward and quick in making decisions; this makes it easier to decide on issues in group meetings. However, it concerned me that a few issues occurred after the meetings which did slow things slightly and showed that some of my group members weren’t confident enough to bring up their own concerns straight away. We did resolve the issues in the next meeting and I was satisfied with the high level of cooperation in my group. As a group, we got a move on with the pre-production of our work and we got most of it done in the first two weeks.
My role in the group was to draw the storyboard into a perspective view and write up a script. I found this fun and enjoyed doing it because I felt I could manipulate the detail and inspire ideas and techniques into the initial idea to make it better. Danny did the shooting script and the initial aims for the group. Hannah did the treatment and the shooting schedule. Shona did the risk assessment and call sheet and the shooting schedule. We also, had to do a proposal and we decided to split up the proposal so the work could be shared out equally. This showed that our group was considerate and fair, when it came to handing out work.
I felt that Shona’s communication skills were really clear and she helped to make sure everyone had a chance to give an opinion on any decision that was made. She got the work done for our group and this was very beneficial to the group as this sped up our process of completing all the work. However, Shona did not always come in to college, which caused some inconvenience when it came to arranging the minutes of meeting, as we needed everyone to be there. Overall, Shona contributed a lot towards the group and put a lot of effort into the filming of our final advert to make it look good.
Hannah achieved the most amount of work and was extremely organised in completing her work and achieving a high standard. Hannah made sure the potential detail was good in the proposal and was clear to understand. She also discussed improvements for some of the other member’s work, which was really helpful, in case they had missed something out. Hannah’s communication skills were a little worrying at the start of the process, when we were put into groups, because she wasn’t confident enough to express her thoughts on the decisions that had been made. This caused a few problems later on, when she raised the issues in later minutes’ meetings, because we may have been able to address them at the beginning. This slowed down the process of producing a final idea for our group.
Danny completed all of the work which he had to do and made steady progress in completing all the work. Danny was good at discussing the decisions made in the group and contributed towards writing up the minute meetings and making notes about it. Danny sometimes had a lack of enthusiasm in contributing towards the work and I found it hard to discuss issues with him. For example, when we were deciding on our final idea, he wasn’t very open about the decision that the group made and he seemed very determined to do his own idea. In the end, we had to compromise and we adapted his idea with the rest of the group’s idea. Also, he didn’t seem to like making necessary changes to the documents to improve grades and I felt this showed a lack consideration for the group team effort.
Overall, I was very happy with my group’s progress and we managed to make good progress in completing all the work, which was very important, despite the fact that there were a few issues in the group. I think we have all learnt something from working in a group situation, such as communicating with each other in the right way, listening, adapting and changing our ideas to fit with each others’ ideas and working through group issues to find a way forward.
The brand we chose was Kit Kat and our group’s final idea is about a boy called Danny, who does not quite fit in at college and is under constant pressure from other students and who bully him. To boost his confidence each day, he buys two Kit Kats to help him to get through the day. This advert is set just after he has bought the Kit Kat and has eaten one already. On this particular day, eating the Kit Kat seems to have given him enough confidence and he stands up to the bullies. The assumed ending would be to fight the bullies off, but instead, Danny gives them the remaining Kit Kat. He does this to pacify and placate the bullies, as he feels sorry for them, because the only way they can be confident is to put other people down and hurt them. Danny gives them the Kit Kat to be conciliatory and to make the bullies lighten up and be less aggressive. One of the bullies eats the Kit Kat and seems to relax and be less aggressive. Perhaps this is a combination of the flavour of the chocolate as well as a response to someone giving him something and being kind.
At the end of our 30 second TV advert, I felt that our production went smoothly without any problems. We managed to get a variety of shots, including pan and zoom in shots. One of the main problems we had was that we created an audience when we were filming a scene and, when it came to the editing, a few shots had to be deleted because they didn’t make sense. For example, in one shot, there is a person is in the background standing around in the background and then in the next one, no one is there. One way this could have been managed this better would have been to put boundaries or tape around the area where were filming, in order to stop people getting into the shots. Alternatively, we could have filmed earlier, or later in the day, when there are less people around.
The outcome of my first edit of the TV advert I felt went well. However, there were a few issues with it but I managed to solve these in the final edit of my TV advert. These issues were misguided disappearances of people in the background, as I have already discussed, and a lack of product placement in the advert. These issues were picked up by Andy and I found this helpful and this allowed me to make these changes for my final advert.
I also got Harry to watch my advert and his feedback was that he thought I had done well to make an advert in such a short time. One small thing which he felt needed to be changed was the sound, because it went above the sound bar, making the sound quality bad. Some questions which Harry raised and asked me to consider about my advert were ‘Why would Danny buy two Kit Kats?’ and ‘How do I know this is aimed at students?’ These questions showed that the narrative was weaker than I expected, because Harry didn’t seem to get some of the narrative shown in the advert and I accept that this could be made stronger. However, I would argue that buying 2 Kit Kats is not unusual and is actually a strong sales message. It also suggests that it is OK to buy two Kit Kats, rather than just one and may also suggest a positive message in terms of buying one for yourself and one for someone else. In our advert Danny was trying to take a break himself and help the bullies to take a break too!
At the end of our production we completed our adverts in a .avi format file
We felt it was really important to do some ‘sampling viewing’, so that we could see if people liked it, understood what we were trying to do and to see if we succeeded in reaching our targeted audience. I under took some sampling viewing inside the class. The first bit of research I undertook inside the class was to hand out questionnaires. I gave out 15 questionnaires and I also posted it on YouTube, where I got some positive feedback about my advert. Overall, I didn’t get any negative feedback, or bad comments here, as you can see in the images below;
Out of the 15 questionnaires which I gave out to members of my class, I got mostly positive feedback about my work. However, I did get some negative feedback about the advert in that they said it was too fast paced and that the narrative might be confusing for some viewers. I took this feedback into consideration and too make this advert even better, I would go and reshoot some of the script. Some of the things which need to be improved when reshooting would be to reintroduce the characters a bit more slowly and clearly. With Danny’s character, I could show some pre shots of him getting bullied to show that this is something that has happened before. This would make the narrative easier to understand and hopefully the viewers would find this less confusing and they would grasp the concept of the idea.
One advert that is quite similar to my Kit Kat advert, is the Super Bowl, Pepsi advert. In the ‘Superbowl’ advert, a woman throws a can of coke at another woman’s head. In our advert, the bullies bump into Danny and appear threatening. Both of the adverts have an aggressive overtone to them, but are intended to be humorous, so the violence is not taken too seriously. The aggression is diluted by the humour and should not cause offence. In our Kit Kat advert and in the Pepsi advert, the characters were over acting and sending themselves up and this is designed to make the audience laugh. However, I do see that you walk a thin line with this type of ‘black’ humour and it is possible that someone in your audience, who may have experienced bullying themselves, could take offence, or be upset by the advert.
However, many viewers found this Pepsi advert offensive, because it showed a black woman as an angry character and some people felt this was ‘typecasting’ black people. This is very interesting as this advert has been interpreted as very racist towards black woman and men. However, the advert was not banned making this very unusual , given the sensitivity around racism. Even more unusual, was the fact that the advert was aired during the of African-American history month in North America. This shows that even some really amazing adverts can be interrupted in different ways and may either be found to be intriguing or offensive. If I was to analyse whether my advert was either offensive or insulting towards individuals, then I would say that I have succeeded in avoiding this, because there aren’t any direct issues with any discrimination, racism, or obvious physical bullying. The only thing I would mention is that there aren’t any African or Asian people actors in my advert and this might be viewed as politically insensitive.
I do feel that during this project, I have kept up a good pace of work and this has meant that I have met all of the required deadlines. I hope that I have managed to complete the at a higher level and in doing so achieve s higher grades. If I was to improve my progress on my work, I would spend more time on my blog, as I get carried away with the media project and then I, forget to blog it afterwards. Also I will be more cautious when making group decisions, so that the outcome of my final advert will be better.
Overall I am with the progress I have made in my group, the documents which I completed for group work were the storyboard and the script. I did a rough storyboard, with simple drawings so that as a group we could discuss each scene and make changes to the storyboard without causing to much hassle for me. After we made the changes I did an exclusive final storyboard which was detailed and included a few of the main shots for each scene, to give an idea of what the outcome of each scenes shot will be like. I was pleased with my groups work and the amount of effort they put into make sure it was good and clear. We didn’t really have any arguments, which was really good and this help to progress well. Our end DVD Menu was good and it had good design layout which, was relevant to the brand. The only things which I should included was a link back to the menu, so every time it finishes it will redirect you back to the main menu. I felt that I have progress well in these units and to further improve my work, I should spend more time on my blog so that better detailed, so I can achieve higher grades.
