A4 task 4 - evaluation
- 1. Assignment 4 evaluation Answering the brief Overall, in this assignment I believe I have stuck to the clients requirements. I have been referring to the guidelines provided in order for me to remind myself what my work needs to consist of and what I need to reflect back on. My advert finished at exactly 1 minute and 2 seconds. A little over the time bracket but I think that with the footage I had in, and the build-up to the adverts definition in terms of what it is about, I could not reduce the time of it anymore and therefore this is the most approximate time length I could stay on. Also, I wanted to use a particular song which I had in mind before I even shot the footage, so when I originally saw that the video was longer than 60 seconds, I attempted to reduce it, but the song didn’t sound clear or realistic when combined with shorter clips as I had to shorten that as well to fit with the clips. So 2 seconds over the limit is the price I have to pay to keep my advert at its best. I uploaded my advert onto the internet for use on YouTube as this was the most efficient for me. Once the advert was edited and transformed into the appropriate file type to be exported and uploaded, I had it saved in my assignment folder as an MOV which is compatible with YouTube. I was and am very familiar with YouTube, using it daily for multiple purposes, so I had no trouble uploading my advert onto it as there was nothing I struggled with making it the perfect platform for me. As for feedback, I did my project, advert, assignment and entire work portfolio by myself, I didn’t work with anybody and therefore my work is all my own. Due to this, I haven’t had the equivalent feedback as my peers as the majority of them work as a pair. Despite this, I have had constant reflection on my teacher making sure I know what I am doing and he knows where I am up to, with this constant check-up between us, I always knew what I had to be doing and he could tell me if anything was wrong throughout the assignment, so although I didn’t have any feedback from other people in my class, I had it consistently from my teacher which, in my opinion, was equally if not more useful as he knew what had to be done and to what standards. Fitness for purpose In terms of my advert and how I produced it, I believe that the way I put my product forward was as planned and very effective. I wanted the advert to have some subtlety and by that I mean, when watching my advert you do not really know what it is about until around 20 seconds in when you first see the energy drink can. This is a good tactic which helped me a lot and differentiated my advert as it keeps the viewer intrigued as to what it could be about. At the end of the advert, I do show the can to the camera so it is clear what the definition of the commercial is to the viewer but the build-up, in my opinion as long as it is not to long as to which it loses interest of the viewer, can work very well to keep suspense. As there are dozens of energy drinks/fizzy drinks out in the market at the moment and will continue to be produced, I wanted to put my product forward in a slightly different way, which is how I believe I have portrayed the drink to the viewer which I am happy with overall. As mentioned previously, I have put the advert onto YouTube as this was the site I was most comfortable with for uploading and watching videos. The internet and YouTube specifically, has millions and millions of people visiting it every single day, which means that you can reach out to a wide range of people easily with pretty much no effort at all as all you have to do is wait for people to watch it and provide feedback. Therefore, I believe the coverage is brilliant, but it isn’t necessary the best way of obtaining feedback as it isn’t immediate, you have to be patient and wait for people
- 2. to watch it, however if I just showed the advert to people in my class, I would have gotten the feedback much quicker but I would have severely limited my coverage of viewers, and in my opinion, the internet outweighs short term feedback, so in general it was a brilliant idea to put the advert through this platform. In terms of whether it looked professional or not compared to existing adverts, it was decent enough for me to be proud of my own work, also as mentioned before, I did everything by myself and there is only so much you can do on your own without help, so as for it being a solo produced advert, it was probably better than the majority of ones created in the same way. It was not however, as good as the famous adverts from popular companies as they have the money for marketing and equipment with a trained acting team but I believe mine was good enough to be uploaded and for me to be happy with it. Addressing the right target audience I did some research into existing energy drinks to find out their way of reaching a target audience, and you can tell who it was they were aiming at when watching the adverts, I took ideas from this to use in my own advert so it had in some ways, professional aspects as I knew who I was targeting. I did not hand out questionnaires as I do not feel this would have helped me a huge amount, it would also have been exceptionally time wasting which is time I could not afford to burn. Also, researching through the web was even better than distributing hand outs for feedback as I could look into how other companies have done it and how their viewers interpret the message of the advert to use in my own. I looked at advertisements which are typically used in cinemas, on television and online to spot the differences between them and how each one attempted to grasp the viewers’ attention and willingness to watch it. In cinema advertisements like films, they summarise the film by showing the most humorous, entertaining or action packed moments to make the viewer as intrigued as possible to watch the full thing. On TV, there is usually a 5 minute time interval between programs where companies need to exploit to show their product and get initial customers, they need to try and differentiate themselves from competitors so that they have a unique selling point and therefore sell better to their target audience. On the internet, usually there are just advertisements on 90% of websites on the sides or popping up as a separate browser to show you it individually. Also, as there isn’t a time frame for the advert like on TV or in the cinema, they can use this to their advantage by just having the slogan of the advert to entice the person browsing. After taking ideas from all of these different platforms, I came to a concluding point of using aspects from them all to make sure I could reach my target audience effectively, and that segments were not too long to lose consumer interest. Also, as this is a new product for my advert and not a firms idea that customers will recognise, I needed to make it clear it was new in the market and give it differentiation which I believe I have achieved. Technical qualities I used multiple shot compositions to make it seem different in every clip. The start of the advert shows me walking down the stairs with the camera at the bottom only seeing my legs and waist, then the next clip is transitioned so that it looks like the camera has just swerved to the left as it shows me walk to the mirror to make sure my jacket is on right, then it is edited to go outside as I walk through the house and out of the back door, basically, the camera is positioned so it is showing me walk all the way through the house until I get outside in the back garden to show the can on the window ledge and me on my phone. After this point, the camera remains in pretty much the same
- 3. spot until the end of the advert but I believe I have edited it and transitioned the clips well enough to make it seem like it is all one big clips with good editing. I was kindly given the HD camera to work with along with a tripod to put the camera on. With this, I could easily record clips without the camera wobbling or moving everywhere. This allowed for a much cleaner looking advert overall. The same applies with the HD camera; the clips looked much more realistic and detailed as obviously, it was in high definition but the tripod combined with this made it look very professional, especially for a one man job. The only way the shots could have been improved would be if I had another person working with me so that I could have had a wider variety of angles. However, I preferred working on my own as I could get work done fast and easily without being distracted. The song I used was one I have known for a long time, called “Close” by Drumsound and Bassline Smith, it is a drum and bass song which I believe has the two aspects I required for my advert. The initial part of the song is a slightly classical, sad and emotional tune which fits in well with me walking through the house when nothing is going on, then as the beat comes in with the singing properly, as I drink the energy can and start dancing, it synergizes brilliantly with the earthquake effect I have added into the editing. As mentioned previously, I had this song in mind way before I even recorded because I knew it had those two different types of tune which made my advert have that emotional rewind which works very well. Also, as my target audience is teenagers and young adults, they are typically the people who know about drum and bass music the most and therefore they may recognise the music and enjoy the advert even more. The software we were required to use to edit my clips was Adobe Premier, which I had never used before so it was a totally new program for me. I grasped the initial skills rather quickly and with help from my teacher I understood how I needed to import clips, edit them, add transitions, add the song, mess around with clip timings and finally export it to an MOV for use on the internet and YouTube. So despite not being a professional user on the software, I did it to a good enough level for my advert to be completed on time with sufficient editing and lots of effort to make it right. Resolution I was given a HD camera with a tripod to work with, this was key for me to make my clips as high quality as possible, once everything was filmed and put into the computer for editing, I used a broad range of editing skills and transitions which made my advert seem that much more enticing. I used fades and slides to edit the first few clips as I wanted a clean effect which showed the transition to the next clip and I don’t think I could have shown it as well as I did if I used something over the top like the flip and spin effect as it just wouldn’t look professional. I used the MOV file format as it was a small file size and compatible with QuickTime media player which was what we were using to view the advert before uploading it. MOV is also a file format which is viable with YouTube’s uploading specifics so it fits nicely in all categories. I did not import any images or photos; my entire advert consists of raw video footage, filmed with the camera provided. I did not have to compress any of the clips as they were all small enough to be used without any problems. However, when editing the clips I had filmed, I had to shorten them by putting the inset and outset points so that there was not excess footage of me moving away from the camera after hitting record for example, this process just got rid of unnecessary parts of the clips to make it look much cleaner and have much nice transitions. The only time consuming, compression related process that was undergone during my editing was converting it into an MOV file format and exporting it for use on the internet, it was quite time consuming and took around 20 minutes for it to be done, I also had to do it twice, as the
- 4. first time it converted it into an audio clip and not a video, so after doing it again it was ready and edited appropriately for uploading onto YouTube. Production skills The idea for my product was very easy to think of, a word I happened to have in my head at the time was “Remorse” and I just thought it sounded brilliant for an energy drink name, especially if I put “No” before it to make it seem even more interesting. Despite it having similar themes to “Relentless” and “Monster”, I thought my idea was very good and it would compete in the market with other brands effectively, partly because I thought of a can idea which was very different from the other energy drinks out there. I produced one storyboard, it was a summary of my advert in no great detail, but it did outline the main events in the advert which allowed me to go into more depth when actually recording it as I knew the boundaries that I was working alongside, so I did not have to waste time thinking of the ideas for shots and angles, story of the advert etc. Generally, my production skills were rather decent considering I had no real experience in recording raw footage especially for an advert which was to be market and assessed. I put a lot of effort into making it good enough to match the quality of my other work which I believe I have achieved. I used a variety of shots and angles to put my advert together with a basic storyline which was easily interpreted by the viewer. I could say that my advert would have been better with more than just me working on it but on the other hand, I actually really enjoyed working on it by myself as I could concentrate much more, and they were all my own ideas so they were easier to work on. Workflow and time management This is an area of my project which I believe I have excelled in, I have not missed one lesson for this unit and I have used the lesson times wisely to finish my work to satisfactory standards and to meet the deadlines. I don’t think I have ever had a point in this project where I was thinking “I’m behind in work” and started panicking. Not to be too credited to myself but with time management, I think I have kept on top of my work by finishing it by set dates. There was one point though where I spent much longer than necessary, it was when I was hesitant to take the camera home to record my footage, it took my around 3 weeks before I actually realised it had to be done, I could have done it much prior to this and had everything done much before but I felt everything had to be done first without realising how important the advert actually was. Like mentioned previously, I had my teacher at my disposal offering help and advice through every step of the project, which I appreciate very much as I was working alone and therefore my teacher was as of a great benefit. When using the camera I was generously lent to take home with the bipod to record with, I had no real experience using something like this, especially using it to record myself, so it was all new to me really, however I breached the learning curve fairly easily and completed my advert with no real technical difficulties apart from the battery running out mid-way through which was kind of an annoyance. Overall though, I think my skill in operating the camera and recording my footage with it was of a good enough standard for myself to admire it, if I were to do it again, I can’t think of much else I would do differently, I don’t think I changed any of my ideas when recording to save time for example, I stuck to my storyboard and ideas to finish the advert and have it finished ready for editing the next lesson in college.
- 5. Feedback Once my advert was uploaded onto the internet and specifically onto YouTube, I found that there was little feedback on my video, this was probably mainly due to it being a very unpopular topic generally, so it isn’t necessarily something people are going to search for when they go on the site. However, I did receive feedback from my teacher about parts of it, how my editing was and how I composed the advert generally which was very motivating because it helped me to write this evaluation effectively whilst constantly reflecting on what I have been told about my work. I believe the client would be satisfied with the project in a whole, as it fulfils everything they have asked for and it has met the deadline given, perhaps it isn’t to the most professional of standards as I am not a cameraman so it was all first hand, first time experience and like mentioned before, if I was to do the project again, I don’t think there would be much else to change apart from maybe changing my storyboard to maybe 2 or 3 of them, but making them much more detailed to actually show the timeline of the advert rather than just one summarising it as a whole. Other than this, I think all of my other work is satisfactory for the client and I have had step by step feedback from my teacher to finish the project. Despite my constant reflection to help from my teacher, I did the entirety of the project myself with no help on actually doing it, my teacher was a guideline when I required the help which again, I greatly appreciate as he was the majority of the feedback which sparked my need to equalize the standards of my other work to match my advert. I did not gain any feedback from my peers in my class, as I was working by myself and everybody else was already in a group, also it was partly due to the fact that I did not know anybody to a great level, so I didn’t particularly feel comfortable asking for feedback from people I didn’t really know, so the feedback I did get was good enough to check over my work and edit parts I wasn’t happy with once the project was finished.