evaluation

EVALUATION

View more presentations from Oliver O’Ryan.

finished products

Radio advert

This is my radio advert which again i was quite happy with. The cheesiness of the ad makes it al the more entertaining and memorable and for me this is a very positive thing.

sponsorship sequence extreme rough cut

This is my sponsorship sequence which im actually quite happy with. It's simple, short and easy just how a sponsorship ad should be. Also it went down well with my peers which was another positive so i might just leave this the way it is might shorten the end though so the text doesn't run after the video ends.

advertisement 1 extreme rough cut

This is my first draft of my spray lide and glimmer advertisement. It had no sound because there were complications but in the previous post about the peer assessments you can see that the video got quite a good reception. There are things in this video im going to change but here it is.

peer assessment of advertisement 1 and sponsorship sequence

In lessons we assessed each others first drafts of our products. We were given grading criteria and we had to grade things such as steady shots from minimal to excellent.
I was overall pretty happy with what my classmates gave me. My overall or average grade was probably proficient only the sound letting me down on minimal. The reason as to why I was given minimal on sound was because I had difficulties getting stuff off of audacity onto the Adobe software. Hopefully when i get my sound done the advertisement will be a nicely rounded piece of work.
Other things which people seemed to pick up on were editing for meaning and props. I however, being the one who researched my chosen topic and genre, feel that I did well in sticking to conventions and making sure that the editing transitions were good but there was perhaps one little editing error which may have pt people off and that was the ketchup stain. In my draft advert, the ketchup stain rapidly changes shape from one clip to another so that's something i'll need to iron out and im pretty i have a shot saved n my computer which originally accomodated the 'spray' action shot.
The sponsorship sequence was hard to judge as it was really just 7-9 seconds of footage. However i think itr went down well and it was quite realistic as i stuck to the conventions and made it look as authentic as possible.
Overall i was terrificly happy with my peer assessments and have learnt what i need to do to make my work better and hopefully this task will have helped me get closer to the grade i hope to achieve.

Audacity

During the half-term I've been recording my voice-overs and sounds on to my audacity program on my laptop. The program is a free piece of software of which I've already explained and analysed on a previous post. The sound quality is pretty good regarding that it is a free piece of software.
It's been quite a tough process trying to put the voice over and music in time with the advert. This is because my adverts are on the adobe software at my school meaning i can't as of yet add my music and implement it into my piece of work.

Filming/ Editing

For the past two weeks I've been rather busy filming my advertisements for my A-Level media project. I'd actually done plenty of recording before hand it was just that i needed to re-shoot a few scenes and put things straight. One of the problems was that a shot of mine was wonky and off balance. This was due to the fact that the camera stand was on un-even ground. I re-shot this scene and i hope  to implement in my final piece. One of the other things i had to put straight was the continuity in my first full advertisement. In my advertisement there is a sequence of action shots and during these shots there is a continuity error where the sauce stain goes from moderately big to rather large. I re-filmed this by doing many different sequences. Again I'm going to implement the best re-shot version in my final version.  there was plenty of other re-shooting for my second advertisement. During the filming of my second advertisement i decided that i wanted to change my idea. My first idea for my second advertisement was to have the same product but with different features. So instead of just cleaning kitchen surfaces it'd clean windows, baths and sinks. I ran in to plenty of mistakes with this idea.

Radio recording and editing softwares

As I'm doing a radio advertisement, I'm going to do some research into recording softwares'. There a re loads of recording and editing softwares out there for use. As an ameteur with no experience in advertising, im going to have to use quite an ameteurish piece of software. I researched into different types of recording and editing softwares so that i could look at them and research there ideality for me. Whilst researching i found one free piece of recording and editing software that goes by the name of Audacity. Audacity is something which i've actually tried already in the past. Audacity is a very easy to use piece of recording and editing software. Audacity can be used as a post-processing piece of software with tools such as trimming, cutting, fading and normalization. With such tools, this peice of software can be used for podcasts as well as radio advertisements. The audacity menu looks a bit like this-

As you can see all the functions of a simplistic audio recording device are there with the play, record, pause and stop buttons presented to the user at the top of the page. There are a few buttons there which would probably need some getting used to but overall it's a very simple recording device especially compared to other recording systems such as logic on the apple mac. Like audacity, i've also got experience on the Logic Pro system.





Logic pro is a much more professional recording system and is used mainly to record music. However with the correct microphone and set-up, a voiceover could be recorded easily. Logic Pro is a product only for use for the Apple Mac and is used by famous bands such as coldplay. With logic you can edit and record like audacity but with probably greater effect. On logic you can add effect after effect after effect with all the different features enabling you to be creative as possible. Here is the operating systems menu-  In this shot you cant really see all the features and buttons because they're all hidden but there are plenty of them. Down in the bottom left hand corner of the screen shot there is the gain which you use to make the track or instrument chosen louder or quieter. The left hand strip of grey where the output is and gain is is where you add effects such as EQ, echo, gain and noisegate. Logic is a good system but it's very expensive and tough to use however it's used by many to record podcasts and radioshows so it is the most idealic piece of software.

Having explored these two pieces of software and having experienced them myself, i know that audio recording is a challenge especially when timing it with your advertisement but looking and researching these recording softwares has helped in raising my awreness of how tough it's going to be to get the job done and done well.

product design for advert numer 2: Spray Glide n Glimmer Multi-purpose

My first design on the left hand side

My second design

When designing my second product i had to come up with something new but similar to my other spray glide n glimmer product. So what i came up with was basically the same thing except with a change of sub-heading and a colour of text. For my first logo the font was all in lavender with no other colour. However for my second advertisement i'll use the colour black to show differentiation between this and the product of the same brand in the other advertisement.
Like I did for my first advertisement, i drew up some mock ups for the design of the bottle. i did this because i wanted to consider maybe changing the deign a bit further to enforce the point that it's a different product to the first. Here are the mock-ups i did for the design of the bottle-

However after having done a bit of research on differentiation between products of the same brand i realised that many brands don't change much in terms of design, usually the colour changes rather than design or logo and that's why i haven't changed much apart from the product font colour and also colour of the liquid inside the bottle. I had to concoct a blue liquid so the product would seem different to the first. i eventually just bought a different spray with a blue liquid and replaced the label.

As you can see here, the "multi-purpose" part of text is in black. I did this so that it would stand as being different from the other product so it's basically just product differentiation.

product differentiation

when a brand releases another product it usually has to change the product design so that the audience can differentiate between the other products. So for my second advertisement im going to change the colour of the spray glide n glimmer product and im also going to add "NEW" and "MULTI-PURPOSE" to the product name to show its different and can do more than its predecessor.
Here are some examples of how products keep he design but change the colour:

 So the colour will have to change.
As i did for my first product, im going to have to choose a colour that corresponds with the fresh and clean image and ethos of the product. The lavender and blue colour before was good as it reflected the colour of the liquid and gave a nice fresh look. I think that ill go for a blue bottle with the same blue sky logo design as it will look different but will still hold and show the distinctive colours of the brand and image.
I'm going to design my product logo on my computer as you can use soft wares' and features to make your product look authentic.

coherency between two advertisements

When companies make their first advertisement they usually make the first advertisement one which holds the flag for the product and company , so you could call the advert  a flagship advert. The second advert is one which implements and repeats features from the first ad to help the memorability of the ad in question. Repetition is a technique used in loads of different advertisements.  One of the most popular pieces of  repetition is the compare the meerkat advert in which the meerkat has its "Simples" tagline. For a lot of advertisements getting a tagline or enforcing a memorable quote into the brain of the viewer is essential as this sort of thing makes some adverts stand out from the rest. 

Repetition is good for creating franchises too. Churchill the dog is a good example of this. Churchill the dog has been advertising car insurance for more than 20 years now surviving thanks to his saying,"ohhhhhhh yes". This repetition and memorability is great for advertisement because it means that the company does not need to change the ad theme and genre and this is a much cheaper and ideal way of advertising.

music in advertising

In a previous post i mentioned all the different types of music you can have in your advertisement to add a different dimension to the advert its self. To specify, I'm going to add a track into the background of the advert just to make it more entertaining. I think that when your advert is specifically made to advertise just the product and has no focus on music, then i don't see the point in implementing any sort of memorable song or music.In this video below the music is used the same way i want to use it. I just want to have the music as a background sound adding a different dimension to the advert and giving more than just a visual feast.

NOTE:Tracking shot problem

As you'll see in my planning sheets for my advertisement, I mentioned that I'll use a tracking shot in my advertisement so that the setting and action could all be revealed to the viewer. However, during the filming, i encountered the problem that filming a tracking shot was impossible without the necessary equipment. i tried to improvise but the surface of the setting wasn't level grounded enough for wheeled objects to smoothly carry the camera so I therefore changed this shot to a panning shot of which panned from the right hand side of the surface to the left.

Music in TV advertisements

Music in tv advertisements is usually used as background sound to add a different feel and dimension. Usually, companies will use free music and loops for their ads because they don't cost as much and there are no complicated processes of paying royalties and expiration dates. Only the big companies with money could pay a famous artist for a song to be played in their advertisement.
So obviously for my advertisements I'm not going to have any famous songs or copyrighted songs in the background so I'm going to need to use free music samples and loops. Most cleaning advertisements of any genre use generic sort of music which slots in comfortably with the theme of the advert, so Mr muscle, with its superhero concept would have triumphant trumpet music and a more direct advertisement like Cilit Bang would have more of a straight forward direct generic piece of music.

Music in advertising functions in many different ways. They can implement different ideas and tones to an advert depending on what the music sounds like. According to my research there are a few types of cultural aspects which are targeted. They go as follows:

Entertainment
Music is sometimes just implemented so that there's  more of an aesthetic dimension added to the advertisement. This is the most generic use of music in advertising as it just adds a different dimension to the advert making it more attractive and interesting.

Structure and Continuity
Music is sometimes just used so that the advertisement makes sense, so basically the music acts like a sound bridge smoothing down the flow of the advertisement.

Memorability
Music can be used singularly for memorability. By using a piece of music which contrasts against the ethos of the advert, it can create quite a interesting and memorable aspect. Music is sometimes used in jingles so that people remember things such as slogans or phone numbers. In radio advertisement, jingles are used more frequently due to the fact that there's a distinct lack of imagery and visuals.

Lyrical Language
Because of the power of TV and film nowadays, advert producers have started to cleverly imply clever lyrics in to their music so that the advert comes across as more intriguing.

I find the depth and importence of music in advertising specifically interesting because i do music technology and find the area of music interesting.

Planning sheets for spray glide n glimmer advert 2

These are just a few planning sheets. They're bot of the best quality but they are just quick rough sketches and scribblings of my advertisement.

TV Advertisement 2 camera shots and script

shot number 1-
The camera will start on the same wooden surface that was in the first advert. The product will be at the right hand side of the close-up shot and tet will be beside it saying "Spray Glide and Glimmer is back". Voice over will then say-"spay glide and glimmer is back and now it cleans more than just your everyday surfaces".

shot number 2-This will be a close up of a dirty sink with the voice over saying,"sinks!".

Shot number 3-This will be a close up shot of a window with the voice over saying "windows!"

Shot number 4-This will be a mid-shot of a bath tub with the voice over saying "and baths!". This shot will run a bit longer and the voice over will then say, "spray glide and glimmer wll get the job done all in just 3 simple steps."

Shot number 5- This will be the start of the action shots. it will be a close up of a sink with the voice over saying "spray!" The edit transition will wipe from left to right revealing the next scene.

Shot number 6- this will be a close-up shot of a window with a window wiper being wiped across or glided across. The voice over will then say "Glide!" Again what will follow this is a wiping editing transition from lef to right revealing the net scene.

Shot number 7- This will be a mid-shot of a bath with the voice over saying "and glimmer... three actions one result.

Shot number 8- This will be a close up shot of the product with the voice over saying "new multi-purpose spray glide and glimmer, Spray Glide and Glimmer!"

props and setting for advertisement 2: Spray Glide and Glimmer multi-purpose

advert 2 - slideshow dvd

These are just the settings and props i used for my secnd advertisement. In the advert there'll be dirt smeared all over each object be it a window or sink then there'll be a another shot of each one getting either sprayed, wiped or glimmering.

creating my logo

As i was doing an advertisement for an original, new product, I had to come up with a design and look for it. This isn't particularly the most important part of the media course but was still an area of which would need researching and looking into.

So the first step in the creation of my product was finding a bottle of which I could use as my product. I scavenged my house and found a flash bottle of which was the perfect design for my idea.
Once I had found the correct bottle, I drew out some designs or the front of my bottle. I printed out some blank canvasses and sketched a few design ideas in the centre of them.

After having drawn up these mock up designs, I went on Microsoft word and created my product with the tools available on it. I had two designs both of which i deducted from my first design ideas. I came up with these two designs on Microsoft word.

The design on the right hand side was the first design I tried and tested. The colour theme was a dark purple of which I thought looked okay first time around.  I used the Eras Bold ITC font as i though it stood out and looked quite good. I used the "The UK's number 1 surface cleaner" as just a sort of a generic tag line for my product. Overall i think that design worked okay, there was just a problem with the colour as it was too dark and also I think the circular shape was wrong because it contrasted too much against the shape of the bottle i'd collected so i though this design was wrong.

The design on the left I made after having made the design on the right. I used the trial and error method to come up with this decent colourful design. So, first thing i did was find a bright sun light sky picture which was to be the background to my design. Once I'd found this background i pasted it onto Microsoft word and tested plenty of different fonts and colours n top of this background. I eventually settled on Berlin Sans FB Demi in a bright pink colour. I thought the bright colour against the bright background made the product look fresh and nice and this fitted perfectly with the theme of the product which was that it made kitchen surfaces fresh and clean.

The design process, i knew, wasn't the most important part of my project, but it merited a good amount of thought and work because it would make my product realistic thus making the advertisement more realistic in itself.

props and setting for advertisement

As my product is a general grime remover, i had to be sure that the props and dirt in my advertisement were of that variety so it wasn't confusing and incoherent with the general theme of the product genre. I thought up logical and ideal props that i could use, basically things that wouldn't create too much damage or mess to the kitchen surface. My idea of general mess was things like coffee stains, milk spillages crumbs and bread spreads such as marmalade. I feel the variety of liquids and mess is a good way of emphasizing the tag "General surface and grime cleaner", as the three types of liquids an mess are quite different in viscosity and mess. Here is a brief slideshow of the props used for my Sponsorship sequence which will also be used in my full 30 second advertisements.

Kizoa slideshow: props and setting - Slideshow