Advert Evaluation

1. What was the task you were given and who was your target audience? As the audience wasn't typical of the product how did you manage to sell it? What was the name of your brand?
The task that we were given was to create an advert for a sweet brand for the target audience of middle-age, city working woman. As sweets aren't usually advertised to suit adults, we had to ensure that the product had all of the features that are associated with women of that age and with that job such as a coffee flavour and a sophisticated packaging. The product was called 'Espresso Burst' because we wanted it to represent that the coffee given in the sweet gives the consumer a 'burst' of energy.

2. Who did you work with and how did you divide the research, planning, filming and responsibilities?
I worked with Aimee, Hannah, Molly and Billy. We divided the responsibilities by looking at each others strengths and weaknesses. For example, Aimee is creative so did the drawings and filming, Hannah did the research and then shared the editing with Billy whilst me and Molly planned the prop list and shooting schedule. This worked well because we each decided what we would be best at and so each of the stages and responsibilities were worked on very effectively.

3. How did you plan your sequence? 
We planned our video by making a storyboard to give the group a rough idea of the type of the scenes we wanted and the order that we wanted them in. After that we prepared a shooting schedule  to plan what props we needed for each scene, the order in which we could film each scene and so that they would all turn out as well as we had hoped them to. After we filmed, we chose the clips we were going to use and then edited them together and shortened it to create our advert.

4. What research and planning did you undertake?
We researched 3 different adverts that were similar to our product (MAOM, Rowntree's and Haribo) were the ones that we researched because they are a sweet just like our product. The planning that took place, was the storyboard and shooting schedule - this process has already been explained in the previous paragraph.

5. What was your initial feedback? What did others say about your production? How successful was your sequence? 
A lot of people said that our advert was well put together and it lined up well with the music we used which was very positive feedback for us. Some said that the production looked organised but we could have used some more planning before we started filming.

6. Identify what went well and how in hindsight what would you do to improve/do differently.
One of the aspects of our advert that went well was the storyline to it because we all had roughly the same idea which meant that we all worked hard together to achieve the end product that we all decided on. To improve though we could have booked the conference room more in advance so that we would have had more time in there, which could have highly improved the quality and accuracy of the video.

7. What have you learnt from completing this task?
I believe that from this task i have learnt that when working in a group everyone's ideas need to be taken into account so that the production is fair and joint, not just made and created by one person. I learnt more on how to edit because i had a whole group of people to support me and teach me what to do and when which really helped me and will in the future too. Compromise was a huge factor within our group because we could not have every single idea as the advert would have probably been about 10 minutes long. Because we compromised, this added to the group skills that i developed and i now understand more that other people's ideas have to always be involved as well as mine.

8. Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing your future productions?
When completing future productions and projects this learning will benefit me because it helped me to understand that in a group people need different roles to rule out people's weaknesses. It will also help because i now know that when producing something you need as much time as you can get in order for the whole project to be as accurate and as successful as the group hoped.

Curran and Seaton

Their theory was that the media is fuelled by money and power and that the companies only care about these two things.

Because of this, the media can often be limited to what they produce as they're worried about venturing out of their normal situation and then in result not making enough money.

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall is known as a cultural theorist who came up with the theory of how the audience perceive things.
The first way is preferred reading. This is how the creator wants the media to be viewed by the audience.
The second way is negotiated reading. This is when the audience partly adapts the media in their head to help believe it is what they think, but they also broadly accept the preferred reading. 
The last way is called oppositional reading. This is when the audience completely reject the preferred reading and interpret it in their own way as an individual.   

Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura is a psychologist born in 1925. He came up with a theory called the 'Hypodermic syringe model' which is a theory that represents how the media can indoctrinate people directly. 
it describes how the media can directly insert a message into somebody's mind and they will happily except that to be correct. Some examples of this model was shown in Nazi propaganda during World War 2 to make people believe that the minorities were not as good as the aryans etc. 
It brings the idea forward that the media can be very powerful in getting their intended messages - good or bad - directly into our thoughts and perceptions.

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes is one of the leading theorists in semiotics - the study of signs and symbols and what they mean/imply. 
In his theory he stated that he believes every sign/symbol/word has two essential things; denotations and connotations. 
A denotation is something that you see when you look at something and a connotation is something you understand from it (hidden meanings). He believed that everything has both of these because there are always hidden meanings in life and everything it contains.  

Stephen Neale

Stephen Neale is a media theorist who defined genre through repetition and difference and he stated that genre should be recognised easily through clear conventions.
The repetition side of his definition is that in films and TV etc. for certain genres, the same props, settings, acting styles for example help people to recognise the genre very quickly. As an example, horror movies will always include an eerie setting, jump scares, a group of culturally and intellectually different individuals alongside tense music throughout. People would instantly be able to recognise a horror film because the conventions are clear and would know what to expect from possible past experiences. 
The difference side of it however, is when a production company adds new and different things to make it seem more interesting and not like a clone of all the others.  

Media Vocabulary

Genre - A theme or style of media - a way of defining a type of media through clear conventions.
Horror, political, fashion magazines etc.
Semiotics- The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
  Emoji and emoticons, intertextuality etc.
Denotation- What we see when we look at an image (what it is).
One lady on a movie poster is just one lady on a movie poster - it's what it is.
Connotation- What we understand from this image (other meanings).
The one lady could mean that the film company is very sexist.
Mise en scene- Everything on the scene.
 (CLAMPS) Costume, Lighting, Actors, Props (iconography) Setting.
Genre analysis- Analysing what makes the genre, that specific genre.
 (DISTINCT) Describe the detail, Industry, Setting, Themes, Iconography, Narrative, Characters, Textual analysis of Mise en scene. 
LIAR- A way to analyse a piece of media.
Language, industries, audience, representation. 

Gender Stereotypes aimed at Women

The most common gender stereotypes are:

• A women's job is to cook and clean for her husband and children.
• Every woman lives to have children and get married.
• Women are seen to be more dependant on men and are viewed as weaker than them.
• Men are shown as strong, independent people who earn the most money in the family.

3 Examples of gender stereotypes in the media:

One of the counter-types in media is the movie Wonder Woman. In this film, the main character who is female, is a heroin who saves and protects all of the males in the cast which completely opposes all of the typical stereotypes attacking women on a daily basis. This is great because sexism in the media is huge and starting to battle that sexist theme throughout movies in one widely popular movie, really is a positive push towards equality. 

Camera Shots Video

Camera Shots Angles and Movements:

• Extra Long                                      
• Long                                           
• Medium Long
• Mid 
• Medium Close Up
• Close Up
• Big Close Up
• Extreme Close Up
• Low
• Eye Level
• High
• Worm's Eye
• Canted
• Bird's Eye
• Pan Left/Right
• Crab Left/Right
• Track Out/In
• Zoom Out/Zoom In
• Ped Up/Down
• Tilt Up/Down

Wonder Woman Comic-Con trailer - Summer work/intro

The Wonder Woman trailer contains various different sounds to represent what is happening at that moment. At the beginning during the build-up for the rest of the trailer, the music is relatively soothing and calm because nothing dramatic is happening at the time. When the majority of the  build-up is over, the music starts to become louder and more intense. The sound is synchronised with the cuts, for example, when one tense scene cuts to another one there is a distinct sound of a hard hit of a drum, to separate the dramatic scenes. After every drum hit, the scene changes to a more dramatic and exciting one and the hits get more intense and louder. At 1:03 the music stops completely to help people focus on what the characters are talking about, to add to the partial story line that they're uncovering. Also, at 1:51 the sounds of the machine guns hitting Wonder Woman's shield tied in with the music so that it sounded as though it was part of the music and so that it all combined with no harsh sound differences in only one scene. They use the sound to show the pace of the scene to allow the audience to witness how exiting the movie is as the scenes get faster and the music pace tempo gets faster with it.