Final cut/ Final radio ad/ Final poster ad

Question 2: Part 2

Audience research into there profiles, along with Blumer and Katz's User and gratifications theory:




Blumer and Katz- Users and Gratifications theory (Prezi):


Here is an example of one of the focus groups we had for our newspaper ad, that best helps with the decision of which one we chose:

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Due to the documentary not being able to just stand alone and sell itself, we had to organise a campaign to help advertise the documentary properly.
Each piece of the ancillary texts was made to fit the profile of our documentary; it was given a specific title with specific colours and layouts, all to help with the production of the doc. We have targeted our audiences in 2 forms: one being in the form of a radio advert, the other being in the form of a newspaper ad. People that listen to the radio a lot will pick up on the ad and hopefully tune in when it is released, people that read the newspaper will see our poster and hopefully respond to it in the way we wanted. However, you could say that we got people that don't normally pick up a newspaper or don't listen to the radio, to do this by making the ads look and sound enticing.

Both ancillary texts have similar qualities about them, the biggest one being that we use the poster in the radio ad whilst the advert is playing, so if people are catching it on Youtube oh viewing it on a radio website they can see the shocking image and they hear the word addiction and heroine.

The radio ad really captures some of the best bits of sound and voice that we have in the documentary, the music too, having the Nintendo music playing at some point and that game noise at the beginning; really brings in the audience. In a radio ad if an audience was to hear something they have heard before, like a brand or a song, their immediate reaction would be to turn it up and listen. Having some elements of the documentary in the radio helps the audience to hear what type of things we are going to discuss and the lovely clear voice over also really helped to illustrate that.

The radio advert really helped with the campaign of our documentary, it allowed a lot of our audience to get really attached to the documentary and made them want to watch it. Read through the analysis of our poster ad below to find out how we catered for our audience and how it have helped with the production of our documentary:

Each part of what we have produced has worked really well with each other; each media text can relate to the documentary. For example the poster advert above: the title has been selected because it asks the question that people will ask themselves, during the documentary. It reminds you that just because it is not a physical drug you can take, doesn't mean that something, as natural, as dopamine can't be addictive. 

To look at some more stuff on our audience and how we managed to work up a target audience using their profiles and a theory- read part 2 of this question...

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

To get some audience feedback I asked for a detailed explanation on what this viewer thought of the radio ad and the documentary. The viewer managed to comment on a wide variety of things, from the way the doc was filmed to the sound sync in the radio ad. Underneath is a short animation of part of this conversation, about the radio ad and documentary:  

Dopamine by Victoria18 on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

To find out a few other details from our audience, I sent a few people on Facebook the main and ancillary task, to find out what they thought about it:



Here are a few more responses from Twitter that someone in my group has shared with a few people, each are some great feedback.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The grid above works from left to right, starting with the news reports. See Prezi for further analysis

Question 4

Final production of our radio ad

Final Cut- My Kid is Addicted

Radio Ad draft 1

Focus Group 1

The first focus group was on our poster ad, we mainly got good feedback and some understandable criticisms on the less likeable examples. We didn't tell our focus group who the posters belonged too because we thought that people might then judge them differently if they knew whose was who. The objective was to find out which one was they thought was the best, to work out which one would best fit our target audience.

Focus Group 2

For our second focus focuses more on the different elements and really depicts what they like about the ads and what could be changed to help target our audience. They understood where we were coming from and they could make the link between the message and the fact that is was so dark. They seemed to be extremely good at giving us tips and how they thought our colours and overall compositions brought the message forward. These focus groups have really helped us to chose the one we are going to put in the newspaper and which one we wanted the public to recognise our documentary to be about.  

First edit evaluation

The first edit of our documentary went really well, we could see that it was coming together and we could finally see a narrative. So after receiving feedback from our class mates and teachers, we came up with things to change on our documentary:
VOICEOVER- THIRD PERSON- (VOLUME HOW IT FITS IN TO THE DOC)
FADE OUTS- FADING INTO BLACK- SOME FADES LAST FOR TOO LONG
SHARPER CUTS- CUT AT THE BEGINNING FOR SMOOTHER CONTEXT
ENDING- END ON HOW ALI RELATES TO THE SUBJECT OF ADDICTION AND TECH. END ON HIS JOURNEY TO FIND OUT
CHANGE OF DOC MODE: OBSERVATORY- PARTICIPATORY
We then showed this edit to our teacher, who gave us a few criticisms that we could use in order to change a few things when we edit some more. He thought that the fades outs made the doc. look a little boring, because they went on for longer than expected. However, when it came down to editing it we found that it was difficult not to have such long pauses because without them, they doc. became too rushed and didnt flow as smoothly.
After dicussing the cuts and fades of our documentary, our teacher also made it clear that the sound wasnt very good at times, for example the short interviews we shot at Liverpool Street, had a lot of background noise, that we quite distracting. This is a problem that we already knew about, but we did find it rather difficult to block out the background noise and not disturb what the people we saying. After this, we dicussed the idea of changing the mode of our doc; from observatory to participatory, which then changed the voiceover script, from third person to first, in order for it to make sense to our audience.

Poster Analysis

First of all our message that we want to send out to our target audience is that; the world is addicted and this poster complies to this, such as; layout, colours, form, image, font and language etc. 

The colour of this post definitely provokes the idea that there is something sinister about it, a question that needs answering, for people who feel like they need to know. Within the uses and gratification theories surveillance is what our ad will make use of, the news will use this type of colours and images to make people feel like they need to know this, in order to feel like they are aware of the problem. 

The image, the hands of a child holding pills, it reveals to the audience that addiction is something the world needs to focus on, even if the pills are meant to represent something other than drugs. The child suggests innocence, so by having him holding the pills makes him less innocent? Which then leads the audience to believe that our kids must have a problem? It makes the audience feel like they have to watch it.  

Although the pills illustrate how serious addiction is, some of them do seem a bit too big, however, PlayStation and Apple are two of the biggest used brands out there, so it does help to emphasise those. Our target audience: reformers and explorers will benefit from understanding what the pills represent and how they tie in with addiction. Having the different symbols on the pills perhaps shows them that this what people are addicted to now, not just illegal drugs. 

The font brings out our theme, what we begin to explore during the actual documentary, the gaming font reflects what could be seen on screen GAME OVER! 

Having the logo at the bottom of the ad or even having it on the ad, helps the audience to know where this is coming from, identifies the seriousness perhaps. 

This ad creates a new emotional attachment between the audience and the child, makes them feel responsible? Parents especially. Although not being able to see the child's face, suggests it may not be everyone or every child, then makes them feel like they live better lives (diversion- user and gratification) this ad will put it in perspective for those few. 

Final Ad

Our winning ad.....................

The changes on ad

After many different focus groups on what we could change and retain from the poster ads, we decided that we could see whether a few of these changes would make our ad look more appealing to our audience. We changed the font of the title, to see whether it made any difference to what our ad was trying to portray. Our group thought that our original font was better than the new on, so we decided to keep it.

Another change was to put the line from another draft we had in that font, this was because it allowed the audience to actually know what the documentary is about; 'Are We All Addicted'.... Changing the title made more sense to what we are trying to get across, the change in font is not necessary.

Examples of Radio Ad

Here are few examples that I picked out from YouTube to illustrate the kind of sound and quality we are looking for.

This one is an advert on a radio station about a new documentary, using just a voice and a little music and sound effects.



This advert is clearly about Snickers, and for the people who have seen the actual advert on TV, many of them will understand what the radio ad is about just by the voice.

Radio Conventions

Our documentary needs more advertisement to improve our chances for more views; we are undertaking some radio conventions research to broaden our knowledge on the subject.

Average duration: 30 seconds to 3 minutes

Use of SFX: most use reverb, delay and compression to improve sound quality and overall effect they are trying to give

Use of extracts from the documentary: there is normally a lot of dialogue in the radio adverts to keep the  listeners focused. The people that are talking would usually make sure that whatever is being advertised is done in detail and clear, because unlike seeing an ad the listeners can't picture it.

How music is used to target specific audience: Obviously on the radio there is a lot of music being played, sometimes constantly. To appeal to a specific audience they would have to put the ad on a radio station that is being listen to by their target audience. Radio stations would use POP for example, to entice a younger audience for a documentary about something that they know they would be interested in.

How language is used to target specific audience: On radio stations that language is practically conversational and informal, to interact with their audience rather than talk to them.

How VoiceOver is used: If a radio station is advertising the trailer to a movie, then a voiceover is usually used to illustrate what the music and special effects are about.

The making of our Ad

Our ads

These are the images that my group and I have created using Photoshop, with the image we took before hand. We used different fonts, colours and layout; to make sure that we appeal to all of our audiences, so we undertook a number of focus groups to get their responses so that we can improve them. 

Focus Group Research

Poster analysis: Uses and Gratification theory

Today we looked at different poster ads from Channel4 and analysed them, using the user and gratification theory. Relating it to the audience and how it effects them; font, image, colour, layout, language etc. 

I chose this ad for Channel4- Disarming Britain because it was striking, using children to express the dangerous acts that happen in Britain now a days. The simplicity of it relates to some of things my group and I have been talking about when it comes the advertisment of our documentary. The amount of people in the shot was something we were discusssing, one or two? I thought one we be a good idea compared to two, this is because it reflects what we are trying to get across. Technology practically taking over us and its in everyone, although putting billions of people in one shot may confuse the audience. However, this does then relate to our audience: the reformers, who want a challenge to wonder why we put so many people in the shot.

Half term filming

Monday 18th February 2013

We ended up filming a lot of good shots. We wanted to get people on their phones and establishing shots of buildings and different types of technology being used. While we were there we thought that a timelapse would work really well, with our fast pace documentary; we put the camera on the floor of a bridge at South Bank to get good, clear shots of people walking past. We did have some issues with it, when we arrived on the bridge there was loads of people on it, and then when we decided to put the camera down there was hardly anyone walking past, which meant that we had to leave it there for quite a while. After about 5-7 minutes, crowds of people decided they would like to cross the bridge, YAY!!

Dakota also thought that get people crossing the road at Trafalgar Square would be another good timelapse, because we wanted a sort of birds eye view of the street and we couldnt get any higher than ourselves, Ali made use of his brain and jumped on top of a metal box on the side of the street...

We managed to get some really good shots from there...woop!

It was coming towards the end of the day and we needed the sun, so we had to get moving. We wanted to get infront of the big TV boards at Piccadilly Circus, to film for our voice over. We thought it would be a nice idea to follow up on the timelapses for a alternitve ending, were Ali is standing on the corner of Piccadilly and traffic and people are moving fast behind him. This went very well, after we managed to find a tripod...

I was a human tripod...the only problem was that this kept making us laugh. It must have taken us over half and hour to get a 2 minute shot. We got it in the end, with a lot of laughs still in us, we went home.

Half term call sheet

Callsheet 1

Call sheet- Advertisment

Picture Practice

THURSDAY 14TH FEBURARY 2013


Who- Victoria, Ali, Dakota
When- 14th Feb
Where-Auditorium
Time- 8:50-9:50

Who- Victoria, Ali, Dakota
When- 14th Feb
Where- Auditorium
Time- 1:10-2:10

Props Needed:
Pills
Clothing (Navy bue/Black)
Syringe (Science)
Mobile Phone
Tablet
Child
Lights

Cast:
Ishmael

Little camera lesson with Mr Robinson

The 12 types of advertising

1. The demo
2. The problem
3. Symbolise the probem
4. Symbolise the benefit
5. Comparison
6. Exemplary story
7. Benefit causes story
8. Testimoial
9. Ongoing character or celebrity
10. Associated user imagery
11. Unique personality property
12. Parody or borrowed format

To advertise for our documentary we have decided to use symbolising the problem as our type of advertising. This reflects the way we want our audience to feel and what they are hoping to feel when they see it. They like to be enlightened and challenged by what they see and hopefully our ad can do that by how much we give away, what questions we ask and how it is presented.

For example we liked the look of the 'end of the world concept, like the cover/poster of the 2012 film:

Now obviously we can not live shoot this, but we were looking for a kind of dark and demeaning look. Where there isn't much to say about it, but you think a lot, the 4 digit number giving nothing away, just leaving the audience with questions...

The Brief

Creative Brief

What are we promoting?

Documentary about being addicted to technology

Who are we talking to and what do we know about them?

We are talking about the Explorer's and Reformer's of the world, we know that they like to be challenged and to find something that they have never seen before.

How do we want them to feel after reading our ad?

Enlightened and challenged

What is the single most important message we want to communicate?

THAT WE ARE ALL ADDICTED!

What tone of voice should we use?

Assertive

Demanding

P.A.S.C.O.E CHECKLIST

 

Purpose:

 

To inform and challenge our audience

 

Audience:

 

Individuals that take pleasure in learning new things

 

Style:

 

Dark



Questioning

Content:

Perhaps images of photos of all type of people walking towards a light to emphasis the 'we are all addicted' concept??

Organisation:

Effect:

Should allow our audience to feel like they are being challenge after they see the ad and to be enlightened once they have found out what it is about.

Young & Rubicam approach

Young & Rubicam

First Young & Rubicam various ideas to put a more spin on Maslow's Hierarchy by chosing the core desires at each stage in the hierarchy: Enlightenment, Discovery, Control, Status, Security, Escape and Survival.

Splitting the stages up into 7 different groups that explore 7 types of people; everyone is one of these or if not a mixture of 2.

Y & R say:

The Explorer

These people are driven by a need for discovery, challenge and new frontiers. Young in nature, if not in reality, Explorersare often the first to try new ideas and experiences. They respond to brands that offer new sensations, indulgence and instant effects. In short, difference is what they seek out.
Their core need in life is for DISCOVERY.

The Aspirer

Materialistic, acquisitive peope, who are driven by others' perceptions of them rather than bytheir own values. As a result, they respond to what others perceive as being superficial: image, apperancce, persona, charisma and fashion. An attractive pack is as important to them as its contents. Their core need in life is for STATUS.

The Succeeder

Succeeders, possess self-confidence, have a strong goa orientation and tend to be very organised. As a result, theytend to occupy positionsof responsiblity in society. Their investment in the status quo means they tend to support it.Whenit come to brands, theyseek reward and prestig, and will often seek out the best because that is what they feel they deserve. On the other hand, they aso seek out caring and protective brands- their aggressive attitude to life means they need to relax occasionally. Their core need in life is for CONTROL.

The Reformer

"Don't tell me what to do or what to think" says the reformer, valuing their own independent judgement. Reformers aren the most anti-materialistic of the seven groups, and are often perceived as intellectual.They are socially aware, and pride themselves on tolerance.Reformers seek out the authentic and the harmonious, and are often at the leading edge of society. However, unlike Exporers, they will not buy things just because they are new. Their core need in life is ENLIGHTENMENT.

The Mainstream

These are people who live in the world of the domestic and everyday. A daily routine is fundamenta to the way they live their lives. Their life choices are 'we' rather than 'me'. As their name implies, they are the mainstream of society. They are the largest group of people within 4Cs across the world.They respond to bug established brands, to 'family brands and to offers of value for money. Their core need in life is for SECURITY.

The Struggler

Strugglers live for today, and make few plans for tomorrow. Others often see them as victims, loseres and wasters-aimess, disorganised people within few resources apart  from their own physical skills. If they get on in life, it will depend more on a winning lottery ticket than anything they do themselves. They are heavy consumers of alcohol and junk food. Visual impact and physical sensation are an important element of their brand  choices. In essence, theyseek ESCAPE.

The Resigned

These are predominantly older people constant, unchanging values built up over time. For respect institutions and enjoy acting traditional roles. Their brand choices are driven by a need for safety and for econom. They choose above all what is familiar to them. In life, their ain is basic, it is to SURVIVE.

Advertising

Who is the target audience of both forms? 

• Remember that although the products you choose will be the same there may be a primary and secondary audience depending on the format – billboards for example have mass target audience (depending on positioning) while print adverts will be specifically targeting the reader of the magazine / newspaper…

• What is the Audience Appeal of both forms – how are audiences targeted? Audio visual adverts tend to have higher production values which are one appeal but think of as many ways as you can that the advert communicates with its audience. The sample Adidas television advert has an upbeat mode of address for example.

 This ad appeals to a wide range of audiences because the Wii is supposed to be for everyone, the younger audience would be attracted to this because it shows all the different games that is being advertised. They also use iconic celebrities to introduce them to what they are selling, using this technique will not only appeal to the male generation (the football community) but the female generation, because of the seemingly heart throb (Jamie Redknapp). Also to the older generation because Harry Redknapp is used to represent these people, meaning that anyone can use this type of device. 

This ad suggests that it would appeal to teenagers for the obvious reason, that it shows younger people using it, it could also appeal more to girls, because the ad uses the band JLS to perhaps get more viewings, which it probably does. 

What devices/ techniques, and technical and symbolic codes have been used to engage audience? 

• How do these techniques conventions differ in both audio-visual, online print format depending on the platform you choose?
• If audio-visual think about types of shot and framing, diegetic and non diegetic sound, editing, camerawork, CGI (if relevant) and all the elements of the mise-en-scene.
• If online think about if the advert is above the fold or below the fold, what type of advert it is – Pop Up, Banner, Skycraper, Button, Overlayz, Flash? Is it ‘grouped’ or ‘nested’ with other adverts or articles, is it near or in the Leader-board or near the Hero Shot?
• If a print advert think about juxtaposition, prominence and positioning, choice of subject, framing and type of shot again, colour palette, textual signifiers and lighting. 

This ad helps the audience to know about the product and what kind of things it does. The subjects in the ad are there to help the audience get to a conclusion of what the device does. The way that it is set out helps the audience understand what kind of scene this product can be played in, playing it in, probably the most comfortable place in the house, would appeal to most people. There seems to always be more than one person in the shot at one time, in each of these product ads, suggesting that this type of product can be played together, bring people closer together perhaps?

Analyse Genre and Narrative

• Advertising does always lend itself to a straightforward study of narrative but if it does what genre codes and conventions are apparent and why are they being used?
• In terms of narrative think about how a story is being constructed – more obvious with audio-visual advertising but just as apparent in other formats once broken down.
• Remember narrative structure – is there an obvious 3 act structure (beginning, middle and end), is it linear, single stranded and does it deliberately use narrative enigmas to tease the audience?

This type of ad tells a very straightforward story, starting with a group of people playing different games and seeing each one of them lose and win, each player is always smiling, telling the audience that this product will bring happiness; even if you lose. None of the people on screen talk to the camera or their audience, they act as if there isn't even a camera on them, emphasising the products importance, it has all their attention. This ad has more of a 3 act structure, having a begining, middle and end.

One way to show statistics

We next looked at a way of showing some of the statistics that we have, on addiction. We decided to take inspiration from the TV program 'Embarrassing Bodies' where they show the audience their statistics on what type of diseases that are most common in women for example. It is just a better way of looking at it, than a black screen with writing on it. Looking at a  coloured screen with faded images in the background that relate to what they are talking about, is a lot better.

Something like this could be used in our editing because our documentary is quite bright and visual, so a black screen might take away that meaning. Something vibrant in the background of the statistics would keep our audience focused on the screen and they would probably be likely to actually read them.

I have found some examples of statistics that agree with what one of our interviewee's have said:

• 1 in 3 users would rather go a week without sex than give up their device- NBCNEWS.com
• 21% would rather starve than go without their mobile phones 'Daily Mail' 

Answering our questions

I looked at this link to understand different ways of answering the questions that we have throughout our documentary. This link showed that with each transition the speaker has created a question or statement that he later illustrates with either his voice answering it, images or a specialist talks about it.

This ties in with our documentary because when we have interviews with the specialists before they answer our questions we need some way of asking them. For our first interview we have done that by having clear cut aways that have a voice over it, asking the question. After that in comes our interviewee with an answer. However, with our second interviewee he doesn't seem to answer the question properly, so we are going to have to use black screens or a voice over, to allow us to ask him a question that his interview relates to.

Schedule for the weekend

Since there has been lots of exams going on, it has been very difficult to get everyone working on documentary at the same time. Ali has been doing exams for the past two weeks, which has meant that me and Dakota have had to make some changes. We have begun to add in some cut aways to keep flow in the interviews and some establishing shots of place that are going to be important in the doc. establishing shots will be important to establish where the specialist and characters are based.

What we hope to achieve by the end of the week:

15th Jan
Filming
Who: Victoria
Where: Her house
Shots:
- Shots outside Victoria's house
- Cutaway shots on the comp, phone, watching tv etc..
- Observation shots of pedestrians on the street, bus etc

16th Jan
*Meet at 10:50 Room 004 for camera exchange*
Who: Dakota
Where: 004

-Upload footage
-Research new title fonts
-How will we show questions?
-Record quick voice over so we know what we expect
- Write a new voice over.

17th Jan
Who: Dakota
Where: 004

(all of the above from 16th Jan if not finished)

18th - 19th Jan
Who: Dakota
Where: Anywhere

-Film more establishing shots
- more cutaways

Quick re-post

The understanding of the demographic or audience profile for our documentary, which will allow us to advertise to our audience efficently. Who might consume our product:

• Age- Primary audience: 16-24, Secondary audience: 25-35
• Sex- Mix gender
• Income level- mosty part time jobs/ still in full time education for our primary audience. Full time jobs or unemployed
• Education- Yes
• Tastes in music- Has a broad range of genres
• Class- Mixture of classes

Script for voiceover- Documentary (Draft 1)

This is a 5 year old called kyreece. with ever-changing technology in modern society, individuals such as kyreece spend excessive amount of hours consuming technology. His uncle, Ali, goes on a journey to discover why his nephew consumes so much technology on a daily basis, and if it linked to the way everyone in society consume so much.

With Alis groing concern of kyreeces' behaviour,  he decides to seek out professional assistance. he initially wants to know what could cause kyreeces' obsession  so, He first goes to see professor Laura lewis, a neuroscience lecturer at UCL university.
professor Laura lewis mentioned Dopamine being released in the brain, Ali wanted to know if the people of London know what it is

Ali was interested in what she had to say and did more research into dopamine.  he found that there are links betweens dopamine and addiction. he wanted to know more and went to Dr Macally, about the word addiction

After visiting two specialists, Ali concluded that kyreece cannot be diagnosed with addiction, as he's only an infant. But what about a mature being. what about you watching now? how do you know if you are addicted or not. if so, i leave you with 1 question, what is your level of addiction. 

Focus Group Session

To work out what type of audience we were looking for, we undertook a focus group. We read out 3 different types of documentaries and they voted on which one they liked and they briefly explained why.

Group Evaluation

Lighting and production work

In the first few shots we have, the lighting didnt really go to plan. We were hoping for light that looks more natural, as it is a documentary on something that needs to be seen naturally, because the subject is about something that it natural to everyone. Although having some artifical light could have helped us, in allowing to see this idea more clearly, without it its difficult for Dopamine to have a spotlight. I visited a website to do some light research that gave me three points to lighting:

1. KEY – The key light is your main and strongest source of light. This can be the sun or an electrical light source.
   
   
2. FILL – This is your second light source, softer than your key light, which crosses the key light to “fill” the strong shadows created by your main light source. This can be a reflector or an electric light.
   
3. BACK – The back light is used to separate the subject from background. It makes the scene look more three-dimensional. Sometimes you can use the “setting sun” as your back light or another light source.

Overall each one helps with what we were trying to get at, something natural to help with the illistration of the natualness' of Dopamine and then an electrical light source that can follow up on the excess light to give it more of a three-dimensonal look.