Thursday, 11 April 2013

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.

Monday, 8 April 2013

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.  

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

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.