Introduction

 

When we were given this brief, I was intrigued about this because I have had absolutely no involvement with creating adverts in the past. As I didn’t know much to expect from this project I was focused on looking forward to one specific thing, of course I was looking forward to the practical weeks because filming is enjoyable. I was worried about what the advert would look like, and I’ll go in to detail some more about that in a bit. For the last project my team consisted of two people so for this project when there was five of us it meant the running of the whole project became a lot easier. One of our biggest problems is that there was five of us guys and we were making an advert which was focused towards female homeowners, this meant a lot of research was needed.

We changed our idea quite a few times… originally, we were making an advert which would be different uses of Febreze in the home but then we changed our mind and went with a Christmas advert. We did this because we thought it would be a lot more appealing to our audience and therefore would give the most exposure to Febreze.

 

Our idea was inspired from Febreze’s Christmas product which we thought would be funny to use to fill people with the Christmas spirit. Looking back at this now we took a big step out by making our Christmas advert include the product because pretty much every other advert doesn’t include the product and focuses on the story line.

 

Our pitch played a big part in finding out what other likeminded people thought about our ideas. We found out that our ideas for effects would take a lot of thinking through to make sure that they could be feasible. This showed us that we needed to go back through and make sure that some of the complex scenes would have a chance of being made. An example of this would be the town hall scene in which Santa appears, for this we got photos from the location and did a day of greenscreen footage test which allowed us to see how we were going to use the effects in editing and after doing this once it meant it was a lot easier to produce the final edits a lot quicker because we had an idea of what we were doing because we had tried out adding things like snow.

My initial aim for this we just to make an advert which I thought was good, I wanted to be proud of it. It needed to be short and snappy while at the same time promote the product and brand in an advertiser friendly way.

 

Research

For my viral advert research portfolio, I did some primary and some secondary research just, so I had a range of information. For my primary research my main focus was the brand. I wanted to find Febreze brand values, products, target market, competitors, brand image and controversies. I spent a long time finding out information online because I needed to make sure that the information I gathered was correct therefore allowing me to create the best advert that fit as a close as possible to something that would fit with Febreze.  When I was researching Febreze online I came across their Facebook page and on there was a button which said send a message, so I decided to drop them a message with some information with what we were doing, and their reply was helpful. They confirmed that the research I had done on their target market was correct, having this information means that we were sure that what we were doing was correct. I noticed a few times with this research that answering one question would lead me on to another, this happened more frequently with the information about the brand and also some questions which we had during post production with things such as special green screen effects. For my primary research I did a survey because it is a good way of getting lots of people’s opinions on a lot of questions. I made sure that the survey was sent to a range of people especially some who were in my target audience because it is extra helpful. The answers proved helpful as they gave my insights in to things I hadn’t thought about regarding sharing online and the content of the advert.

 

To improve my research portfolio, I could have used another method within my primary research and I could have asked Febreze a few more questions and could have written it up like an interview, this would have allowed me to find out a lot more from themselves.

 

After now completing my final project I think I should have researched special effects more because when I was editing, although we had done some research, it was complicated to make sure all the elements worked together. For example, I hadn’t researched about using After Effects and Premiere Pro to have linking clips which once I found out how to do it became a lot easier to edit because I could change something in After Effects and it would update in my editing timeline. Also, I could have researched more about After Effects because when I was editing and suddenly decided I needed a dip to white it was more difficult to find than it is in Premiere Pro.

 

Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production

For this project I opted to be producer again because I felt that last time I did a good job at it and thought hopefully I could do the same for this task. This meant that I made sure that the project went from start to finish in a way which was smooth and at the same time productive. I think I’m good at this role because I am very organised which means it helps with organising the others to make sure they are working the most effectively and making sure that if they have filmed on their own that they are happy with how it went. Another skill I think I demonstrated was being a good team leader I think this because Cameron and I worked well ensuring that everything was thought through and therefore would work. For this task I enjoyed working on a project which was so much vaster than the previous, previously we had one scene this time we had multiple scenes and a tonne of effects to be adding in post. This meant that more planning was needed to ensure that our idea could be produced.

 

On set there were a few problems which we faced which we hadn’t thought about although, they were only small things they would have still made the video seem more professional. The first was the Santa costume which once we got hold of we have realised that is wasn’t as good quality which meant that it didn’t seem as real. The other issue was the tripod which we had been given, it didn’t have a smooth head because of an issue with the production assistant and the person who hires the equipment out and this couldn’t be changed, this was mostly okay because most of our shots were still but there were a few which didn’t look very good because of the tripod head.

 

I think our time management was really good because we made sure that we had planned what we would be doing each day and we made sure that we had left enough time for things to go wrong. In this case as everything went right it meant we were done early somedays which meant we had longer to look at the footage.

 

One of the days we went back out to re-film some of the shots we filmed on the first day because of issues with the Santa costume, but as we had finished the other scenes more quickly then we had expected it meant we had time to do this.

 

Product

I think the product does a good job of meeting my initial intentions. Earlier on I said I wanted to make something which was short, snappy and that I was proud of. The advert is decently quick because we designed all the shots to fit together in a way which would mean they would all flow. I am proud of what the team created, we started with an idea and had ideas that we knew could be difficult to create in to something real. I’m happy with the production quality and the final product I think it shows Febreze in a way that would be appealing to their target audience.

 

We decided that our target audience would be female homeowners. I think the advert has been made with an extremely broad audience, to make the advert more family friendly it could have included a bigger range of actors rather than the crew. I think someone would be persuaded to by the product because they would see the product and think it had been used in an interesting way.

 

To improve the advert, it should have had smoother transitions between scenes, as this would have made the video flow better, it should have also had more special effects around Santa maybe a glow would have complemented him well.

 

Throughout this whole project I have gained lots of knowledge around After Effects using special effects, Premiere Pro creating something shorter but adding a lot more detail and also with advertising as a topic, I learnt so much, everything from information at the ASA to knowledge about what adverts should include.

 

I think our video does a good job at following industry standards because we followed the guidelines to make sure that it would be friendly for all audiences.

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Overall, I think the project was so much more successful because of the team behind it. All five of us had input which allowed us to create this idea. Although the team was lead by me and Cameron, we worked continuously as a group making sure that everyone was happy with decisions that were being made. This task has taught me that even starting with something completely knew that the correct expertise allowed our idea to become our final product.