1. Leather Satchel Handbag Advert Evaluation
At very start I was told that I had to create an advert so first I had to research about advertising
techniques. I researched about Pathos, Ethos and Logos and explained what they were, giving
examples for each type of advert. There are many different adverts but I was only able to choose five
different adverts and then had to discusswhat they were about, how they used their camera shots,
what songs they used, the target audience and the props used. I also had to decide on the
techniques that they used and why I thought they used these techniques. This helped me to
understand the techniques better and realise the reasoning behind some adverts. I also took more
notice when watching adverts on TV after learning about these techniques. I did more research
about the advertising structure, there are seven different forms of adverts and there are also four
different styles of adverts. I had to explain what they were, give an example and explain how they
are related to the style/form and target audience. I researched codes and conventions within
adverts; I just explained what they were. I did four different areas of research which are regulations,
source of information, audience identification and audience classification. All I did is explained what
they mean by giving a brief description. Overall after doing this research I realised that there are lots
of different aspects to consider when creating an advert and this made me think about this when
creating my advert.
Then I had to think what product I wanted to advertise and I chose leather satchel handbag. I had to
talk about the previous adverts that had been created for this product. I came across a difficulty
which was that there were not many adverts already created on this product which made it hard to
research. I did a PowerPoint about what I specifically wanted to include in my advert such as music,
target audience, locations and a brief etc. Next I had to film my pitch of my idea to my tutor, I found
this difficult as I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be because I had been absent but I still managed
to get my idea across and my pitch was successful.
My tutor wanted me to be prepared when filming my advert such as equipment
booking, deciding on; actors, props and transport etc. This was easy for me because
I have experience, and I could use friends and family as I have used them in other
projects, therefore this task was not complicated and I planned ahead by booking
the equipment in plenty of time. To be more prepared I did a production call sheet,
risk assessment and shooting schedule. This helped me to be more organised when
filming so that everyone knew what they were doing and what the risks were etc.
My tutor told me I need to create a storyboard; this helped me while I was filming. I
could look back and see what camera shots should be used during filming and what
the actors have to do / will look like. Also with the storyboard I can see that there is
a beginning and an end. This task was a mixture of easy and difficult because I knew
what I wanted to do however wasn’t certain on which camera shots I wanted to use in which scenes.
Another task was to create a synopsis, which was quite easy because I knew what I wanted my
advert to be like. I explained what would happen in my advert and detailed the story and therefore
when I filmed my advert this was less challenging because I knew what I wanted to do. After
production I have changed the order of my synopsis therefore it is different to what the final result
shows.
2. Next I started filming; first I went to Scotland over the weekend and decided to film it on
a Saturday near my cottage. My sister was on this part and was wearing a
work outfit. It was little difficult because I was filming on the road and some
cars were driving past and we had to move so this wasted our time a little and
also it was very windy near my cottage so I decided to walk to somewhere a
little further and it was much better because it wasn’t windy. These issues
were raised in my risk assessment so I was prepared for them but it still took
extra time than I had planned. I went back to my house then on bank holiday Monday; I
was really pleased how the weather was so we went to the centre of the
town at Manchester. There were no difficulties because I could film it all in
one day and the environment looked natural and casual which is the look I
wanted. One lesson I have learnt from previous projects is to make sure my footage is
correct therefore I did lots of filming just in case I wasn’t happy with any. I came across
no problems on this day of shooting but this was possibly because I wasn’t filming in too many
locations and did not have many actors to consider.
I started editing by opening the software called Adobe Premiere Pro and I imported all of the
footage and this wasn’t too difficult because I have done editing before so I know what to do and
started editing. I finished a rough edit in one day and I was quite pleased with it, however when I
showed my tutor he said it is good but gave me some advice to make it more professional. For
example the footage of the bags, I did walking scene then the bag scene and walking scene again
then bag scene again so he said it would be better if I put the all the bags scene together and
walking scene together. Therefore I did this but saved it with a different name then I showed him
again but he said the date scene should be before the bag scene so I changed it and saved it in
different name then I showed him. I found it useful getting advice off my tutor because he made me
realise that editing needs a lot of detail and should not be rushed.
Before adding the logo on Adobe Premiere Pro, I tried to find an image of
the logo from the internet so I could use it and I found one but the image
was too small and when I tried to make it bigger it was distorted
therefore my tutor suggested I should email their company to ask them if
they can send me a clear logo in a better format for the software. The email I wrote is below.
They responded with this email below
3. The company sent their logo so I imported it on Adobe Premiere Pro ready to use at the end of the
advert. One problem that I had was that the logo was too small so I had to put the logo on the
software called Adobe Illustrator and made the logo look bigger but not too distorted. Next I
imported it on Adobe Premiere Pro and used the logo at the end and everything worked however I
thought it would be look better quality if it appeared on screen by zooming out from a small image
to a large image. Therefore I used the scale so the beginning was zero and made it until the normal
size scale but it didn’t look right because you could see a white square background whereas I wanted
the logo to zoom out with a clear background. As a result of this I asked my tutor what could I do to
fix this so he showed me a method on Adobe Photoshop and after this I used Adobe After Effects to
create a motion graphic of it zooming into the screen and getting larger which was how I imagined it
to look in my mind. This was a good skill that I used because I have completed previous assignments
by using this technique of creating motion graphics. I watched it to see if I liked it before importing it
on Adobe Premiere Pro and when I decided that I was happy with it I imported it and added the
effect of cross dissolve so that it appears through the image that is already on the screen.For this
part of the task I had to use a few different pieces of software and although this took a bit of time I
am happy with the end result and glad I put the effort in to make it look how I wanted.
Next I chose 30 seconds of the song I was using and my tutor said it is a good song and was relevant
to the message of the advert but it started off too loud and just cut off at the end,I realised that this
didn’t work and he thenshowed me the technique called write where I could change the volume at
different stages throughout the song. I decided to start the music off with no sound then gradually
make it louder and then stay at one level all the way through until the end where I turned the
volume down slowly. This skill took me a few attempts because I couldn’t quite get the song how I
wanted it to sound. Eventually I got a result I was happy with. Another part of editing was that at
first I decided to put a voice over of ‘The Cambridge Satchel Company’ at the end but I think it is
better without no talking, just music this is because the voice over does not sound professional and
therefore impacts on the quality of the advert.
After all of this editing I showed to my tutor and he felt it
now looked much better but thought I should put captions on so it will look more
professional and have a strap-line. He also said that I should try to make the text the
same as the text in the logo so I chose the text that looked the most like it and used
the eyedropper tool to get the correct colour. Adding text was another new skill that I
have learnt by using the insert title tool. When adding text I had to think about where
it should be placed and at first there were six different words in each scene and they
were all in different places however my tutor explained that it would look more
consistent if they are all in one place therefore I changed this. I also decided to make it
look more exciting by adding video transitions, there are many different types and I
experimented with most of theseand I chose three different video transitions which
are centre split, zoom and iris star.
4. After all of this editing I watched the advert over again and I was
happy with everything I did and felt I had tried my best by learning lots of new
skills to include in my work. I thenexported it but when I watched the video
objects on it looked blurry, therefore I asked my tutor and he changed
something on it and it still didn’t look right. He then suggested I uploaded it to
YouTube and see how it looked. Once uploaded this looked fine and the
objects that were blurred were no longer.
I think I have achieved the aim of this project because the aims were be able to originate and
develop an idea for a television advertisement, be able to produce a television advertisement and be
able to reflect upon own television advertisement production work. The reason I think I have
achieved these are becauseI thought the satchel handbag was a good idea, I know one previous
advert which is The Cambridge Satchel Company and I thought I can do an advert for satchel
because it is popular fashion and in the future people might advertise them but I think they need
more than one advert to get through to people. I generated lots of ideas to help me decide on how I
was going to produce my advert. To meet the second aim I produced a television advertisement and
I think I did well because I have had experience producing a music video and knew how to use Adobe
Premiere Pro. It helped me knowing what to do and it was easier for me because it is only 30
seconds so I didn’t need to learn much about Adobe Premiere Pro but there were also a lot of new
skills that I have learnt from different Adobe software’s. I have also done other projects which have
required using a camera / tripod equipment therefore this was something I was more used to and I
also considered my settings / locations more carefully. For the third aim,I feel I have reflected on the
positives and negatives of my work throughout this evaluation and realised my strengths and areas
that I can improve for future projects. I have enjoyed producing this advert because it has developed
my editing skills and allowed me to expand my knowledge.
