Our TV Advert

This was our second production, after the mobile phone advert. I believe that the overall production went well, and though we encountered a few problems, we managed to create an effective piece of advertising to express the importance of internet safety. During our production, I believe that we made a piece of work which was both fast-paced and effective, and though we perhaps ran for too long, we met out brief with a variety of camera angles and shots. Overall, bar a few minor issues, which we learnt to work on in our following pieces, our TV advert was a success, and we used it as a basis of which to improve upon our Preliminary Task.

The Good Points:

We managed to fit song to video well. Not only does the song fit the mood of the piece, but it also changes tempo and pitch in accordance with our production. Getting the sound in the right position took a little bit of editing, but once we had finished the filming, it was a simple matter of cutting shots to fit with the song, which worked well as we had purposely ran our filming longer than we should have. It has become a staple object of our productions to film several more minutes of footage than we need to meet the brief, so that during editing we can keep the best parts and narrow down and pinpoint the necessary footage to be used. If we film exactly to the brief, editing and cutting may cause us to go under the limit, and so we always film more than we need. The song added on during editing was suitable for what we were trying to achieve, and so on that level we deem our TV Advert to be a success.

Another good point is the short amount of time that was required to film our piece. It only took two lessons worth of filming before we were ready to edit, and it was interesting to note that most of the time went into the work seen on the computer. We designed a fake MSN Messenger conversation, which we believe works rather effectively, with it's sweeping, cutting shots between one message to the response, and we created a slideshow to show what our TV Advert was trying to show. These areas of the filming took a long time to make, in terms of filming, as we had to make each part, then film it, then add more, and then film another little amount, and so on. However the overall effect we feel works well, and though we could have advertised a product, we believe that our safety awareness idea works well in the context as well. We were also happy with how the reaction shots came out, with the posters upon the wall showing the reactions of different people to what the internet stalker was doing; asking a young girl to meet up with him, adopting the identity of a young boy, when he could actually just as easily be an adult.

Furthermore, we used our TV Advert as a catalyst to accelerate our future production. We learnt from the existing material that we had filmed which areas worked and which did not. The following list of points that did not run as smoothly as we had hoped are as follows:

The Bad Points:

There were several points with our production that did not go as well as we had hoped, though we decided to leave them in, so that we had something to improve upon during our next task. There were areas where we were perhaps too ambitious, and because of this, and the fact that we are still learning how to use the cameras, we did not quite achieve what we had set out to do.

For example with the production, we tried to incorporate some shots of Ian on the computer, talking over MSN. Though this worked in theory, and it was an idea that we wanted to explore, after filming we found that the frame rate upon the camera could not compete with the frame rate upon the computer and the screen, which resulting in the black lines falling across it. We have yet to find a way to prevent this on standard screens, though LCD screens on the Apple Macs seem to be free from this problem, and so if we re-filmed the piece, we would try and use a Mac instead. The blue line effect isn't too damaging to the piece, but it does ruin some of the charm and gives it an amateurish look, something that we will certainly take into account during later filming. We will try not to film any screens in later productions, unless we find a way around the problem as the effect is undesirable and taxing upon the production.

We also found that some of our shots could have been improved upon. There was continuity, but it could have been incorporated in a better way. For example, when Ian opens his bag before turning the computer on, he has it in a slightly different position during the over-the-shoulder shot to the following medium shot. We feel that some of our shots worked well, for example the low angle shot when we placed the camera within the bag, but some shots lacked continuity that we could now remedy after filming another production. There are also a couple of minor blunders during filming; during one scene, Ian is seen talking, with his mouth moving, but no words are released as we lowered the tracks volume. However, the audience can still see Ian talking, which could have been handled in a better way by re-filming the shot, with Ian focusing entirely on the bag he is opening. There was also a typing effort near the end of the production, where we missed a vital causal connective - 'A'. During the slideshow, we wrote ''The Internet can be dangerous place', which needs an 'a' placed between 'be' and 'dangerous' to be grammatically correct. it is minor, but it is a blunder that we could remedy, and it is something that we will look out for in later productions, should we use any form of writing.

Finally, there was a shot that did not work as well as we had hoped, where John is seen looking up at Ian, near the beginning of the production. This scene is slightly extreneous, as we only incorporated it to meet the brief (the shot was necessary in the film), but then it had not relevance to the plot. We do not see John again at all, and so the shot is somewhat pointless, yet needed all the same. On reflection, we could have better used John in the piece, rather than having him in the shot for a brief period of time for no apparent reason. In further productions, we will make sure that all decisions made have value and use, rather than just meeting the brief. We will make our further productions work well for the brief, to create a successful and worthwhile piece.

In the production however, we are very pleased with how the film came out overall. Though it could have been better, it was most certainly a more involved and efficient production than our first year 12 film, and we learnt a lot of techniques that we would later incorporate into further productions. We know not that not only is filming screens a bad idea, but also that shots need continuity to be accurate and to give a more professional look. Everything that we filmed, we could improve upon during later filming, and so we have successfully achieved what we set out to do - we have made a production that tested us, but also allowed us to improve for our Preliminary and Final Productions.