Personal Evaluation Write up

The purpose of my advert was to create awareness in my target audience of 15-19 years about how their current behaviour and lifestyle patterns are having an affect to global warming, my advert should encourage young people to examine their current lifestyle and how they might make changes.                                                                                                                                                                         

To do this, I started off by carrying out research on 15-19 year olds finding out how much they already know about global warming, its causes and effects and whether they had the desire to change their behaviour to help global warming, I did this by creating a survey and asking a group of people to fill them out. I also researched the interests of this target audience such as favourite programmes and music to determine the best way to catch their attention and create interest in global warming through my advert. By doing this I found that the best way to do this is by using humour and shock tactics in my advert. This also helped me decide which stylistic approach I would take which is most suitable for this target audience, such as intertextuality, absence over presence, symbolism or collision of binary oppositions.     

From analysing my research I found that most of my target audience don’t know much about global warming, such as how important it is that we make a change or how deadly the after-effects could be if we don’t do anything about it, I also found that most of my target audience don’t know how to help global warming so in my advert I decided to give tips on easy way to reduce it in a funny way to make the audience pay attention. This is because this target audience don’t have very good attention spans compared to target audiences, they are also more inclined to watch something it’s humorous.                                  

My final idea for my advert was to show the life of two different people; one who is a typical person who fits this target audience, who cares about global warming and does things to help, such as turning off un-necessary lights and electrical appliances, recycling and using water sparingly contrasted with the other person who cares so much about global warming and the environment that he lives outside in a forest only using the land to survive on – getting washed in lakes, eating only natural things. I was going to use a split screen to illustrate the obvious juxtaposition in these peoples lifestyle, to show to the target audience that it doesn’t take a lot of effort to help global warming and they can still have a good social life etc, as these things are very important to this target audience. This idea also incorporates humour which is proven one of the best ways to get attention from 15-19 year olds.                                                                                                                 

When filming my advert I decided that this split-screen idea may cause the narrative to be complicated and confusing, which would make the audience lose interest, also I did not have my storyboard with me at the time of filming my advert so I was unsure on the details of each shot, because of this, I decided to change the sequence slightly, however the idea was still the same. As a result of this I found my advert didn’t go together as well as it could have done if I had planned it this way, for example, the shots don’t always flow or have continuity, I overcame this problem by using different cuts such as fade and slide. I decided to still show the contrasting lifestyles but without switching from character to character; I decided to focus on the ‘hippie’ character first in my advert, then switch, by using text – ‘There are easier ways to save the earth’, then show the ‘normal’ character doing easier things to care for the environment.                                                                           

The first shot of my advert is of the ‘hippy’ character in who lives outside, walking up to the camera from where he sleeps. In this shot I used open framing to symbolise that he is free and alone. In this shot I also used a hand-held camera to connote the constant instability and danger that this character is subjected to because of where he lives, I also did this to create a sense of reality – to make the advert appear unrehearsed and natural. I then used shots of the ‘hippie’ doing things such as a ‘rain dance’ and chasing rabbits, this shows how much he loves the earth and also incorporated humour to get the attention of the audience. To show these shots I referred to my original idea and made keyframes to create a split screen so that some shots were on the screen all at one time, some of these shots also started off-screen -

I also did this because I decided to have a soundtrack running all the way through instead of dialogue, instead I wrote text on the screen such as ‘meet Joel, he loves the environment’ in the first shot as this introduces the character to the audience and allows them to understand what is going on.

 

In these shots I also used handheld camera to achieve the same effect. I also filmed some of the shots from far away and zoomed in on him, this also gave a sense of reality and suggested what was happening was unrehearsed, as if people were spying on him from far away in the bushes, like an animal in the wild. After this I used the text ‘There are easier ways to save the environment’ then showed the ‘normal person’ doing things to help global warming that everybody could do. I then used more text to demonstrate ways of doing this such as ‘Recycle’ I then used a shot of the person carrying out a big recycling bag out of his house, I then zoomed to an extreme close up. In this shot I also used handheld camera, however I should have used a tripod to resemble stability, and I also should have used a low angle shot so that audience are looking up at him, placing him above the hippie person. I then did the same for the other shots; I used the text ‘ride to college’ as this also refers to the target audience, making them imagine themselves in the position of the character.

After this I included a shot of the ‘normal person’ riding a bike, as this is giving an example and again uses humour to gain the viewers attention. As this shot was a panning, long shot, it would have been much better if I had have used a tripod, - as I have used a hand held camera and the person is riding a bike, the shot appears extremely unstable, also, as I was stood on higher ground, the camera is looking down on him from a high angle, using a tripod would have helped me get the right levels and steadiness. In the next shot, he is washing his hands, using the water carefully to not waste any, in this shot I didn’t quite know how to make obvious that he is trying not waste any water, it appears that he is just washing his hands, however I overcame this by using text; ‘save water’ and an extreme close up of the tap switched off.                                                                                                                   

The last shot is of the character turning off a light as he walked out of the room, I also used an extreme close up of the light switch to enforce this advice. My advert then fades to black and the text appears ‘isn’t it time you saved the planet?’ this rhetorical question will make the audience think and ask themselves what they could do to help global warming, it will also make them feel guilty if they don’t already do this. I then used the text ‘and the polar bear!’ as this match’s the soundtrack which is called ‘Save the Polar Bears’, this also gives humour to the advert as this is the last shot. To make my advert better, I could have made a montage at the end of my advert of all of the close ups; the recycle bag, light switch, riding a bike and the tap.

If I were to do this advert again, I would spend more time on planning and would have gone into more details on things such as creating more storyboards of different ideas with different approaches such intertextuality - incorporating specific things that were found to be popular among my target audience from research, such as ‘TopGear’ as this was the most well-liked target audience.  I also would have tried a more serious approach to this, as global warming is a serious issue and to be taken too lightly.