Smile Campaign | Evalutaion

Evaluation Initial Research 

The brief I was presented with was to create a TV and Print advert for a company called happy foundation. After doing some research I found out that this company is a mental health company and want to try and improve everyone’s mental health, they want to build a happier society and “encourage positive changes” in people lives. After doing more research and reading the brief I found out that my intended target audience was my own community this could be my local community or a wider community. The task at hand was to create a TV and a print advert to help promote the company and help people smile. I started out by thinking out a few ideas and researched into mental health in the UK as I am interpreting the “community” as the country. I have researched into how mental health effects people in the UK and looked at statistics on how it has changed over the years, I found out quite a few interesting statistics which help me tailor the advert towards a certain group of people. I found out that 50% of mental health problems are found by the age of fourteen and 75% are by the age of 24. These demographics help me tailor my advert towards younger generations. However, I also found out that in 2019 there was 5,691 recorded suicides in England and Wales and from statistics I see that males aged 45-49 has the highest specific suicide rate. This shows it is not just the younger generations who are suffering from mental health problems. Also, at the time of planning COVID-19 was beginning to spread more rapidly so people were limited in what they could do, which would also impact people mental health if they can go out and socialise with others. From this information I needed to formulate a plan in order to create an advertisement to get people smiling or reflecting on what makes them happen which is tailored to people of all ages. After my research on mental health, I turned to look at some already existing products that have been created in order to try and combat mental health.

Problems in modern day society.

 I looked at a couple Television adverts example being the England advert which was created with the England football team and had the message to always check in with your mate. It was a fast- paced advert in order to simulate a fast-paced lifestyle which is what most people in modern day have with their jobs and education. This is an accurate representation of modern-day life which could cause mental health problems and issues. I then looked at print adverts which all were similar in the way of a simple design with a simple message. The one I looked at was a coca cola advert which there was a smile made from coca cola bottles. This is a clever design as it is using their products to get their point across which also markets their product as well as getting their point about mental health over the viewer. This could have negative connotations as some people could think that if they really cared about mental health, they would not include their products and have it as a neutral topic. But some marketing people could see it as an ingenious design. Planning My Project After this stage of researching existing products, I moved onto planning my advertisement. I came up with an initial idea which included recording some dark, sad footage and as the video advance it got happier and happier until eventually it was all happy and then it would end with a screen with information all about the company, what they do and how to contact them. After some self-reflection on the idea, I made a google form in order to collect feedback on my initial idea. The form was rather easy to understand and was easy to fill in. I sent this to a few of my friends along with my rationale (my idea). I gained some valuable feedback such as to use enhanced foley sounds in order to make the sounds in the video a lot better and stand out to the audience for a better viewing pleasure. I decided to take this on board and included it in my rationale.

Pratical & problems

 However, just as I was getting to the practical stage and recording we had another lockdown which resulted in us not being aloud in collage. Therefore, I had to come up with another idea which could be recorded at home with limited software and gear. I also found out that we could entirely focus on one of the 2 products that we had to create. I then decided to focus completely on the video as opposed to the print as I know I like creating videos over standard print adverts. For my second idea I decided to plan out a montage of thing that you can do at home that make people happy. As this was advert was being tailored to both young and older people, I had to think of tasks that both can enjoy while in lockdown. I still wanted to try and incorporate the enhanced foley sounds in this idea somehow although would be difficult as the music would be the main interest in the edit. Overall, looking at the two ideas I decided to go with idea two as it was the easier one to make under current circumstances and can be easily tailored to the intent audience that I am making this specifically for. After deciding on which idea I wanted to create I had to complete the pre- production work this included things such as: Equipment lists, Risk assessments, contributor release forms and storyboards. I started with the equipment list as this was simple to create and fill out. I made a table and filled it out with all the necessary information for what equipment I need in order to create my video. After creating the equipment list I moved onto the risk assessment form. This is important as it shows what risks I could possibly be exposed to while being at home and how I can avoid them. After that I explained why I didn’t need to fill out a contributor release form but why it would be useful in a different project. This was because I was going to be the only person in the video and do not need to fill one out for myself. However, it could be useful for a bigger advertisement if you are having more than yourself in the add then they would have to fill the form out so they can be in your video without any copyright laws getting involved or and suing against you. By signing and filling the document out they have given their permission for them to be in your project. One of the biggest problems faced while making this advertisement was Covid- 19 and the way it impacted the production stage by limiting places to go and film and who can be in your advertisement itself as you could not go out to places with your friends without breaking lockdown laws. This is also another reason I picked the second idea as I think it would be easier to create than idea one. Production Because of Covid-19 I was unable to go outside to film parts for my advert this was one of the biggest problems I faced during the recording phase of the project. However, it turned out to be not too bad as I was able to source stock footage to use in my advert. The use of stock footage was great as it allowed me to use clips for free and with no copyright claims on them. I gave myself a week to get the product done which was perfect. I started on Monday the first of February and managed to get onto editing by the Thursday. I then managed to get a complete product by the Friday and was pleased with the result. It was simple to edit and used a mix of jump cuts and transitions in order to achieve the fast paced edit I desired. I wanted a fast-paced edit in order to match the sound track I chose better than a slow-paced edit would have.

Editing

 After recording and sourcing my footage I used Davincci resolve to edit them together. Davincci resolve was very easy to use with my previous experience with the software I used a variety of tools to create my add, tools such as the: cut tool, split tool and many more. I used the sound track to really make the ad move, the fast-paced track fitted perfect with the music as they were fast paced clips. The intro clip utilises a speed ramping technique in order to rush in with the music to grab the viewers’ attention. I decided not to use many transition effects as such but just let the music take the clips and merge them with clever timing so when the music changes on the beat the clip also changes on the beat which is the transition. I also researched happy colours as such and the result of this appeared to be pastel colours therefore I utilised my new found knowledge and made the text at the end of my film pastel colours in order to add another happy element to my advertisement.