Holly Powell - Final Major Project
Evaluation
21st February 2017 (Tuesday)
We was given our final major project - creating a Social Awareness Campaign. However, first we needed to research what it was and go into a lot of detail on everything we could find out about it. I started off by finding an article looking at four of the most talked about campaigns; anti-smoking, animal cruelty prevention, child abuse awareness and auto-safety. I started off by analysing each campaign and looking at the techniques used which helps to provoke a reaction from the audience looking at them, and I found that fear, guilt, sympathy and anger work best when wanted to connect with the audience. I also found out that the use of the media can have an influence on certain things, such as smoking - those who are exposed to anti-smoking advertisements are more likely to quit. I thought that knowing that some media campaigns do have an effect would help with deciding on what I wanted to use as a social awareness campaign. I also knew that I had to be extremely persuasive and creative with my choice of advertisement, and how I would promote it to an audience.
When I read about the child abuse awareness campaign in Spain and the poster they used to show an image from different angles on the same display, to portray different perspectives of the exact same thing, I thought about possibly creating a social experiment to see how people would react when I come up with my campaign. I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate an audience to see different reactions and thoughts towards things, in order to understand what they think they would do to make a difference for a campaign issue. I thought that by doing this, it may possibly give me more feedback on what kind of pieces of media I can create in order to help my campaign along further, whatever it maybe. I also thought that doing a social experiment would provide me with more opinions and more to work with - by talking the the public about what they think about the issue that I plan on campaigning, how I can use this to make my posters and video adverts appeal to the audience in the right way, and how the persuasive techniques that I've already learnt about would tie in with this.
I then started looking at different campaigns that are already out in the world, and I understood how some of them were exploited in order to evoke a reaction. Some of the campaigns were a little surprising, and a few upset me because of how harsh the reality is about certain topics in the world. I realized that these campaigns do this sort of thing for a reason - they want emotion from anyone and everyone, even those who have done nothing wrong or aren't a part of the problem they're trying to solve.
I also analysed these campaigns to see how they could've been made better, and I understood that some of them needed to be exploited more - they needed to be more fearful and make more people feel guilty, sympathetic and angry, in order to make them want to help change the world. This helped me to understand that I need to pull together a lot of different elements in order to make my campaign as emotional as possible, in order to get the response I want.
After this, I started looking at a List of Issues which I thought would be interesting to look at, and to get ideas on what I can do for my campaign. I wanted to start off looking at different problems to start forming an idea of what I could do for my campaign and what I could do in terms of creating media. This was helpful to allow me to know what kind of issues were out there, but it hasn't helped me to narrow down my choices in terms of what route I want to follow and what I want to make my campaign about.
23rd February 2017 (Thursday)
I decided that I wanted to look into the historical context of propaganda during World War One and Two, and the women getting the vote in 1920, because due to studying history previously, I'd looked at a lot of different posters, and I recognized some of the techniques used, which seem to be the same is social awareness campaigns, except with a different goal. I knew propaganda was used to brainwash the public into following the government's ideas, but they used elements of fear, anger and guilt to trick citizens into believing everything the government told them. While I know this is different to social awareness campaigns because these campaigns are looking to make the world a better place by getting the public emotional enough that they have the urge to change what is going on, and sometimes this can only be achieved by shocking them. I thought the link was interesting and it was something I wanted to look at because it helped me use some of my previous knowledge to interpret how times have changed - I wanted to acknowledge the different techniques old propaganda used to use in order to know how I could apply these to my campaign for a positive change.
We were then introduced to Brandon Stanton, a photographer who produced the Facebook campaign 'Humans of New York'. We were told we would need to go out in groups and travel to another location, then individually approach strangers and ask to take their photo. We'd then have to follow it up with asking them a question or two. We watched a couple of videos based on Brandon Stanton's techniques on going up to people and asking to take their photos, and made notes of his techniques. For example, he acts like he is really confident, and he makes sure that he approaches strangers calmly.
Hearing about this made me feel slightly anxious, because going out in groups meant that these people would be watching, and it felt like it would be a little humiliating if I had to walk back to my group and admit that I didn't get permission to take anyone's photo. Plus, I didn't feel that comfortable with travelling to an area I didn't know, because it would put me more on edge.
28th February 2017 (Tuesday) - 6th March 2017 (Monday)
I started with writing my pitch on the 28th for the campaign I wanted to do, which was alcohol abuse. Throughout the week I wrote out the information about my topic, my outcome plans, the reason for awareness on the subject of alcohol, research (including data and statistics), theories relating to my chosen campaign, similar professional work (charity campaigns), my USP, my ambitions, my production schedule and my bibliography. I also had to cut down a lot of the information I had on my PowerPoint slides because it was too much, but I put the original version of my pitch on my Research tab. I found it difficult to cut down on my information because I like to have what I want to say written down in preparation, because it's easier not to get anxious about presenting. I took out some information about bits of research I still wanted to look at, because I knew I'd remember what I wanted to search for anyway, and I didn't think it would be necessary to have on my presentation. I also cut down a lot of the sentences I was using, because re-reading my presentation, I could find parts that were overcomplicated and didn't really need to be wrote down, so I was glad I had the opportunity to look back over it. I didn't want to have too little wrote on my PowerPoint but I also didn't want to write too much, so I think the information I have on there now is simple, straight to the point and is still written down for me to be able to say, without dragging on and being boring. I had problems figuring out my production schedule because I wasn't informed of the deadline of the final major project, besides that it's in June. I also don't know what day we're starting with creating our different pieces of media because I'm not sure whether there's any more skill building mini projects, like the Brandon Stanton photography recreation on my Production tab.
However, I feel okay about pitching my idea, but the only worry I have is that I'll be told to focus on one specific topic within alcohol. This isn't exactly ideal because I want to advertise all different problems within the issue of alcohol, and I want to address different things because I have different ideas for each bit. I'm confident that my pitch is very good, and I want to share my ideas with my peers and gain their feedback.
7th March 2017 (Tuesday)
I was described as confident throughout my pitch, and my presentation was very thorough. I had a lot of information and I was able to stay calm throughout my presentation, which was a good point for me because of dealing with a lot of anxiety. Hearing that I came across as confident made me feel like I had accomplished taking a step forward with how well I can present and talk in front of an audience. I was able to explain all of my information well and show that I knew exactly what I was talking about - I understood everything I was explaining and I was completely comfortable with the information I showed to my audience. I know that sometimes not showing confidence makes people question whether you actually understand what you're presenting, so I'm glad that everyone knew that I was fully aware of what I was presenting.
I also received some points on which I can improve on. I was told I was reading a lot of my presentation because I knew that trying to memorize everything I had to say would be too stressful and probably wouldn't be able to be done. However, I was adding my own points which I was thinking of on the spot, which I didn't even think I would do. I just started speaking about different points I was thinking of, because I felt if I stopped speaking for too long during my presentation, I would be too nervous and anxious to continue.
I was also told my presentation was too long - despite all of the requirements that my presentation needed, which I made sure I included as many as I could.
I was also told I needed to be more captivating and connect more with the audience - constantly being anxious or nervous makes it more difficult to be confident, and I felt like I had taken a step forward with trying to be more confident with my pitch. My main aim was to get through the presentation, so being captivating wasn't really high on my priority list. I don't really know how to make the topic of alcohol abuse captivating in a pitch when talking about mental and physical health problems.
I welcome constructive criticism because I want to improve, but not being told how I could make my presentation on this particular topic more interesting just felt like my peers were telling me things without expanding on what they meant. It felt more so as if they were doing it just to find faults, instead of acting wanting to give me feedback which would benefit me and help me learn what I could do to make my presentation better.
I also find the comment concerning connecting with the audience to be a little annoying too - nobody let me know how I could do this, whether I should be making more eye contact with my audience (which I was doing quite a bit anyway), or possibly having visuals to present, or even trying to involve them in someway, possibly by asking them questions.
I felt that the points I needed to improve on weren't expanded enough so that I could actually learn what I could do if I present another presentation. My criticism wasn't enough to benefit me - it felt like my audience were trying to find faults just for the sake of it rather than telling me more than just the basic points they had given me, so that I could actually take their comments on board and learnt from them.
I didn't think that the things I could improve on were very helpful, especially since I was trying to tell others about certain things they could do to make their presentations better, and give them honest opinions on the content of their presentations. Whereas my feedback was needing to connect more, but not telling me on how I could do that, plus that it was too long and a lot of it was just being read. It also frustrated me because a lot of people had already done the exact same things, and these points weren't being picked on by anyone.
The feedback I got from my teacher was a lot more helpful. I was given recommendations on being more specific with my campaign and avoid the age group of middle age women drinkers who refuse to acknowledge their problem, plus she also told me that young people are starting to drink less now. She also told me that my presentation was very good and I was confident too.
9th March 2017 (Thursday) - 10th March 2017 (Friday)
These two days consisted of watching everyone else's pitches and giving feedback on their topics. I felt that the feedback I gave multiple times was constructive and helpful, so I'm glad I could provide that to my peers. It also got me thinking about my own media work, as I began thinking about what I would do first.
13th March 2017 (Monday)
I started with my planning for my animation by creating a script and starting with my storyboard. I wanted to include information on my animation which would be beneficial to my audience, but would also be entertaining. I still plan to draw out everything frame by frame, so I wanted to think about creating really impressive and well-thought out drawings to animate. I want to add a level of complication to my animation, which will be executed really well. My script and storyboard are both first drafts, because I aim to get some feedback on them and make any changes if need be. I also want to make sure that I can create something from every line that I write which will have a lot of depth in the meaning to it - I think some of the lines I have so far and the ideas I've thought of for them are clever, so I hope to continue to do so with my storyboard. I also decided to do all of my planning first before starting anything, because I realised that it would be a lot easier in knowing whether I need others to star in my advert or interview. I also wanted to be prepared so that I can just continue with my projects rather than having to take time out to plan beforehand, which could potentially create a lot of unnecessary stress for me. I think it'll be a lot easier for me to plan everything out first so that I know what I'm doing for everything, and it all flows correctly without needing to worry that I don't know what to do for my planning.
14th March 2017 (Tuesday)
I started off by doing a bit more of my storyboard before class because I want to get it finished soon. I also asked my peers for some feedback on it, and I was told that all of my drawings and ideas were good and well presented, but the line talking about the alcohol unit guideline was confusing - my peers wanted to know how many drinks 14 units was. Another part which suggests that the intoxicated person could kill one of 3000 others that die or are injured due to drink driving was also slightly confusing - it was suggested that I change it to "you may cause one out of 3000 other people to get injured or killed as a result to drink driving." This feedback was helpful because it allows me to re-design my storyboard to include the elements I should change, to make my animation better.
I also started filling out pre-production documents for my interview, and I started doing some research on different alcohol awareness posters to look at their conventions that I may want to use for my own posters. I've started thinking about what I want to do for my posters and I've already started coming up with ideas. One of them is to have someone looking directly at the camera with both sides of their face different, like a before and after, which is going to be before and after getting drunk. I plan to use different temporary tattoos for the after shot to looks like scars and cuts, plus some fake blood, to make it look as though the person has gotten into a fight or gotten injured.
I started creating a poster using the word 'alcoholism' and crossing it with other words - it resembles a crossword, with all of the words relating to the consequences of alcoholism.
16th March 2017 (Thursday)
Today I finished writing out my production schedule, as well as writing out my questions for the interview I'm conducting on Saturday with my friend. I think this will be an excellent opportunity to get his views on alcohol and what theories he believes in when it comes to addiction. I finished the pre production documents for the interview and put together a basic shot list. I also aimed to find some examples of interviews on alcohol addiction, but I couldn't find any. I want to continue to search for them because I want to look at the way the interviewer asks their questions and what kind of things they want to get from their interviewee.
I also finished the first draft of the alcoholism word poster I started, and although I didn't add anything else besides this, I thought that if I do develop the idea further, I can add in a title and some information to make it into a proper poster. I also created another poster, which was called 'live to play in the leaves'. I created this because I thought that I could make some posters and base them around the phrase 'live to fight another day', and use common simple things to live for - I want to encourage alcoholics to give up alcohol in order to live to experience the most basic things that may usually be taken for granted.
17th March 2017 (Friday)
I started re-drawing my storyboard because I wanted to change some of my ideas and also include the feedback that I got from my first one, including showing the alcohol unit guidelines in terms of how many pints of beer, glasses of wine and shots of spirits are equal to 14 units each week. I found out that 6 pints of beer (4% strength), 7 glasses of wine (11.5% strength, 175 ml) and 14 single shots of spirits (40% strength) are all equal to 14 units, which is the guideline for men and women each week. I also revisited the 'live to play in the leaves' poster because I wanted to change the font of the line 'play in the leaves' to the same font for the line 'stop abusing alcohol', but I was unable to find the same font. This was frustrating because I wanted to make the fonts consistent.
18th March 2017 (Saturday)
I went and met up with my friend, who was happy to be interviewed. I showed him the questions I was planning to ask him, and he was perfectly fine with answering them. We started filming in a park, and I tried to use a range of shots. I had my friend continue to look forward and answer the questions whilst I moved with the camera around him a couple of times. I also tried to use close ups, wide shots, medium close ups, etc. One thing I didn't account for was the noise of the wind. It made it near impossible to hear everything the interviewee was saying. I decided that I would listen to all of the footage and write a transcript of what the interviewee said. I'm hoping that I can then voice record his answers again and insert this audio over the video, while deleting all of the background noise. If this doesn't work, then we'll re-shoot the interview. I also took some photos of him, in case I also decided on creating a magazine article on his beliefs about alcohol.
19th March 2017 (Sunday)
I took the time to finish off my second draft storyboard and also draw out some examples on both Paint and the SketchBook app using a drawing pad and pen. I found that drawing on SketchBook was a lot easy and the drawings were a lot smoother than Paint.
Paint was annoying because every time I pressed the pen against the pad, a circle would appear which had something to do with colour, I think. This stopped me from actually drawing, so I had to try and draw a little faster, which made the lines look shaky and the drawings looked amateur. Also, drawing on Paint means there's no soft pencil marks which can be gone over and made darker. It's possible to change colour but then there's the task of erasing all of the pixels for the colour used as soft marks, and it takes a long time.
Once I downloaded SketchBook, all of the problems I had with Paint vanished. Using the pencil created soft marks first which I could then draw over and darken, and erasing them was easy too because there was a tool to specifically remove these marks, without erasing the front layer of the darker marks. The pencil drew smoother and there weren't any pixels, plus it looked so much better in comparison to the drawings on Paint. The drawings on SketchBook were a much better quality, which I was happy with.
20th March 2017 (Monday)
I uploaded my animation storyboard drafts and the examples of the Paint and Sketchbook drawings.
I then started looking at typography experimentation for my posters. I was happy with the Chalkboard font I found whilst comparing fonts on Photoshop, and I attempted to blur the sentence I wrote in this font: "Stop abusing alcohol". The blur effect worked well, and I then attempted to smudge the writing as well, to make it look as though the audience was experiencing double vision. The blurriness was inspired by the idea I had whilst looking at 1001 Fonts, because I thought that I should try to make it look as though the audience are seeing the sentence as if they're intoxicated themselves, because I thought it would be effective. Smudging the writing didn't look right and didn't work correctly either, so I decided maybe I shouldn't smudge the letters and just keep the blurriness.
I also looked at the alcohol unit guidelines in the UK and in other places in the world as part of my research for my animation, since it was recommended by my peers that I include what the guidelines are equal to in terms of pints of beers, glasses of wine and single shots. I found that looking this up gave more depth to my animation, because it gives more animation. I'm also a lot happier with the second version of the storyboard for the animation because I've included more, and I think it has a higher level of complication that I'm looking forward to playing with and executing. I think it will give me a lot of experimentation with animation, and will help me with enhancing my skills.
I looked at the footage of my interview again and realized the wind was too strong and overpowering to be able to write a transcript from it, and while the recordings aren't ideal, it's given me more practice. It makes me realize just how much consideration I need to put into my locations, and the kind of weather I want to film in. I'm using these videos as my testing shots, so that I can redo my interview again and make sure that the wind doesn't interfere with the recording. While I felt angry that the wind had messed up the recordings, it still gave me the opportunity to figure out the kind of camera shots and angles which work well for the interview and which ones don't, so it was still a good learning experience. From this I hope that I can re shoot the interview soon and also rely on recording the answers on my phone too, so that if the wind still acts as a factor that affects the interviewee's voice, or another component comes into play in which his voice is obstructed, I have another recording to fall back on, which I hope will be beneficial. However, I hope that re shooting the interview again will mean that the entirety of it goes well and I can start editing it like when I plan to according to my production schedule.
21st March 2017 (Tuesday)
I started off with putting the testing shoot for my interview on my production interview page, and explained the problem with the wind interfering with the sound quality of the interviewee's answers. I also looked at a lot of alcohol adverts and analysed them all - I found that some were quite shocking and surprising, which is the same kind of thing I want to do. I want to create something with a shock factor, which will keep my audience interested and be enough to make them not want to touch alcohol again.
I got some feedback on most of the elements of my website, including adding little parts here and then.
I was recommended to look at some alcohol animations, plus research some interviews too. It was also recommended that I begin looking at tutorials for creating bloody make up effects, since I want to incorporate this into one of my poster ideas and my advert - I want to show how bad alcohol can be by creating scars and cuts and I want to use fake blood. I was also told that once I look at some tutorials, I need to also film or photograph my own attempts of doing the same kind of make up effects, in order to show my process with the advert and poster.
I also got some feedback on the font experimentation I did on the line 'don't abuse alcohol' with the blur and smudge effects - I was surprised when my peer told me that they liked both effects on the font, as I didn't. Re-looking at it, I'm wondering whether I judged it too quickly. I also got feedback on the practice posters I made, which I was told the first crossword inspired poster was good, but I should possibly use a different background colour to make the poster pop. I was also told that the other poster's layout seemed a little off, and that the fonts should be changed. I found this a little surprising because I really liked the look of the second line font.
22nd March 2017 (Wednesday)
I started off the day with scanning all of the hand-written and hand-drawn pages I had taken photos of, which included my original campaign ideas before the start of the project, and my animation storyboards.
I then got to work on planning my advert, and drew out a storyboard for it, which I plan to turn into a photographic storyboard soon. I decided to centre my advert on drink driving: an unknown person, whose face isn't shown, is drinking and gets angry when they recall a conversation in which they're being criticised for their alcoholism. I want to keep displaying messages throughout, explaining that not everyone listens to the truth but they soon regret not listening. The person will angrily (and drunkenly) stumble into their car, and hit someone off screen. The advert will then show a close up of an eye, suggesting that everything is fine, until the rest of the victim is shown, where they're thoroughly injured - bloody bandages, scars and bruises - I also want to display a couple of messages about the damage that isn't shown, including the person now being infertile, having had brain damage and being paralysed from the waist down as a result of drunk driving.
I want to make sure that the driver is kept unknown because of how common alcoholism is - I think it will help the audience to picture it as themselves instead of seeing who the driver is. I think this will be effective because it spreads the message that it could've been anyone that was drinking and driving, and hopefully this will be the encouragement needed to stop. I want to show the victim because I want to show the extent of their injuries, and explore the fact that the damage isn't just what you can see, but realise that this person's life will now be dramatically altered. I want the person's expression to stare right out at the audience, to try and make them feel guilty. I believe the extent of the injuries will be the shock factor that I want to create.
After this, I began work on creating wine bottle labels, to replace the labels on the J2O Spritz drink that I bought, for the shape of the wine bottle and the colour of the drink. I created two wine labels, both consistently using the colour blue. I really liked this because I thought that using one colour, but using various shades of it, would look really good. My peers agreed with me, saying that the colouring worked really well. I also drew out a rose on my SketchBook app, because the colour of the drink looks like rosé wine. I added this image to the two labels, and I wanted it to be my stand out feature so it would be recognisable that it's for the same bottle. I experimented with colour on the second label, mixing gold and blue to see how it worked. I originally liked it, but after my peer mentioned that it didn't look right, I agreed and decided to keep consistency by going back to blue, although this time it was a darker blue used, to make the colours pop. Overall, I was really happy with the outcome, and I felt it held a high standard of creativity and professionalism.
Before and After
23rd March 2017 (Thursday)
I started with writing out my process for the wine bottle labels that I made, and then began writing out all of my pre-production documents for my advert. I also made arrangements with my friend to be in the advert, and film in the next few weeks. I later began reworking my 'Live to' poster, using different ways on making it better. I rewrote the lines and coloured them white, and I eventually used the pen tool to draw behind the letters, in a way of outlining it. I was unsure about outlining the 'live to' line in the same way because I'd created it all out of rectangles and a circle, but after attempting to create a shadow effect by copying the shapes, resizing them to make them a little bigger, then colouring them black, I agreed with my peer, who told me it didn't look right. She suggested I use the pen tool technique again, and after I did this, I liked the poster a lot more.
After this, I wanted to get a little bit ahead of my schedule, so I started looking at animation videos and analysing them. I then also began looking at make up tutorials to create all of the bruising and scars for my advert, as I'm going to play the victim of a drink driving accident. I need to practice the make up beforehand so that I can get it looking as realistic as possibly.
24th March 2017 (Friday)
I started off the day by looking at another animation video and analyzing it, then moving onto writing up about the make up tutorials that I had found. I've decided to follow one for the bruised eye and although another is supposed to be a tutorial for a bruised eye, it also features making a cut lip, so I'm going to follow a portion of that tutorial too. So overall, I'm going to use two tutorials to practice and create the bruised eye and cut lip effect, and add more fake blood because I want it to look like the aftermath of my injuries from the car accident is after I've been to a hospital and had some of my wounds stitched up, but they're splitting open and bleeding a lot, plus having blood seeping through a bandage around my head too. I want the bruised eye to look as fresh as possible, looking really dark but still bloody, and the cut lip I want to have it look as though it's been cut badly and it's still bleeding a lot because the wound keeps opening.
25th March 2017 - 26th March 2017 (Saturday - Sunday)
I experimented with the bruise make up again, deciding it'd be better to do a lot of attempts to make sure I can get it exactly perfect for when I need to shoot my advert. I also wanted to start with some animations, so I began drawing out my animation images frame by frame on paper, because ultimately I decided this would be the quickest method, and I'd be able to trace the images too to be able to get the movements exactly right - for example, drawing a frame out by using a frame that I drew out just beforehand means that I can change a part of the movement that I want to create, and the image stays the same for everywhere else. I then started photographing them and emailing them to myself, so that I would be able to trace them on Illustrator, and colour them.
27th March 2017 (Monday)
I continued drawing out all of my images and emailing them myself, then began putting them into Illustrator. However, I couldn't colour them, which was extremely frustrating so I decided I would use my SketchBook app at home to colour the images, which worked really well and I actually liked the way they turned out in comparison to the colouring of the images on my first ever animation. I enjoyed drawing out my images frame by frame, because it felt even more original and creative - I want to show off my artistic skills with creating really well thought out animations.
I also wore the bruise make up to college, deciding to run a small experiment - I wanted to see how many people believed it was actually real. Everyone did, besides one person who tried to guess that it was make up. However, everyone was shocked to see the bruise because of how realistic it looked - I was even pulled out of class to be asked about it, to which I explained that it was make up and I was trying to gather reactions to write about. From this, I could tell that I had managed to follow the tutorials well, even putting my own little spin on it, as I used a lot of dark purple eye shadow for around my cheekbone, and then mixed this with a bruised-red colour to make the bruise even darker. I also put it around the end of my eyebrow and over my eyelid too, mixing these colours together to make the bruise dark and look like it had been done extremely recently. The colouring of my bruise was my own twist on the tutorial, which mainly worked with lighter purples around the cheekbone and mixing in some darker purples, but I don't think they used a red colour. They used yellow to make it look as though the bruise was beginning to heal already, but I didn't want to do this because I wanted it to look as fresh as possible.
I'm now confident in creating this bruised look, and it's also given me a little experience in special effects make up, which I wish to explore further, because I enjoyed it. I want to add fake blood for when I recreate it for my advert, to make it very bloody, to correlate with my other fake injuries. I also agreed to help out my friend with her domestic abuse campaign by posing with the bruise eye for her photo shoot, which I intend on also showing on my Production tab.
28th March 2017 (Tuesday)
I came into college with the bruise make up on my eye ready for my friend's photo shoot. She took a lot of photos which I want to showcase on my Production tab. I also made suggestions to her throughout the photo shoot, asking whether she thought that these photos could also be made better with another model, this time as my 'partner', in order to show that I feel 'trapped' by this person - I also thought it would make it even more obvious that it was for a domestic abuse campaign, but she disagreed with this idea. I then also suggested that she take a close up photo and edit it to show only my eyes, with one bruise and the other not, to make an effective shot for her article. I also advised her about lighting, where she turned the lights off and used the natural daylight from the window to get some good shots after having worked with the lights on, where the photos didn't look as professional. I kept looking at the photos she'd taken, attempting to possibly see if I could create my own direction, because besides telling me where to stand, how to tilt my head and where to look, she didn't ask me to use any facial expressions. The shots also continued to repeat themselves, which I grew tired of quickly - she mainly took side shots and close ups at different angles, and attempted one or two higher angle shots, but this was the only range she worked with. Had she possibly given me more to do, I think this photoshoot could've been pulled off a lot better. I didn't know what to do with my hands, and she never told me when she wanted me to look at the camera, so I was stuck either looking forward or being instructed to look at the floor - while I can understand she wanted to showcase the bruise more and focus primarily on that, I felt she could've mixed it up a lot more and created even more effective shots, working with my other features, such as my eyes, to make the shots even better. If I had been directing it, I would've wanted to have my model showing a little bit of fear, with their eyes mostly on the camera, besides for a few shots where I would possibly have them attempting to look around, scared, in case their partner was to appear. I also would've used another model in better to make the campaign obvious that it was for a domestic abuse magazine article, to create a real sense of trepidation for the audience too, to connect with them more. I would've also used a wider range of shots, using long shots, close ups, mid shots, etc, to show the model's arms and use that as well to show fear, maybe have them nervously playing with their hands. I would want to work with this body language to show that it's not only the bruise to focus on, as there are other signs, such as nervousness and feeling an intense surge of fear.
29th March 2017 - 31st March 2017 (Wednesday - Friday)
I continued with drawing my images, colouring them all and organizing them for my animation. Whilst at college, I created a new after effects composition and started putting all of the animations into it. However, I quickly realized that some of the sizing was incorrect, and when it was enlarged, they became very pixelated and didn't look very good. I resolved to redraw them and I used a screenshot of a plain after effects background to get an idea of the size of the screen. I then drew some of the images again, and placed them within this screenshot to see the general size the picture would amount to. This was more successful, although I still had to resize some images, but they weren't as pixelated. I still need to re-draw the kryptonite in a beer glass because it still seems pixelated when enlarged, but this should be easy to fix. I also re-drew the wine glass pouring wine down the sink, which I like a lot more now. I corrected the last two frames for the girl and the rain so that the rain falls on the entire screen, although I need to fix the man at the bar and the light at the end of the tunnel.
2nd April 2017 (Sunday)
I met up with my friend to re-record the interview, which worked a lot better due to the fact that there was barely any wind. We shot it in the same location, but had it been too windy again or started raining, I had a back up location in mind to travel to so that the interview could still be recorded. Once I'd gotten back home, I began editing it. I wrote out the questions as titles and tried to crossfade them with the video - originally, I didn't like it. However, I started to warm to it and decided to use the effect for every question, as I had recorded it all separately. I then tried to play around with the audio to make the background noise quieter, but I was unable to do so, so I resolved that I would add music to the interview as well. I then began cutting the filming together in order to miss out the mistakes during the filming, such as the interviewee becoming slightly tongue-tied at one moment.
Interview Version 1
3rd April 2017 - 10th April 2017 (Monday - Monday)
Advert Song Research:
I started off researching different songs to use for the background music of the background and I came across a few different suitable options, which I reviewed. The first song I came across was "Don't Say Goodbye" by Ylona Garcia, but I found this whilst searching for a different song using the title as a line in one of the verses, but I couldn't remember the name of the actual song. I decided to listen to this song anyway and I thought it sounded like a good contender for the background song for my advert. I wanted to use a slow and soft sounding song to contrast the nature of the advert in order to make the outcome even more shocking - having a nice song in the background could mean the audience would be a lot less suspecting of something, which is what I want to create. I want to lead my audience into a false sense of security, but I also know that the audience will still sense something is coming, especially for this topic and advert, so they'll be aware that something bad will happen because for drink driving, something horrible always does occur. I'm still hoping that the song will trick them even just a little, because I think this reaction will relate to the mindset of the drinker in these situations as well. The drinker always believes that their actions won't cause any significance and then feel guilty for being wrong and realizing how much of an impact their decisions make, so I'm hoping that the false sense of security from the song could potentially make some audience members believe that nothing too serious will occur, and I hope maybe they feel a little bit of guilt afterwards when they see how bad the actual outcome of the drink drive accident is.
I also want to use a song that creates a lot of irony with the tone. This song is about begging someone else "not to say goodbye", which could represent the aftermath of the car accident. However, I lent towards not using this one due to the fact that the victim of the accident isn't going to die, but instead be left with all of these other problems which will continue to impact their life. However, in another sense I can also understand that there could be a mourning for the person the victim used to be before their accident. I also planned on using an instrumental version, so I didn't think this song would get it's point across, especially as I don't think it's that well known that anybody would recognize it and what the song is about.
I then listened to another song with the same name, by the artist Nina. I thought this song would've also created the sense of irony that I wanted due to the soft tone. However, I was reluctant to use this song because, listening to the lyrics, I felt that the fact that the song was a love song dealing with a break up and someone walking away, I didn't deem it as something which would have much of an impact, even if I only used the instrumental version. I would still know what the song was about even if the audience wouldn't have been aware, and I didn't think it fit with the advert in context of what the song was about. I didn't feel as though it would convey the right type of loss, and it would lose effectiveness.
I looked at "Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss, and I liked the idea of the song because it talk about alcohol and the biggest problem it causes, which is death. It explains that alcohol is used to forget about problems, but I know that getting an instrumental version means nobody will actually understand the song. However, I also noticed that alcohol for this song is used to forget about someone's relationship problems, which isn't the kind of idea I wanted to go for anyway. I still felt like using this song would've been clever so it had been a strong contender because it ties in well with the theme of the advert. My main intention for using instrumental versions of songs for the background is because I feel like by using the normal version of the song, the advert would be hindered due to being a distraction to the audience, and they wouldn't focus on what the advert is trying to explain.
The second to last song I looked at, "Can We Work It Out" by Gordi, is beautifully sung and played on the piano, which drew me to it. Hearing the music being played on an instrument would've been a refreshing and unique choice of song. However, the whole song is about 'working something out', which isn't the direction my advert is going in. Since my advert talks about the victim of a drink driving accident sustaining serious, life-changing injuries, this song wouldn't work well with it. Using the instrumental version of this could've been really good, but I wasn't too keen on the idea.
I chose the song "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift, featuring The Civil Wars, because out of all of the songs I looked at, this immediately came into my mind afterwards and stuck. The song talks about the impact of death on those around the person that's dying, and I want to use it in a relatable sense due to the victim of the car accident having to deal with the pain and the gain of a lot of significant issues which would've been created had the situation not occurred, which the victim will now have t live with for the rest of their life. Nobody else is featuring in the film besides the drinker and the victim, but it's understandable that the victim's family would've struggled with the situation too. The victim's life would also be drastically changed and they wouldn't be the person they were before, so in a way there would be a lot of mourning and a lot of grief for who the victim was before being defined by what the accident has done to them.
Using this idea, the song begins to make a lot more sense too. While death doesn't occur, this person's life is made even worse, and so has their loved ones, because of all of the changes it's left them with. Their old version of them self is missed and mourned, because the victim has changed so much. My advert isn't going to show the accident occur because I want the extent of it to form in the audience's mind, and I want to explore a small portion of the aftermath by showing the victim and explaining the short term and long term consequences they've got to endure. I want the audience to come up with their own ideas on this, and I'm also hoping someone will notice the song because it is quite popular, and the artist is one of the biggest in the world currently. I want the audience to form their own picture of the accident, as I would be able to imagine someone lying in the road in someone else's arms, being desperately spoken to just from listening to the piano instrumental version of the song, due to how gentle and slow it is, making it even more heartbreaking. I'm torn between including the voice in this song, maybe even just for the end scene to see whether it would make the advert more effective.
Testing Shoot #1 for Advert:
The first shot was for testing the position of the camera for filming the outside scenes of the drinker getting into the car. The position of the camera for this first shot was alright until the door of the car was opened and the reflection on the window meant that the drinker couldn't be seen properly. The tripod I used was also slightly stiffer when filming began, so the movement of the camera was limited and looked unprofessional. I loosened the tripod a little and the movement became much better, in addition to also changing the position of the camera and the angle.
I tried a front close up shot of the drinker getting into the car because I wanted to film as many shots and angles as possible to have a range to work with when editing. However, the reflection on the wind screen of trees meant that the shot wasn't very good and wasn't usable, so I decided to avoid doing front close up shots through the wind screen and instead focus on other types of shots.
The sound of the engine revving up was difficult to hear for the last testing shot because it wasn't as loud as practicing with it previously, and the wind also ruined the sound. I also disliked it due to not much being visible - filming from behind the front passenger seat meant that the drinker could only be see getting into the car, but the turning on the engine wasn't visible from the position of the camera. I decided to shoot this from the front passenger side instead, which worked really well.
These testing shots worked really well because it helped me to determine some camera angles and shots which wouldn't work effectively, and I liked to go through this process in order to know whether attempting to film these shots would be pointless. It gave me more time to film correct shots, which would give me a larger selection to work with when editing. I thought testing these shots was useful because it helped me to realistically think about what other types of shots I could use, and look at the environment of my location plus the factors which could've disturbed my filming, such as the wind, which played a role in the failure of the last testing shot. It allowed me to realize that shooting from a different position meant that the wind wasn't as harsh like it was in the testing shot, which was beneficial in time management of the advert shoot.
Editing Process for the First Version of Advert:
The editing process went really well - I started off with organizing shots, and after noticing a continuity error involving the placement of the wine bottle lid being opened and put onto the table, I reworked the order to have the video flow properly. This was possible because I filmed the same action from different angles and positions, which helped my editing process and made it easier, because I could extend the clips to play the second clip first and cut it differently as opposed to how it was cut in the beginning to play second. This was beneficial and made the advert look better, so I was happy with it.
I then went on to trim the clips down further because I re-watched the advert again and I didn't like some of the parts in the middle of the clips, such as the hesitation of putting the bottle down. I want to make the advert as professional as I can, and because the advert can't be too long, I know that leaving these mistakes in the finished product would waste some of the time in the advert that I could've used differently. After that, I added in the clips of the drinker grabbing the car keys.
I added in the car scenes next and continued to switch between back, front and close ups shots as the drinker stumbled to the car and struggled to put their keys in the car door to unlock it. I was happy with the way this turned out because it helped add more realism to the advert, showing how much of an effect the 'alcohol' has had on the drinker. I then used side shots as the drinker revved up the engine, and thankfully the positioning of the camera and the type of shot meant the action was visible, the sound of the engine was loud and the wind didn't disrupt it.
I then added in the titles I created which followed my storyboard. The line "not everyone listens" is shown after the car keys are picked up, and the line "but everyone regrets it" is shown after the drinker gets into the car.
Overall I was really happy with the first version of the advert because it looked really professional, and the range of shots
meant that I had a lot to work with so I chose the best shots to include in it. The advert's becoming exactly how I want it to, and it's going to get better with the addition of music and a voice over.
Advert Version 1:
The first version of my advert was well produced and edited, and I can't wait to finish it off properly. There wasn't any sound until the last shot with the engine, because I wanted to use that as the key point of the advert and isolate the sound. I believed doing this would make the sound significant and recognizable that something may happen, like a cue. I plan to add sound effects of a car screeching and a thud, as though someone's been hit by the car. I asked for feedback on this version and I received the response that the advert was looking good and that it needs some music to help keep it interesting, as well as needing the victim being shown or having the advert explain what happened to them.
Editing Process for Advert Version 2:
I started off with adding the instrumental piano version of the song "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift to the advert, which I thought was beautiful and fit really well for the theme of the campaign. The friend that plays the drinker also recorded the voice over, so I shortened the titles I made to be the same length as the recordings, and also made them louder. I lowered the volume of the background music slightly so that it wasn't too loud, as it's not the main focus of the advert. I think that the voice over for the advert is well played because my friend used a lot of emotion and her voice sounded cracked and low, which made the recordings even better. I then asked for feedback on the new additions to this version of the advert and it was well liked, especially with the music. The voice over and choice of music made it seem like the advert had been produced by an actual company, and I was very pleased with this.
Advert Version 2:
I also added the sound of the keys being lifted from the table, as I thought that would be another significant noise to make the audience pay attention to. I want to isolate a few different noises in order to explain their significance throughout the advert and act like indications when necessary, giving the audience the clue that something will happen. I thought that doing this would be effective and keep the audience focused on the message - someone's picked up the keys and is about to commit drink driving. I also know that I wrote about my song research before the first version of my advert which doesn't include the song I chose. This is because I chose the song first, but I wanted to look at the advert without any music, so I then included the song in version 2.
Injury Diagram:
I drew the diagram out on paper of the victim and included the injuries, but I realized that the injuries didn't look as realistic as I wanted them to, and they were also difficult to see considering it was all drew in pencil and without any colour. I decided it would be more beneficial to redraw it in my SketchBook app and show the injuries properly. I took a photo of the drawing and then erased the paper marks and drew over the pencil outline. I also erased the injuries and parts of the facial expressions to draw again. I know that the process could've been made easier had I just scanned the drawing, but I figured that this was the quicker method, and I wanted to also see how well I could transform the picture into a drawing looked like it had actually been drawn on the computer. After this, I started colouring the image, and then got to work on redrawing the injuries - I drew the black eye and mixed it with a lot of dark red to make it look fresh, then I drew the gash on the cheek having been stitched poorly and reopening, bleeding. I then drew the cuts on the lips and blood pouring from them plus the blood coming from the nose and having it mix together. The cut on the eyebrow is representing the head bandage which will also have blood coming from it as though freshly bleeding.
I liked the outcome of the diagram because it looks bloody and brutal, so I hope the audience would feel guilt seeing the actual real version of this too. My plans for showcasing this is to begin with a close up of the non bruised eye blinking, and then zooming out to show the extent of the injuries. Then, different words will pop up, signifying long term problems that aren't visible.
I asked for feedback from my peers and they agreed that the drawing looked really good and the injuries were also thoroughly thought out and planned, plus made sense for the incident. They also added that they couldn't wait to see the actual version of the injuries, as it would look even better than the drawing.
Voice Tests for Animation:
I decided to do some voice testing for my animation to figure out who I should get to record the script. I asked four of my friends to record the same on line I'd chosen from the script in order to compare whose voice would be the most effective and emotive. I want my animation to be informative and serious but I also want the voice over to speak with passion and get their opinion across. I want the voice to have a hint of fear to make sure the audience are really listening to the message and paying attention to what's going on in the video.
I'm happy with the person I chose to record the lines because she speaks confidently and expressively. She recorded the lines for me recently as all individual voice files, because I want to be able to move the recording in case I need a few seconds more for animations to play out. It also makes it a lot easier to drag into my composition as individual files, so I know what drawings are being placed alongside it. Renaming each file will also allow me to know which line is which, and how long the recording is, so I don't have to listen to it over and over determining when it ends to understand how long I have for each animation. I think the direction I'm going with for my animation is working really well - the voice over is strong, and the drawings are working well too.
Throwing Punch Animation Drawing:
I wanted to keep my consistency and draw everything out frame by frame, but I'm also using different mediums. I drew out the punch being thrown at the camera on SketchBook by looking at some references - I had asked my friend to pretend to be throwing a punch towards me and I took a photo of each movement. Prior to this I had drew out the first frame by hand and then traced it on Illustrator, but I didn't like the outcome. I also realized that getting the proportions sizes on paper of the arm would be difficult so I drew them out on SketchBook and coloured them. These versions were a lot better and I really liked the outcome of this small animation. I'm aware of needing to resize it on After Effects and re-positioning it, but I'm really glad it turned out the way it did, and my peer agreed. She loved the way each frame was drawn out, and when I showed her what I hope it will look like by flicking through the drawings on the computer, she agreed that it was going to turn out amazingly.
I think that using both hand drawn and SketchBook drawn images is a healthy balance and further accentuates my ability to hand draw images in differently ways.
Advert Version 1
Advert Version 2
11th April 2017 - 17th April 2017 (Tuesday - Monday)
Thrown in Jail Animation:
My original idea for this part of the animation was to use a glass being knocked against the prison bars, as a reference to comedy shows which use this when a character is arrested, to pass the time. However, I decided to change this idea, because I believed it was a very complicated animation to pull over, and a lot of people may not have even understood it. I decided instead to go with prison bars being lowered in front of someone, signifying that they've been locked up, and then have their shirt change from a normal one into a prisoner's uniform, with a number on the front. I thought this would make the audience understood what's going on easily, and the animation wouldn't be too difficult. I did this because I knew that in order to drawn the glass against the bars, I would need to watch the movement frame by frame, which would be a lot to draw considering how the arm would move position at least a little with every frame. Plus, it may not have even worked. If I do have some spare time, I may experiment with drawing this movement to see the outcome, and if it's better than the animation I've chosen, I'll replace it with that one. However, I'm currently really happy with the way the animation turned out. I asked for feedback from one of my peers and he liked it a lot also - he believed it was simple to understand and a good idea to have the bars move to the bottom of the screen, as if the person has just been put in prison.
Wine Eye Animation:
I redrew the original eye drawing because I knew I could create another version which would look even better. Originally, I was going to have the eye blink, but I decided to change it instead to enlarging the image of my After Effects composition slowly, to focus on the glass of wine acting as the iris in the eye. I had started off by drawing the image of the eye really small, and then realised that the image may pixelate if made bigger, so I redrew the eye again and made it bigger. I hadn't been happy with the wine glass iris anyway, so I was a lot happier when I had redrawn the whole thing. I also fixed the eyebrow, because it was too short and ended before the further corner of the eye did. Once this was done, I was completely happy with it. I think that focusing on the wine glass iris instead of making the eye blink is a good idea and allows the audience to focus on this as well. I may also change the colours after the eye is enlarged, so that the colour of the eye turns from blue to white to match the background of the composition, and maybe change the wine glass to red.
Animation Lines Recordings Version 2:
I got the same friend who had previously recorded the animation lines to re-record them, because I noticed with some of the first lines that the beginning of a few sentences were missing, particularly the ones starting with 'you may'. However, I had the same outcome with these lines, spare a few that were actually spoken better. The 'you may' lines were still missing those two words at the beginning of most of the lines,so I came up with a solution - if I take one of the lines with the two words actually spoken clearly, I can edit the audio and cut it down to just those two words and save it as a new file. Then, I can repeat this file before the other 'you may' lines to form the complete sentences. Other, than that little issue, I'm happy with the lines being re-recorded because they sound a lot better and a lot clearer, so I think they'll have more of an impact on my audience.
Make up Injuries on Day of Filming:
I decided against using fake blood coming from the nose and the lips because I thought it was illogical due to the circumstances surrounding the aftermath of the car accident. The victim has just been to hospital and had their head bandaged and their cheek stitched up, so it wouldn't make sense that the person would still be heavily bleeding from the mouth and nose because this would've been cleaned up straight away, and more than likely wouldn't have continued after a long time at the hospital. Therefore, I was happy with the blood on the bandage, because sometimes head wounds may reopen and start bleeding under the bandage again, the sling, the black eye, the stitched cheek (which has started to re-open), and the long term effects: paralysis from the waist down and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I used the same make up for the black eye that I had used for the same experiments of it, whilst I got some fake blood and put that on the bandage after I had put the bandage on. I then found a sling and put it over my shoulder. I made all of the injuries consistent on one side of the face and body, because I also took a couple of photos to use for posters. I want one side to look normal and okay, and then the other side to look injured and hurt, because I want it to look like a before and after shot, since this correlates with one of the plans I had for my posters.
Sound Effects for Advert:
I chose the sound of a thud on a car because I wanted it to represent a pedestrian being run over by a drunk driver and being hit by it. The sound I chose worked really well and was very realistic, which is what I wanted because I want the audience to picture the scene happening in their head, and they get the clue to do this by seeing someone who's been drinking getting into their car for a drive. It's obvious something bad is going to happen, so as the video fades to black to play the sound, the thud helps form the image in the audience's mind of an innocent victim being hit by the car. The extent of the injuries in the aftermath also correlate with that sound, so I think I made exactly the right choice with the sound effect.
Long Term Injuries Research:
I started researching what type of long term effects there are from car accidents, because I wanted to add in more titles for what the victim has to live with for the rest of their lives due to the incident. I thought it would be good to look into and understand, because I want to show that I know exactly what I'm doing with what I've chosen to include in the injuries. I found a few websites explaining injuries for those in the cars that are caught up in car accidents, and they focus more so on the passengers. I found a list including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, whiplash, paralysis and brain damage. I then realised that I should be focusing on pedestrian injuries, which is what I wanted the victim in my accident to be. Some of these were the same but I finally settled on using PTSD and paralysis from the waist down for the long term injuries, because I figured that having the giant impact that it did on the victim, it would make sense for them to end up paralysed due to being run over. I also know that PTSD can be picked up from a variety of accidents, although it was surprising to me when I found out it can also be picked up after car accidents. I thought that the trauma of such horrific injuries like those attained from the accident would also impact on the victim's mental health, and it would be horrible to constantly relive, especially since the victim was an innocent pedestrian, which would make them quite afraid to go anywhere again and possibly develop agoraphobia.
Advert Final Version:
I added the car thud sound effect and also un-muted some of the clips to include more noise to make the advert more realistic - I added the sound of the bottle being put down and moved, the car keys being picked up and the car door being opened and closed. I'm also aware that the original plan was to have the advert 30 seconds long, but the finished advert is about a minute long. I think the extra time is worth it because the advert shows a story and helps get a vital message across, which I think needed the whole minute to be explained rather than squashing it into 30 seconds and having it rushed, cut down too much and not give the audience the proper idea of what's going on. I also changed some of my ideas from my original planning, such as not having the conversation about the character's drinking take place, and I also decided to show their face. While I know I originally wanted to have the drinker remain unidentified in order to make the audience imagine themselves in that position, I then felt the stronger urge to show the drinker's face in a way of saying 'don't be this person'. I want the audience to think 'that person has caused so much pain and suffering to the victim, so I don't want to be like that'. I think I achieved my goal with the persuasive techniques of guilt and shock due to the extent of the victim's injuries, which is bound to make the audience feel bad and hopefully make them want to get help for their alcohol addictions. I also hope that in a way, people remember they've been in a serious accident in the same way and were probably quite lucky, but if it happens again, something like this or worse could be waiting for them. I really like the advert and the entire process I went through, because I feel like it's realistic and brings a lot of awareness - the message is clear and straightforward. I think this looks like a real advert made by a company, because of the standard I hold for my work and the quality I produced this piece at. I feel like my skills have really improved, in particular filming and editing, because I put this advert together in two weeks, along with the interview I made as well, and they're both well constructed, so I'm very proud of what I've managed to create.
Second Version of Interview and Final Version of Interview:
I wanted to fix the way my clips moved from one to the other and I figured the best thing to do would be to find a transition that works really well. I tried the fading transition but it didn't work well as the clips started playing over one another, which I didn't want as the talking becomes non-understandable when this happens. Instead, I decided I would create my own transitions by spacing apart the clips a little - I wanted to try and show it as if it was fading to black each time, but this didn't work the way I wanted to and instead there was just random black flashes in between the clips which didn't make sense and didn't look good either, so I realised I had to fix it. I also added in the song 'Stay' by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko, but I used the piano instrumental version because I felt like it made the interview better - it's slow but powerful, and played on the piano makes it sound beautiful, plus makes you take notice of it. I also felt like it worked well against the sound of the traffic and drowned it out quite a bit, so that the interview mainly focused on the interviewee's opinions on alcohol, which was great.
For the final version of the interview, I fixed the random black flashes in between clips so that they played one after another, which I think actually still looked pretty good after it was exported and I watched the full version properly instead of on the Power Director 47 editing program. Overall, I was extremely happy with the way the interview turned out, and I felt like the choices I made regarding the music and the editing style were the right ones, because it looked really good and I was proud of what I produced.
Advert Final Version
Interview Final Version
Interview Version 2
18th April 2017 (Tuesday)
I started off with using a photo I'd taken of myself during the filming for my advert, showing me with multiple injuries, because I always had the plan of using this in my poster. I specifically made sure all of the injuries were on the left of my face and body, so that when the photo was taken of me, from the perspective of the camera, all of the injuries would be on the right. I wanted to do this so it looked like the left was the before version before a drink drive accident involving this person as the pedestrian victim where the person is unharmed and okay, and then the right side is the after version where they're bloody and scarred. I wanted to do this as if to mimic the technique used on posters where the two sides of different photos make up the person's face. I thought that by doing this, I'd be able to advertise just how much damage can be done from car accidents and how badly people can get hurt. I want to encourage people to give up alcohol and be aware of what consequences it can have if you don't, so I thought that using this image would be beneficial. I liked the way it turned out because once I had cut the image away from the background and lightened it up a bit, it looked pretty good and realistic, which is what I wanted. I'm thinking about changing the font for the text, but other than that, I'm really pleased with the outcome. I asked for some feedback and my peer said that she liked it, but I should also think about adding a background colour. I'm going to test this out and see how it turns out in order to choose a colour. However, I still quite like the white background.
I then started another poster, this time using a photo of a landscape that I'd taken from filming one of my previous projects, the music video, and decided to use the threshold technique to turn the photo black and white, and focus to the reflection in the water, which worked well with this effect because there was a lot more detail. I came up with the idea of writing 'not everything is black and white' from the quote I'd always heard, and I thought this idea would tie in well with raising awareness on alcoholism. I thought this would explain that not everything is sorted into two categories and not everything is that simple - things can't just be dismissed and shoved away because they don't fit into one box. I thought this would be encouraging, as this poster was going to be advertising psychotherapy. I also experimented with fonts, and came to the decision of using Trattatello because of how good it looked, and I thought this would make my poster look edgy, creative and unique because of the style. I thought it also worked well with the landscape silhouettes I'd created, so I thought it would be the most eye-catching and therefore I just had to use it. The other fonts looked alright but they didn't look like they belonged, and they didn't help to express my idea enough and get it across, whereas the Trattatello font did because of how weirdly wonderful it was.
20th April 2017 (Thursday)
I started creating another poster, with this one involving a photo of my dog. I wanted to do this because I know how many people are animal lovers and dog lovers, so I thought this would appeal to their guilt and conscience. I thought that writing things such as 'what if you never see him again because you're injured, in prison or dead?" would be effective because it would appeal to their emotions and have them realise that there's people and things waiting on them to take control of their life and get better. While not everyone can relate to some posters because it would have different family members that would probably mean nothing to them because they don't know them, I thought using an animal would be a good idea because the audience would feel really guilty about letting a dog down, and would probably be more willing to try and get better, especially when they love their pet as much as I do. I would've thought that an audience would be more able to imagine their own pet staring back at them in the same way my dog is staring at them in this poster, and would feel more inclined to get help. I think this works better than using a photo of a person because people feel more emotions when seeing an animal in comparison to seeing a person who they don't know and have no ties to.
I also did some font experimentation with this poster as well, settling on Helvetica because out of all of the fonts I looked at, this one looked the best. I also used some colour for the background, colouring it the same as the dog's fur. I did this because the photo of the dog cuts at the sides due to not having his whole body in the frame, so by colouring the background the same colour as his fur, I can move the image to one corner without having to worry about the other side looking weird because it blends with the background.
21st April 2017 (Friday)
I looked at some more fonts on a font website because I wanted to see what type of fonts are available if I decide to make any more posters or I want to change any of the fonts from my previous posters. I wanted to keep my options open, and I wanted to explore what other types of fonts there are outside of the PhotoShop fonts, because I thought maybe a different font would work better with my posters. While I found some really nice fonts, I'm still unsure about changing any of them, because I don't think that they would make my posters any better than the fonts I'm currently using.
I also researched psychotherapy and rehab for alcoholism, because I want to advertise it on my second poster, and I want to add some information sharing the basics of the treatment programmes. I thought that doing this would be beneficial because my audience can read my poster, get some information and leave knowing there's help out there, and that there's people willing to help by showing them what kind of treatment is available for their alcohol addiction.
24th April 2017 - 28th April 2017 (Monday - Friday)
Over the week I’ve been creating my animation composition, organising my drawings and putting them with the audio they’re representing. Overall so far, I really like the way my animation has turned out, even though I still have to tweak it and fix small portions of it. I started off with finishing the animations I needed to make for the composition, one of which included drawing someone injured or drawing a dove to symbolise death, for the part where the voice over talks about being injured or killed by drunk driving. I decided against using the idea because I was unsure of it. I’d already used a bird in my previous animation and I wanted to do something different this time in order to showcase my imagination and thinking of new ideas instead of just reusing old ones. I tried to draw the arm but I couldn’t work out how I would draw it breaking, and this complication made me decide not to use it because I didn’t think it would look correct. Instead, I drew a red hospital sign and animated it by increasing and decreasing the sign to make it look like it was beating, almost like a heart. My original plan for the cross was to zoom in on the colour and zoom out onto the heartbeat monitor line, because of the same colouring which would’ve transitioned the image to the next, or I wanted it to run along the heartbeat line. I decided against this idea because I started rethinking it, and when I visualised it, it didn’t look right in my head. I then came up with the idea of making the sign beat, looking similar to a heart, which I thought was clever.
Version 2
I made some strength warnings for when the images of the pints of beer, glasses of wine and single shots of spirits fall into view in order to show my audience what the recommended 14 units of alcohol each week looks like in terms on their drinks. Once I had put them into the second version of my animation, they moved too quickly, which I decided to slow down on the next version.
I then started adding more drawings, such as the win being poured down the sink, which I experimented with making it quicker, due to wanting to get a better sense of realism. I wanted my animations to represent realistic situations because I think it’s important to get them as similar to the real thing as possible. Since I’ve used references for parts of animation, I want them to copy what the real thing would do, so in this case I want to try and present wine being poured down the sink using the same kind of speed that would take place if it really happened. I added the right and wrong sign posts and the wine iris in the eye animation. However, the size that the eye enlarged to was a problem because I knew that when you increase the scale of an image too much, it starts becoming pixelated, which I thought would look unprofessional in my animation and would ruin the rest of the drawings because it would throw it all off balance. I decided to fix that in the next version of the animation because I wasn’t happy with it - I wanted to have it increase in size over the space of a couple of seconds but I think the size it increased to originally was too much and therefore lost it’s subtlety with what I was trying to do, which was have the audience focus on it slowly without realising it.
I scrapped the idea of using the man sat at the bar because I thought it was boring - there were only two frames and there wasn’t really much thought process behind it. I didn't have much of a plan for it besides the image of a pint of beer being spilt, so I decided to scrap it. Due to this, there was a blank space where that animation should've been, and I had to figure out what to fill it with.
Version 3
After this, I added the punch being thrown at the camera. It looked good but after I exported this version of the animation, I looked at it again and I didn’t like the fact that the edge of the drawing is visible and the size and speed of the animation. I decide that I would fix it for the next version of the animation by placing the animation to the right side of the screen, to make it look like the rest of the body is off screen, which I thought would look a lot better than having a blank space of the side where it’s obvious that there wasn’t an end to the arm in the drawing. I also thought that the change in placement was a good idea because that way not everything is in the centre and looks predicable, so I think having another element like changing the position of where on the images in to work with the screen was a good idea.
Next is the heartbeat, which the camera follows. I liked it although I thought that where I did it in haste in may not have looked as good as I could’ve made it, but it fit the general idea I had in my head. I want the camera to move with the heartbeat line, although having the heartbeat line so large and following it with the camera makes the drawing look messy, and I think this let’s the idea down. I liked the way it looked, but I wondered whether I could’ve executed this part better. I also wondered whether I should add the sound of a heartbeat as a way to fill some of the silence in the animation due to not having background music as of yet.
Version 4
I fixed the speed of the alcohol drawings that appear with the guideline warnings because I thought that it moved quite quickly and didn’t have enough time to show the audience exactly what it said. Looking at the slower version, I’m happier with it because it’s readable but still moves at a quick pace - the balance is good because it doesn’t take too long but also doesn’t go too fast, so the speed is near the middle. I wanted to mix in words with the drawings in order to further educate my audience by getting their engaged and reading something themselves, so that they can properly understand the information. I also fixed the speed of the wine being poured down the sink to make the same kind of pace that it would have if it was to actually happen.
I then went on to fix the size of the eye, increasing the size but not too much to the point where the drawing could pixelate. I think now that it’s better like this, because it doesn’t take up the entire screen but it’s still the thing to focus on. I also like the new pace for the scale because it’s slightly slower and therefore grabs the audience’s attention but also isn’t over in a flash.
I found something to fill the same for the ‘you may not remember’ line by placing the word ‘drunk’ in it’s place and using a wave effect, which I think is similar to the kind of experience an intoxicated person would have with seeing. I think that having this effect makes it different to the rest of the animation and proves that I can use other things besides words and drawings to make my animation interesting, plus it mixes the types of things going on, which is refreshing.
I moved the throwing punch animation to the side of the screen to look like the rest of the body is off screen and I also increased the size of it, because previously it was quite small. I think having this animation resized makes a bigger impact, which is what I was going for. I also made the speed quicker in order to represent more realism again, because I drew this animation out from reference. I want to get it as close as possible to how it would happen if it was carried out in real time, so I think speeding it up made it better and more realistic.
After the red pumping, I cut the audio for the imprisonment line because the words ‘due to drunk driving’ repeated in the previous line as well. The abrupt manner that it cut off sounded bad and I know I need to fix that in the next version. For this line, I added the man being thrown in prison, which went well and looked good.
Afterwards is the flat line which I created in PhotoShop, but I don't really like it that much due to the inconsistency with the heartbeat line. I wanted to redraw
them both so they look similar, as I think it will help my animation more to relate them to each other. The number 8,758 moves across the line, which I think looks good, as it's supposed to move with the flat line.
The final part of the animation is the lines 'don't like any of these facts?', 'then you need to change - today' and 'live to fight another day', all wrote in text
because I want to mix my style. I decided against having someone walk through a tunnel because I didn't like the idea. I also looked at sound effects for the heart beat, the flat line and the heavy rain. I wanted to do this because I thought it may fill some of the silences in the animation, but after testing them out, they didn't fit well and interrupted the voice over as it played loudly over it. I didn't like the sudden sound in the animation so I decided to leave this idea.
Feedback:
I got some constructive feedback on my animation. I was told that there was some inconsistency with the typography in terms of style, font and size which I need to fix in the next version. The audio crackles at some points due to each line being recorded separately, so I was told about a way to fix it and make the audio better. Some areas of the animation are a little rushed, and there's too much going on, so I need to think about the essential elements and decide whether I should take parts out to test how it would look. The camera movement following the heart beat line looked weird so instead of following it up and down, I should pan it from left to right. I was told to think about whether the animation is sensitive to the issue of alcohol addiction and to make sure it isn't offensive in any way, especially with the last few lines. With this, I should also think about advertising help at the end of the animation. I should also think about representing things more with the lines and making my drawings more simple, so that when the animation is played without sound, it's obvious as to what's going on without the audience having to guess.
There was also smaller issues, such as the word 'day' in 'live to fight another day' needing centering, plus also working on the ending of the animation and I also should think about removing part of the heavy rain scene to see what it looks like, and if I don't like it then I can leave it. It was also recommended to look at putting cuts and transitions in between animations instead of blank spaces so that one animation moves to the next and it all flows properly.
I also received feedback on my posters, and I was told I should play with the typography, including the font, size and placement. I should also compare my posters to official alcohol abuse charity campaign posters and analyse the similarities.
Animation Version 1
Animation Version 3
Animation Version 2
Animation Version 4
2nd May 2017 (Tuesday)
I used my time carrying out typography and colour experiments on my posters because I wanted to look at what options I had for my designs and which would look best with them. I started off with playing around with typography and placement, and one of the fonts I tried for one of my posters I actually liked better than the one I had originally decided on, so I was glad that I did some more experimentation because I felt that the new one I've chosen actually suits the poster a whole lot better. For my first poster, I tested out different colour backgrounds, which included a couple of different shades of red and blue, plus other colours such as yellow, green and black. Eventually I decided that I liked the white background a lot more because it looked better with the injury photo, so I decided to keep it the way it had been.
For my second poster. I experimented highlighting parts of the paragraph I'd written out for psychotherapy in red, but I wondered if that was contradicting what the theme of the poster was actually about, because it was supposed to focus on not everything being black and white, and not everything having to be categorised into two groups, as there's more than that in the word. I thought that adding colour to it ruined the idea, so while I experimented with colouring for the poster. ultimately I decided to keep it black and white to stay consistent with the main idea behind it.
I had already previously experimented with typography and I already chose a colour for my background which I really liked for my third poster, so I didn't do any more experimentation with this. I also already had a lot of colour in my fourth poster, and I decided not to change the font style because I had picked this out from a lot of the ones I looked at before.
After I experimented with changes on the first two posters, I found some already established alcohol campaign posters from proper companies, so I compared them to mine. I found that some actually didn't seem as good as I thought they'd be, as a few lacked proper concept and also made some decisions that I would've disagreed with had I produced them. The first one I reviewed didn't look age appropriate for it's target audience, which made me understand the importance of my choices. This poster also seemed too bright and over the top, although deciding to use more images than words was effective because sometimes people don't have time to read them completely but may see them and remember them more for what features on it. However, I still want to explain some information on mine because I think it's important - I want to advertise psychotherapy and alcohol rehabilitation help on two of my posters, which is why I have some information to explain the basics, but not too much on each one. Other posters were good and reminded me of the kind of direction I've going in with my own, such as contrasting colours and using the photos I've taken to tie in with the issue of alcohol. For example, I took a couple of photos of landscapes and used them for two of my posters, then used a threshold technique on one to suggest that 'not everything in the world is black and white' and to encourage psychotherapy, whilst I used the other to encourage alcoholics to 'live to see the sunset' and get alcohol rehabilitation help. I also used some dark colours and contrasted it with white writing because I wanted it to take notice and look a little atypical, since I know that the most expected type of colour combination is using a white background with black writing on it. While it's not too quirky and out of the box, I still think it's different, and it's a refreshing and welcome change to some of the posters that I looked at, which I'm happy with.
3rd May 2017 (Thursday)
I started making changes to my animation, starting with thinking about all of the different transitions and cuts I could do to move from one part to the next. I also wanted to change some of the smaller parts such as cutting out certain parts of the animation and changing the typography to remain consistent throughout.
I started off with changing the first part of the animation involving the beer, wine and spirit glasses moving into the frame from the top of the screen. After they move down, I attempted to move them out of frame at the end of the voice over line by moving them to the left. This didn't look good because they moved a lot faster than the rest of the animation - when the glasses first lower into frame, they move slowly, so this end part with them moving off screen really quickly didn't look correct. I tried another tactic by changing the opacity at the end of this first part of the animation. The images faded slowly over a couple of seconds, which matched the pace of the objects moving into frame. This made it look a lot better and had a little consistency for the start and end of the first voice over line.
The next part of the animation I wanted to transition was the intoxicated dancing man with a lampshade on his head, which originally just appeared on screen. I changed this to the animation moving onto the screen from the right and then starting straight away, which I really like because while the drawing moves onto the screen at a relatively normal speed, jumping straight into going through the rest of the sequence looks good.
I took some of the feedback I got from the review of my animation version 4 and experimented with cutting part of the rain scene out. I started off with cutting out every other frame and then putting the remaining ones together, but it didn't look right. The raindrops falling with some of the frames cut out didn't look good, and I knew I need to re-try this and approach it differently.
I removed the frames with the first raindrop falling, but I kept the scene of the second raindrop falling on the girl's nose. I removed a couple of frames of the rain and kept the last two frames of the girl now drenched in rain and angry about it. By cutting a couple of the scenes, the entire animation sequence managed to fit the length of the voice over line. I liked this a lot more because previously, the drawings ran over the line and there was a weird awkward silence while it finished playing, which I had wanted to add a sound effect to, but it didn't sound right so was kept silent. I'm happy that this scene has been cut down because I think it works well and still explains what's going on, without over-complicating it.
I already previously had concerns with the pixelated kryptonite glass, so I wanted to fix it in this version. As the first layer starts to zoom out (it was cut off at a certain point) and then the second layer plays where it's supposed to continue to zoom out from where the first layer stops. As the second layer plays, the change in length and position makes it obvious there's two layers. I cut out the second layer and kept the first, which was a lot less pixelated. I zoomed it out until the bottom of the cut off point of the beer glass was visible. I moved the image to the bottom of the screen so that as the glass zooms out, the glass is visible at the end but the entire thing isn't shown. I think it's clever just to show part of it, because the audience will obviously know what it is, and the work is cleaner this way too, plus the animation doesn't look odd.
I wanted to make another transition for the end of the alcohol unit guidelines to move into the next line featuring the wine being poured down the sink. I started the next animation with the number '2015' because the line talks about the percentage of men and women who admitted to having more than the recommended guideline per week but didn't exceed the previous guideline in the year 2015. I decided that since 40% strength warning was above the line of spirit glasses, that the images could be moved. I moved the strength warning upwards and the spirit glasses line downwards, and then '2015' enlarged in the space where they were, as if they were moving out of the way to make room for it. I really liked this because it was different to some of the other transitions I'd created, and I felt like this was refreshing. I also changed the colour of '2015' to a light blue colour, which I matched with the rest of the text to come, although looking back on it now, I realise I should probably leave all of the text in red because it would then match the colour of the strength warnings too.
After this, I changed the 11% to fade out as the 7% moves onto the screen, and lined up the percentage signs so that the numbers would be in the same place.
For the wine being poured into the sink, I repeated a couple of frames near the end where the wine is in the sink in order to make this sequence longer and fit the length of the voice over line. I thought that extended these frames made the animation better even though it didn't extend the sequence that much more. I then extended the last frame and transitioned the glass and sink to move down out of frame, and this finished with the voice over line.
I wanted to create a transition for the wine iris eye, so I centred the anchor point so it enlarged and stayed in the middle of the screen, because it wasn't doing this previously due to the anchor point being in the top left corner of the drawing. I then transitioned it to move to the left of the screen.
I wanted to animate the word 'drunk' besides the wave effect I was already using on it. I tried rotating it so it constantly went from left to right, but it looked boring because that was the only thing going on. I also lowered the amount of waves on the wave effect, but this didn't improve the animation. Instead, I decided to recreate one of the first After Effects tasks we learnt at the beginning of the year, which was to animate a word having it fade in then start rotating and enlarge. I liked the way this turned out because it felt progressive and it was more entertaining than the rotation. I then faded the word back out again to end this sequence.
I came up with an idea for the word 'drunk' which involved changing the colour of the word to light blue and then using a solid dark blue colour background to make it look as though the word was in water, due to the wave effect. To transition between the eye and the background, I wanted to use the effect CC Light Burst 2.5, which would hopefully change the screen to the same dark blue in the iris of the eye with enough light beams, and then the word 'drunk' would fade, rotate and enlarge into the frame. However, the outcome wasn't like this. The eye just became a lot harder to see as the light was being stretched, and the blue coloured didn't light the entire screen. I didn't like the way this turned out so I scrapped the idea and decided not to use a blue background, which I also realised afterwards would be inconsistent with the constant white background that I used throughout the animation.
I changed the colour of the words and numbers to light blue although I'm starting to wonder whether I should just have left the colour as red, because it also matches the strength warnings and glasses of wine, so it would be consistent with colour. Before I recoloured all of the words to blue, I had tried to mix up the style of the sentences at the end of the animation by placing them differently. However, in my opinion, it didn't look very good, as I hadn't done it before so I didn't really know how to arrange them. I also thought it would probably be difficult to read, so I decided against using this kind of style for the end sentences and instead kept it simple by writing them out in straight lines.
I took out the line "But does that still make it right?" to see whether it would make a difference to the animation. I took this out because I didn't have a specific animation for it, and I couldn't think of any words to animation for it, so I decided I didn't want to use it any longer. The animation runs smoothly without it, which is good.
4th May 2017 - 12th May 2017 (Friday - Friday)
I've been focusing mainly on finishing my animation and drawing a few more images to fill some spaces in the blank gaps. I finished up with transitioning parts of the animation at the end, including making the flatline move from one side to the other instead of just the number '8,758' moving across the screen. I thought this looked better because there was another element for that part of the animation doing something, so it was something else to look at and focus on. I also advertised psychotherapy and alcohol rehab after taking out the last couple of voice over lines because I wanted to think about sensitivity. I wanted to include the type methods of help for alcohol addiction but I also didn't want to go into too much detail for them both because the animation is quite fast-paced and I thought it would be too much to read and focus on, plus it would drag the whole animation down and be considered boring to have to read more than a couple of words for a sequence which is drawing based.
After this, I started focusing on filling the gaps on a couple of parts of the animation, such as the thrown in prison sequence and the throwing punch sequence. I started off by drawing fight text bubbles for the punch scene, so that they would appear at the end and I could transition them in an out to fill the space. I was inspired to do this because of them being included in a lot of old style cartoons, which I always admired and thought was cool. I created three and coloured them all differently and wrote 'pow', 'wham' and 'ouch' in them. I went with these ideas because they sounded good, and I wanted to try and mimic the style on old cartoons which sometimes wrote what the sound was, and also sometimes wrote something to explain the pain someone else might've been in from getting injured.
Next, I drew the picture of someone getting arrested. I drew it on paper and added a lot of detail, and I then attempted to take out the background by erasing it in SketchBook. However, this wasn't as easy as I thought it would be and I had to then put it into PhotoShop to remove the background and trace the drawing in Illustrator. I took it back to SketchBook and re-outlined it because some lines had cut themselves out. I also made the decision not to colour and re-shade the drawing because I believed it looked a lot better in black and white than it would've in colour. I thought that adding colour would've ruined it, and I was quite happy with it in black and white because it looked good. I was also unsure about re-shading the image in colour because I thought it wouldn't look very good, and I also would have to learn how to shade in colour because I haven't had much experience doing so, since I usually draw either on paper and use a pencil, and I don't colour in the drawing afterwards, or I draw on SketchBook and I don't shade the drawing because it's not detailed enough to need to shade.
I then drew the police car and used a reference for it like I did with the person in handcuffs. I put it into PhotoShop and outlined it with the pen tool so that no lines would be missing, and I also erased some of the background left behind in little corners and spaces in the drawing after I had removed it. I then traced it in Illustrator and took it back into PhotoShop to colour it. I coloured it to resemble the police car I used for reference and took a photo of it. I really liked the way this looked and the way I animated it, as it moves from one side of the screen to the other and actually looks like it's moving but without having to draw any more frames. It moves at a semi-slow pace, which I wanted it to do because I wanted the word 'police' on the side of the car to be visible and make it more obvious for my audience to understand what's going on.
I received some more feedback on my posters too, which suggested that I link it somehow to my animation. I was also advised to make another poster and tie it in with my research, because my previous posters don't look like they link to the research I did. My main priority is to finish my animation first and get some peer feedback to see how I can improve it before the deadline next week, so I'm unsure about whether I'll have the time to create another poster.If I do, I need to try and think about the conventions of the other posters I looked at to see what I liked about them and try and incorporate that in the new poster I've been advised to create. Truthfully, I wouldn't know what to write on another poster or what kind of photo to use because I didn't consider the fact that I'd have to make another. I don't know what I can base it on since the other 4 posters I already made follow what I wanted to advertise, which was drink driving, psychotherapy and alcohol rehabilitation, plus the other one using the persuasive technique of guilt and informing my audience of what kind of problems you could land yourself in from being intoxicated and making reckless decisions that affect everyone around you as well as yourself.
15th May 2017 (Monday)
I had my posters and animation reviewed again and got some more feedback on them. I was told that the final versions of the four posters I'd created so far looked very experimental, and the fourth one was very text heavy, so the image needed to be stronger. I was then advised to look at a WetherSpoons drinks menu after having the draft of my alcohol scrabble words looked at again, and I was told I should recreate one of the menus, hiding a line like 'Too much alcohol?' within it, possibly spelling it out vertically using the first letter of each line. I don't really like the idea and I don't know whether I'll be able to pull it off with under a week to go, whilst I'm still working on my fifth poster and research.
I also asked some of my peers for feedback on my animation and I received comments that it gets the message across, it's clear to understand and the advertising of help at the end is good. I was also told that the animations from 0.08 seconds to 0.13 seconds goes by quickly, which is kind of hard to read if someone is watching it for the first time. I wanted to improve that but I realised that this is the sequence where the pints of beer, glasses of wine and shots of spirits show up and the alcohol guidelines appear on the screen. If I was to make this longer, it would not fit with the length of the voice over line, so I'm going to leave it how it is and use the latest version, version 5, as my final version.
Animation Final Version
16th May 2017 (Tuesday)
Today I worked on my fifth poster, which involved using a model and writing the different consequences of what drinking too much alcohol can contribute to. I was inspired by one of the posters I looked at the start of the project, and I wanted to look at it in more depth and recreate it in my own style. I found a couple of more posters that used the same kind of format and reviewed them, then I started researching what health problems alcohol can cause and contribute to. I was surprised by how many problems can develop from drinking too much alcohol, such as various types of cancer, including bowel, breast and oral, which I think if everybody was aware of, it would discourage them from drinking so much because of how badly they're putting their life at risk. I then composed a list of all of the problems I had found and researched a little more into a couple of different topics because I was interested in finding out what some of the issues were and what they meant, such as hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar), oesophageal cancer (starting in the oesophagus) and oropharyngeal cancer (formed in the oropharynx, the middle part of the throat behind the mouth).
I then started writing these problems and putting them on my poster. I explained oesophageal and oropharyngeal cancer by writing where it formed, so that an audience would understand what they were without needing a long explanation. I also just wrote high blood sugar and low blood sugar instead of using their medical terms to save space. Due to the length of the list of health issues that alcohol contributes to that I wanted to put onto the poster, I decided not to write a line of explanation for each problem, plus they were all straightforward enough besides a couple of them that I didn't feel that they needed a description.
Overall, I really liked the way this poster turned out because I felt like it was informative and eye-catching due to the contrast of colours - it also explained exactly what I wanted it to, and I don't think I would change anything about it. The concept is strong in my opinion, and I think it creates a lot of fear and guilt for an audience to understand what their alcohol consumption contributes to in terms of health problems, so I'm happy with it.
All Finished Posters (5th Poster at the End)
Final Outcomes: Peers Feedback + Entire Project Evaluation
I created two Moving Image pieces and two Digital Media pieces for my Final Major Project: an advert, an interview, an animation and five posters. I've gotten constructive feedback on all of my experimentation as well as the final versions of everything I've created, which I think has been extremely helpful. It's provided me with guidance on how to continue to improve, and has given me more confidence when making decisions based on my opinion in addition to the opinions of others.
My advert was well liked by my peers because the story was developed well and was very straightforward, plus it played out interestingly. The advert bases around drink driving, involving the drinker drinking a lot of alcohol and then making a rash decision to go and get in their car, with the end result showing a pedestrian victim of the accident the driver gets into, plus the extent of their injuries. The main inspiration behind this was that I wanted to look into different topics for the subject of alcohol abuse and damage, but I also wanted to create something that would use persuasive techniques in order to get the audience to change the way they see things. I wanted to use guilt as the main persuasive technique to get the audience to understand the consequences of drink driving, as this incident has long term implications for the victim, and I want it to be enough to get them to rethink the amount of alcohol they drink. I wanted to show that alcohol has a bad effect on decision making, which could happen to anyone, and that you can ruin someone's life. One of the main outcomes that I want from my campaign is to scare people into wanting to give up alcohol or get help before they do something stupid, because it's preventable.
One of my peers told me that from start to finish, the advert is entertaining and intriguing. They said that the plot moves along quickly and that the addition of music and sound effects makes it better, so although the accident isn't shown in the advert, it's still realistic. Explaining what happened with the injuries by showing text was also interesting because it's different to the kind of adverts that are already out, and it's a creative way of including it in the advert.
Another one of my peers explained how they really liked the voice over because of the emotion being portrayed - they said the voice sounded remorseful and also hurt, as if they were the one that had been injured and they were begging the audience not to drink and drive, which I agreed that I liked.
Overall, the editing was also really liked because of the flow. My peers explained that the cuts for each scene was well thought out and the entire advert was well put together - one of my peers also said that it could've been a professional advert made by an actual company due to how good they thought it was. My peers really liked the advert, and agreed that they would happily watch it again because of how entertaining and informative it was.
For my interview, I planned out some questions based on alcohol, in order to get an opinion on someone's morals when it comes to alcohol addiction. I also chose a normal looking environment to have the interview take place because I wanted to create a laid-back and comfortable atmosphere. I did this because I wanted the interview to be as normal as possible, despite the topic of alcoholism. I also wanted the interviewee to have strong views on alcohol abuse because I wanted the interview to be passionate, and I think that the person I chose for this was strong minded and had very interesting answers for each question.
One of my peers liked the types of questions being asked because they believed that they were fair and well crafted in order to get an opinion on alcoholism. They also said that the interviewee was relaxed and comfortable, so it made the interview better. Another one of my peers explained that I should think a little more about different factors that could effect my filming process, such as the sound of wind or traffic, when making decisions about location and when to film.
My peers really liked the interview because it was honest and passionate, plus the questions were well thought up and the interviewee looked comfortable, which was considered to be one of the most important things because this meant that the interview wasn't awkward, but instead interesting. They also felt like the interviewee was very relatable and he had good morals when it came to alcoholism, considering the fact that he would want to help anyone close to him with an alcohol addiction to get better if they developed one.
I based my animation around being informative, which my peers really liked. I also used hand drawn frames to go along with the voice over instead of vector animation, because I felt like I could create something better by drawing images, which I thought was imaginative. One of my peers agreed that all of the frames were well drawn and the way they looked when animated made the time spent on them worth it, because of how good it turned out. They also liked the transitions from one sequence in the animation to another because it flowed really well, which I agreed with, and I was happy that I had followed the advice I'd gotten about it because I felt like my animation improved because of it. Another one of my peers also liked the information I had included for the script of the voice over because they thought that I had managed to be informative whilst having the voice over sound emotive and serious. They really liked the detail I paid to my drawings and the way they looked when animated, because this was the highlight of my animation. They also liked the way one sequence moved into another, plus the colour I used for the typography throughout the animation because it was a light and welcoming colour. I was told that a part of the animation involving the alcohol unit guidelines could've been made a little slower, but in order to change that, that sequence wouldn't fit the length of the voice over line, so I was reluctant to change that. Other than that, the animation was really well liked and the drawings were thought to be well done.
I made five posters using persuasive techniques again in order to make the audience want to get help for alcoholism, which I also advertised on two of my posters. For two posters, I used location shots and turned one into a threshold black and white poster, and for the other I created a silhouette of the background, both of which then advertised psychotherapy and alcohol rehabilitation with information on both processes. I wanted to do this because one of the main outcomes I wanted from
my project was to advertise help, which I also mentioned briefly at the end of my animation. For my other posters, I used fear and guilt to get a reaction from an audience, as one showed the injuries linking to the advert, which was all to one side to show the before and after of being a victim of a drink driving accident, while another showed a pet, suggesting that the owner may never see them again if they end up arrested or die from alcoholism and making stupid decisions, while the
last one talks about all of the different problems that alcohol contributes to, including different forms of cancer. I wanted to use these posters to make an audience understand that they should change their habits and get help for their alcohol addictions before it's too late.
My peers liked the typography styles of each poster because they thought it was well planned out and suited the photos really well, which was good because I really tried to think about the subject of each one and choose fonts which would look good with what each poster is trying to convey. The use of colours was also well liked because they looked right for the subject of each poster - the use of only black and white for the threshold poster worked really well, and the blue background for
the poster about the problems that alcohol contributes to also worked well with the photo of the model, which was the interviewee for the interview I conducted.
One of my peers also liked the decision to include a lot of information about the contribution of alcohol to what it does to the body because they thought it was informative and would manage to make a lot of people fear enough for their health that they would want to change, which is where the posters describing help would then come into play. They felt like the posters were well constructed and well planned, so overall they were really good.
I received a lot of good feedback for all of my criteria, which I'm happy about because it helps me to understand that other people also believe in what I create, and this process has given me more confidence in my work. Having constructive criticism as well has been good to hear because it helps me to strive when making necessary changes in order to improve, because I'm happy to take on board other people's opinions and accommodate my work in order to figure out how to make it the best it can be. I appreciate being given tips of how to reach the full potential of my work, and I think taking on board my peer's feedback has helped me with my decision making process as well, because it's helped me to understand when I should speak up for my choices, and how to also make other choices with the support of my peers that I may not have been as confident in making had I not asked others for what they think.
I really enjoyed the entire project because I loved working independently - I also liked the continuous experimentation for each outcome because I felt like it constantly made my work better. I think that working on my own also gave me more confidence when making decisions, but I also really liked getting peer feedback because I was happy to take other opinions of my work on board, and follow what I agree with to make my work better. The entire project was really enjoyable, and I think the topic I chose to base it around meant that I could utilise a lot of different subjects within it. I really liked looking at the consequences of alcohol, drink driving, and the effects on mental and physical health because I thought it was really interesting, and I wanted to use this information to help inform others about alcoholism and how they can get help. For my project, I created two Moving Image outcomes and two Digital Media outcomes: an advert, and interview, an animation and 5 posters. The advert is based around drink driving, the interview talks to someone that has a strong and passionate view on alcohol abuse, the animation explains facts about the law when it comes to being intoxicated, and the posters advertise injuries that can be obtained from drink driving, psychotherapy, the different realities of making stupid decisions when drunk, alcohol rehabilitation, and the different things that can go wrong with the body which alcohol contributes to. I did this because I wanted to explore a lot of subjects so I wanted to do something different for each outcome. I'm extremely happy with all of the final outcomes because I think they're all really good, and the message behind each creation is straightforward and manages to be informative on alcohol, plus every piece aims to persuade the audience I'm addressing this project to to quit drinking alcohol and get help for their addiction, by mainly using guilt and fear. Guilt is used a lot by making the audience feel like the problems they see being caused by drinking on each outcome could become their own fault if a similar incident could happen in their own lives if they continue to drink irresponsibly, and fear is used by making the audience realise the extent of the consequences of their actions, in order to convince them that they need to save themselves by getting help.
Overall, I really enjoyed my Social Awareness Campaign for Alcohol Abuse and Damage because I worked extremely hard to have all of my outcomes held to a professional standard, and I was extremely passionate from the start of the project to the end because I wanted to create a really strong campaign, and I know that I managed to do this successfully.