I did an analysis of a burger advert earlier in the course. See what I put together below.                                                                                                             

Video Analysis Document (Deconstructing a video)
Video Title / Client:
Production Company:
Objective: To motivate people to visit Emily’s restaurant & buy a burger.
Description: Their restaurant is meant to be a place of very professional service and delicious food but in a very pleasant environment.
Key Messages:
Target Audience: People looking for somewhere to eat.
Technical
Duration: 2:16		No. of shots: 47		Average shot length: About 3 seconds
Content (tick boxes if present)
Interview	Y	Voiceover	Y	Piece directly to camera
A Roll / Synch footage		B Roll / Cutaway footage		Graphics (Still / Motion)
Logo / Motifs		Animation?		Music	Y
Construction (tick boxes and add quantity if present)
Tripod / static shots (Qty?)	15	Hand held / rig shots (Qty)	12	Other platform / drone / selfie mount (Qty?)	0
Tilt shots (up/down)	8	Pan shots (L-R)	5	Zoom shots (in and out)	5
Lighting
Outdoor / Qty?	4	Natural / ambient	4	Artificial / additional?	0
Indoor / Qty?	42	Natural / ambient	29	Artificial / additional?	13
Sound
Describe Voiceover Audio (studio? / location? / does it drive the narrative?) The voiceover was all done by the restaurant manager. They recorded her voice but only showed the interview footage every now and  again and most of the type they dubbed her voice to footage of the food and restaurant
Describe How Interview Audio Was Obtained: (Boom mic / tie-clip – can it be seen in shot?) She had a tie clip on her. You can just about see it if you look carefully
Describe Ambient / Location / Background Audio: All the footage was recorded inside and outside the restaurant and there was some background audio but not distractingly loud. You could hear cars in one of the outside shots and you could also hear cutlery, cooking and other things going on in the kitchen.
Music (style / pace / how often used): It’s a very repetitive documentary type piece of music & it’s used throughout the whole advert.
SFX (describe any special audio effects used, if any. Eg: accompanying graphics / logos): There aren’t really many special effects in it. There are various different camera angles and there are also a number of captions but that’s about it.
Editing / Post Production (link this back to Target Audience)
What is the editing style / pace: (eg, quick and punchy or slow and lingering?) It ends with a moving shot of the burger and then it just switches to black and the soundtrack ends.
Transitions: What cuts / fades / mixes have been used to transition from shot to shot? Most of the shots were a mix of fade in shots and just regular transitions without any special type.
Colour grading: Has the appearance been affected or improved by colour grading? (Does the footage look punchy or flat?) I don’t think there’s been any colour grading.
Marketing (Where is the video available)
List the platforms the video is uploaded to (Youtube / Vimeo / Pinterest / Facebook, etc) YouTube & Facebook
Why do you think it is available on those specific platforms? (Comment about appropriate social media audiences): I’d say it’s quite simply because they’re very mainstream sites and a lot of people use them so the word will get out about them.
Effectiveness: Do you think the video does its job well? Why? I think it does because it features a woman explaining how the burger is unique from other burgers.
Can it be improved? How? I think that they should at least have the option for the burger to be more well cooked and not just medium rare. They should also add that into the video. Maybe include reviews from customers as well and not just staff so that there unbiased opinions included.
Are there any production issues or glaring errors? Describe them. I don’t think so.
Would you have done anything differently? It probably wouldn’t have been as good if I had done it.

Now please fill out the following for the FIRST minute of the video only. Try and describe each shot in detail, as this will give you an insight into how you`ll need to construct your video. This is effectively, a written storyboard.

Shot detail (for 1st minute of video)
Shot	Type: (size) W/LS/MS/CU	Support: Tripod / Rig / Hand held	Location: (Indoor / Out)	Camera moves?	Content: What happens (see above)
1	CU	Tripod	Indoor	No	Establishing shot of a burger.
2	CU	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Moving shot of a burger
3	WA	Rig	Indoor	Yes	Wide Angle shot of a burger
4	WA – CU	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	It starts with a wide shot of a man cooking then moves to a close up of a burger.
5	MS	Tripod	Indoor	No	Mid shot of the manager introducing herself.
6	LS	Rig	Outdoor	Yes	It’s a moving shot that goes down outdoors.
7	WS	Rig	Outdoor	Yes	It moves left when filming shops.
8	CU	Rig	Outdoor	Yes	Moves right on the shops and closer up.
9	LS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Busy shot of people in the cafe.
10	WS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	A shot of a waiter walking forward.
11	MS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Shot of staff
12	MS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Zoom into pizzas being put in.
13	CU	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Pizza being cut
14	MS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Pizza being moved
15	MS	Tripod	Outdoor	Yes	Shop shot
16	LS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Inside restaurant
17	CU	tripod	Indoor	Yes	Man serving drink
18	CU	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Pizza on plate
19	LS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Drinks being served
20	MS	Tripod	Indoor	No	Someone drinking
21	WS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Behind shoulder shot of counter.
22	MS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Manager happily smiling from a distance
23	CU	Handheld	Indoor	Yes	CU shot of menu
24	WS	Rig	Indoor	Yes	Shot moves from menu wide to burger close
25	WS	Rig	Indoor	Yes	Moving shot of meal
26	MS	Tripod	Indoor	Yes	Burger being salted
27	CU	Handheld	Indoor	Yes	Shaky closeup of burger
28
29
30

See the burger advert below.

Today we pitched the ‘Fitness App’ advert for the class in the form of a Google Slides presentation. The teacher told us that our advert making skills had come on a lot since the beginning of the course, which is an encouraging sign. I hope that my skills as a film maker in general will have improved by the time the course is finished. Below you can see the feedback for our advert.

Advert Brief

Criteria/Content	Tick	Comments
Have the group produced a logo and strapline and do you think its effective? If so how?		Clearly shown the logo and tagline and it makes me understand what the product is. It is a clean, simple design that catches the eye.
Have they successfully showcased synergy throughout the campaign?		All the people presenting spoke well throughout the presentation even though it was a little awkward transitioning between each person. The presentation was very clean cut using all the same colours and font throughout.
Is the product that is being advertised clear in the commercial?		Product is being advertised clearly, and very easy to follow and understand.
Who is the target audience for the commercial, do you think the advert successfully appeals to the target audience, if so how have they done this?		Both genders, is a good target 16 & 25, the age range is too broad, maybe 16-20 year olds. I would’ve liked to see the questionnaire to congregate the best suited results for a target audience.
Has it been made clear where the app can be purchased?		They showcased the app well with a promo video and explain further in detail what the app involves, However they never said where you can download the app or where it will be available.
Have they successfully understood codes and conventions?		They meet the common expectations of those that want to get fit but do not want to go to the gym.
Have they successfully used editing techniques to enhance the advert?		LV – No they have used very basic cutting between shots, although they have used editing footage onto a phone there is no editing techniques used.
What do you think the strengths are of the advert?		I think the strengths of the advert are that the music fits very well with the exercise app, as it is about being “stronger”. Also they show examples within the advert on how their app should be used.
What constructive feedback can you suggest that would improve this advert?		LV – I would suggest to make the advert more lively and enthusiastic as they are trying to focus on people trying to get fit and i think it would’ve been beneficial to use a more enthusiastic approach as i think it would’ve connected to their audience more.

Creating this advert was a good experience. I wrote a fitness questionnaire for people to fill in.

Today, my crew and I completed all of the shots for the film with the message on the topic of autism and anxiety. This has been the most fun I’ve had at College so far. I absolutely loved working on it! God willing we will start editing the footage bon tuesday next week. I very much look forward to this and I can’t wait to see the finished piece.

One of my college projects was to create a promotional video for a local event that goes on. I chose to do mine about a conference in North Wales on raising awareness, acceptance and understanding of autism spectrum disorders. This is a conference that happens every year at Glyndwr University and my aim was to make a film promoting this annual conference to make people in the area aware of it.

A few weeks before the event, a list was made of all the things I needed to do and have in terms of this film. I had to get in touch with the person who organised it. We also needed to book equipment like tripods, at least one extra camera (I intended on bringing my own one as well), a voice recorder, memory cards as well as extra batteries. I also needed to get permission from my tutor for that day to be excused from the classroom. I also needed another student or two to help out with the filming on the day. I aimed to film the guest speakers and interview people at the event as well as record general things that went on at the conference. I also had to think about the kind of shots I wanted to have of the guest speakers and the people being interviewed.

On the day of the conference, we had most of what was needed ready. One of the fellow students, Tanith volunteered to help with the filming for the day. I brought my own camera and we also hired another camera from the college as well as the voice recorder, tripods and more. Everything was ready so we set out to Glyndwr. I took different shots of the public speakers giving their talks including close up shots, wide shots and mid shots. Tanith took different shots of the audience and their reactions to the talks.

I also got permission to do interviews on camera with a few of the guest speakers. I wrote down few questions which I asked each of the speakers. I recorded them answering with a different location for each person. While I used the camera, Tanith used the voice recorder which we tried really hard to keep out of shot.

My personal assistant Philip did some recording of the outside the building and of the people attending the conference chatting and having fun. It was a good day and the event was definitely worth attending.

We’re hoping to do an interview with Angie (the manager of the conference) to get the important information like about what inspired her to ru the conference and that kind of thing.

I  have already started editing the footage even though I haven’t got that far into it yet. The times when I get to work on my own projects are my favorite in the whole course.

 

 

Today we finally started to film shots for the ‘film with the message’ about autism and anxiety. Even though I’m autistic, I actually played the part  of someone who wasn’t autistic because I had a set way I wanted it to be played and I wasn’t sure someone else would play it in that way so I played Chad. Today it was mostly practice shots and I don’t know if we’ll use any of today’s shots in the final film or not. Time will tell but I do know I really enjoyed it today. It’s moments like today’s that make me really glad that I chose to enroll on this course. I also printed off the script three times for all three of our cast members to have. I was a bit worried that the lines would be difficult for everyone to remember. But we recorded each line separately which made it easier.

 

For our next project we’ve been put into groups to work on a film with a message, which everyone came up with an idea for and the staff decided on the best ideas. My idea was to make a comedy sketch raising awareness of autism and my idea ended up being chosen. I wrote the script for this sketch over a year ago and have been waiting for the opportunity to adapt it and that opportunity has finally come.

Yesterday one of the students in my group worked on the storyboard for the film which was apparently very exhausting and stressful and I can definitely see why. It would probably drive me mad and I feel sorry for people in the film industry who have to do that for a living. Storyboarding involves things like drawing a picture of every single camera shot that would be used in the film.

The script has changed since I first wrote it. I actually shared the original script on my other blog which you can view here. I would highly recommend reading the original script before continuing with this. We had to make the script longer so that’s what I started working on. It’s now a little bit different from my first script. For one thing I changed William’s name to Chad and there’s an extra character who will serve as a peacemaker between the two main characters. We also decided to write it so that James isn’t the only character with a neurological disorder. The original script makes out Chad (who at the time was called William) to be very arrogant and kind of a bully, but what if (like James) he was just misunderstood?

We decided to write it so that Chad suffers from anxiety, depression, anger issues and low self esteem so the reason he gets frustrated with James is that he’s getting stressed out of the fact that he feels James is poking fun out of the way he talks and his anxiety is really clouding his judgement. So our plan with this film is to raise awareness of both autism and anxiety and it will be done from n angle that I haven’t seen very often. We quite frequently see ketches of an autistic character being judged by a neurotypical but we have’t seen it from the angle of the antagonist also having his own share of problems so hopefully this will make it more unique.

We’re hoping to start recording the film next Tuesday.

 

Here is some feedback I received for my work on a horror film trailer about a creature called Scudder.

Secondary research – good variety of film trailers with effective analysis.

Target audience – accurate description and analysis using BFI to confirm. However, it’s missing thought about class and ethnicity.

Very good understanding of qualitative and quantitive research.

Good examples of data. However, you need to include screen shots and links to the film database.

Good use and variety of websites for film reviews.

Please extend analysis of results.

Questionaries – good understanding of how they are used.

Need to analyse results in order to provide a summary of answers.

You also need to have focus group too.

We started work on an advert about a social media item of our choice. Everyone was put into groups and each group came up with their own ideas. My group decided to do advertise a made up fitness app of our choice. We haven’t started filming yet but we’re aiming to film the college gym this afternoon. We’re planning to have someone play the part of a character who wants to work out but is feeling really uncomfortable in the gym environment and desires to use the gym machines but they’re already in use.

This character then finds out about an app that teaches you methods of keeping fit without needing the gym. The character is then home, downloads the app, tries using it and finds out it’s a far superior way to keep fit than involve using the gym. We hope the advert would work well as a way to convince people to download the app for free. We’ve actually called this made up app “Shape” and it has the slogan “No need for the gym”. You can see the app logo below. I look forward to start working on it.

Today I worked in a group on a film about a certain item being moved from one person to another. We worked on a film about a pencil case. The plot was where someone accidentally dropped a pencil case and walked off. Then some else came and picked it up. We than follow that person walk to the classroom and hand the pencil case over to the person who dropped it. Two fellow students played the two main roles. I was behind the scenes, recording it all on camera. I used different shots and different positions on the camera. When we finally got the recording done, all three of us edited the footage individually. We did find that there were a few bits that weren’t as in focus as they should have been and I still haven’t quite finished editing my one. However, I really enjoyed working on what I did edit. It was a lot of fun looking at different shots of the same thing and bringing them together in a way that looks natural. I look forward to continuing work on it.

This is an attempt at documentary photography following someone in my life. I decided to base it on my dog. I took 7 photos that documented his daily journey when I take him out for a walk. I also tried different camera techniques. I used the door as a frame in one of the photos (using things in the image as frames was one of the things we learned). As well, as this, I used different camera angles on the object of focus and some depth of field.