"Power and Control"
by Tasha Best and Wlodzimierz Maksymilian Borzemski
Screenshots:
Sunday 24 March 2013
Screenshots from the final piece
"Power and Control"
by Tasha Best and Wlodzimierz Maksymilian Borzemski
Screenshots:
Final week
The past week has been mental, Tasha and myself spent hours almost everyday trying to finish and edit the project.
The lateness did not come from laziness nor lack of organisation, because I believe we were very organised and attended all of the tutorials that were given to us, always showing progress and material to the tutors.
We had an idea in our heads that we believed would be easy to create and with all the footage, animation and sound ready we believed it was going to be easy to put it all together. It wasn't.
We had to overcome and solve some problems such as silly log-in issues in the Editing Suites (apparently there are problems when your password is too long '____' ) and then capture issues.
I decided to capture the footage at home, we recorded the footage using a camcorder with tape, so assuming I had a camera at home I could do it easily.. but no, my camera is too old and is a different brand so the capture was jumpy and laggy.
So then I rushed to university to do it all, so then I had all the problems with logging in and then more problems with capturing because my hard-drive was in FAT32 format, and we all know it doesnt take files bigger than 4GB... so we had to capture in three parts. (I have formatted my harddrive now, to make it easy in the future).
So we had the footage, YAY!
Editing took us roughly 3 days 4-5 hours sessions. It wasn't easy and at the end we realised...
that the project is not really what we expected, however the idea was there, it was just different.
Instead of having a piece on advertisement and its power and control, we achieved a project on smarthpones and smartphones advertisement + its power and control that it has over us. Which is great!
Our idea shifted, it became even more hybrid and I am happy with the outcome, now only to burn it on to a DVD.
The lateness did not come from laziness nor lack of organisation, because I believe we were very organised and attended all of the tutorials that were given to us, always showing progress and material to the tutors.
We had an idea in our heads that we believed would be easy to create and with all the footage, animation and sound ready we believed it was going to be easy to put it all together. It wasn't.
We had to overcome and solve some problems such as silly log-in issues in the Editing Suites (apparently there are problems when your password is too long '____' ) and then capture issues.
I decided to capture the footage at home, we recorded the footage using a camcorder with tape, so assuming I had a camera at home I could do it easily.. but no, my camera is too old and is a different brand so the capture was jumpy and laggy.
So then I rushed to university to do it all, so then I had all the problems with logging in and then more problems with capturing because my hard-drive was in FAT32 format, and we all know it doesnt take files bigger than 4GB... so we had to capture in three parts. (I have formatted my harddrive now, to make it easy in the future).
So we had the footage, YAY!
Editing took us roughly 3 days 4-5 hours sessions. It wasn't easy and at the end we realised...
that the project is not really what we expected, however the idea was there, it was just different.
Instead of having a piece on advertisement and its power and control, we achieved a project on smarthpones and smartphones advertisement + its power and control that it has over us. Which is great!
Our idea shifted, it became even more hybrid and I am happy with the outcome, now only to burn it on to a DVD.
Convergence...
The hybrid nature of our piece, i.e, combining video, animation and already existing footage to create this new piece of media, makes our project convergent in a sense of Lev Manovich's definition of Hybrid Media.
Our remediated soundtrack also adheres to his ideas of remixing and remediation, and the fact that we have also used these ideas in the way we have edited the adverts we used, and they way we have deconstructed the interviews and reconstructed answers and phrases people have said for our own devices, suggests our project is convergent in this way too.
Our remediated soundtrack also adheres to his ideas of remixing and remediation, and the fact that we have also used these ideas in the way we have edited the adverts we used, and they way we have deconstructed the interviews and reconstructed answers and phrases people have said for our own devices, suggests our project is convergent in this way too.
We believe that our piece has many elements of convergence, we not only mix various media but converge advertisement into a sort of doc. / experimental film , which is the main point.
Soundtrack
From the beginning we had an idea of what instrumental/soundtrack we will use for this project, however we didn't know how to improve it and put some message across.
Deciding on the actual soundtrack was not that easy and took us time to discuss what to use and what not to use.
We were suggested to use various slogans that big corporations use in their advertisement campaigns, which we went for and were quite happy using.
The idea of using these slogans seemed to be strong and interesting, as our piece was meant to be about advertising we thought that putting the commercial phrases/slogans would emphasise the need for advertising to be powerful, we know that advertisers use these to make them stay in our heads so we remember.
" Advertising slogans are short, often memorable phrases used in advertising campaigns. They are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product. Its purpose is to emphasize a phrase that the company wishes to be remembered by, particularly for marketing a specific corporate image or connection to a product or consumer base.
Some slogans are created just for specific campaigns for a limited time; some are intended as corporate slogans, to be used for an extended period; some slogans start out as the former, and find themselves converted to the latter because they take hold with the public, and some are memorable many years after their use is discontinued. "
Repetition is a literary device often used for effect by politicians in speeches, in poems for emphasis, in posters and advertisements as a tool of persuasion and most often it is used to express ideas more powerfully.
Repeating words lends them more emphasis. We wanted to do this, and enhance this by taking them out of their original context. We took well known phrases from adverts - slogans from technical products, smartphones, well known brands etc - made them monotone and all in the same voice (using a text to speech generator) so that their context would be totally removed. We also repeat these phrases and slogans to highlight how often we here them, and how well known they are. This suggests that they are used a lot in advertising as a tool of persuasion and power to make us buy things. A recognisable phrase serves to make the product that is being advertised more memorable.
Deciding on the actual soundtrack was not that easy and took us time to discuss what to use and what not to use.
We were suggested to use various slogans that big corporations use in their advertisement campaigns, which we went for and were quite happy using.
The idea of using these slogans seemed to be strong and interesting, as our piece was meant to be about advertising we thought that putting the commercial phrases/slogans would emphasise the need for advertising to be powerful, we know that advertisers use these to make them stay in our heads so we remember.
" Advertising slogans are short, often memorable phrases used in advertising campaigns. They are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product. Its purpose is to emphasize a phrase that the company wishes to be remembered by, particularly for marketing a specific corporate image or connection to a product or consumer base.
Some slogans are created just for specific campaigns for a limited time; some are intended as corporate slogans, to be used for an extended period; some slogans start out as the former, and find themselves converted to the latter because they take hold with the public, and some are memorable many years after their use is discontinued. "
Repetition is a literary device often used for effect by politicians in speeches, in poems for emphasis, in posters and advertisements as a tool of persuasion and most often it is used to express ideas more powerfully.
Repeating words lends them more emphasis. We wanted to do this, and enhance this by taking them out of their original context. We took well known phrases from adverts - slogans from technical products, smartphones, well known brands etc - made them monotone and all in the same voice (using a text to speech generator) so that their context would be totally removed. We also repeat these phrases and slogans to highlight how often we here them, and how well known they are. This suggests that they are used a lot in advertising as a tool of persuasion and power to make us buy things. A recognisable phrase serves to make the product that is being advertised more memorable.
Monday 18 March 2013
Wednesday 13 March 2013
Animation, animation, animation ...
We took photographs so we can make the animation like stop motion, but we have to edit them by cutting the figures and phones out of the background on photoshop, and adding in stylised backgrounds made in Illustrator.
We are also going to add speech bubbles and drawings into some of the shots when we animate it.
Only thing to do now is get editing the photographs and then the soundtrack, then the interviews, then edit all together.
Some stills from today, and some notes we made on (very) possible soundtrack/voice over work.
We are also going to add speech bubbles and drawings into some of the shots when we animate it.
Only thing to do now is get editing the photographs and then the soundtrack, then the interviews, then edit all together.
Some stills from today, and some notes we made on (very) possible soundtrack/voice over work.
We looked at several adverts to get ideas of slogans they use, and phrases that we, as consumers, are very familiar with, such as "terms and conditions apply" or slogans such as "I'm loving it".
We intend to repeat these phrases to change their meaning, and taking them out of context/possibly re-recording them to make them more monotone to enhance their out-of-context-ness should help us do this.
We also looked at smart phone adverts and demonstrations to aid us in the things we should include in our animations.
Our animations are almost an advert of their own, showing the features of smartphones, but almost parodying how advanced smartphones appear to perceive themselves as. We used different smartphones but showed all the features they all can do, suggesting they are not as unique as they each seem to think they are.
Monday 11 March 2013
Release Form
Here's the release form we used today to have permission to use the footage in our final piece:
FILMING!
Okay so today we got the interviews filmed.
We set up around 11am and filmed from about 3pm. We got about 10 people to watch adverts of smartphones (one of the following) and answer some questions, on camera, about the advert they watched.
We set up around 11am and filmed from about 3pm. We got about 10 people to watch adverts of smartphones (one of the following) and answer some questions, on camera, about the advert they watched.
We then asked the following questions:
Also whether they would buy the product or not.
We are yet to review the results but we plan to do some animation on wednesday and start editing at the weekend or next week.
Tutorial notes ^
Sunday 10 March 2013
Friday 8 March 2013
Animation Plan/Ideas
We are going to make the whole animation into it's own smartphone advert, then we are going to remediate this into our experimental video.
This will also make it hybrid, as we are taking adverts, our own animated advert, live footage and sound to create an experimental video commercial.
This will also make it hybrid, as we are taking adverts, our own animated advert, live footage and sound to create an experimental video commercial.
Animation ideas
We will make an advert through animation in the cut-out style, it will be separated by interviews and actual advert clips.
- · Seeing a phone advert in public, going to the place.
- · Manipulation on the phone, person being moved by the movement.
- · Split screen conversation.
- · Recording a video/taking photos
- · Video call
- · Sharing media
- · Touch sharing/ bump – (animation within a bubble above)
Interviews - Checklist
CHECKLIST FOR MONDAY – FILMING THE INTERVIEWS
HYBRID - pulling different types of media together (sound, animation, video) about smartphone advertising, to create a smartphone advert. It also combines experimental video style with the style of infomercial advertising, to create a hybrid advertisement.
Equipment – take out at 10.30 Monday morning.
Camera – DSLR or HandyCam
Tripod
Clippy microphone
Light
Release forms
Adverts
Show on a phone
Adverts to show – about smartphones.
à Samsung Galaxy S3 “Next big thing is already here”
à iPhone 5 “thumb”
à Nokia Lumia 800 “The Amazing Everyday”
à HTC ONE “skydiving”
à Microsoft Windows Phone 7
à Samsung Galaxy Nexus “Calling All”
Questions to ask:
“Does the advert make you want to buy the product?”
“Why or why not”
“Does the advert make the product memorable?”
“ Why? Why not?”
“How do you feel about the amount of information that the advert provides about the product?”
“Any other thoughts?”
Sunday 3 March 2013
Tuesday 19 February 2013
Dragon's Den
This did not go well, we know we weren't prepared enough, the lack of engagement and lack of ideas with the project led us to quite negative feedback, which we knew would happen.
Our idea has to be quickly developed and experimented with to see what could possibly happen and what it would look like.
Monday 11 February 2013
History of visual advertising
Printed advertisement
Finding "the first ever advert with graphics/illustrations" is not easy, advertisement suddenly became popular at the end of 19th century, many companies and advertisers used and still use slogans to promote their products and attract the attention of the public. Obviously, the point of advertising is to try to sell the product in the best possible way.
Audio-Visual/Visual Advertisement
First ever TV advert was broadcasted in America in 1941, so around 12 years after first TV broadcast in the US and 8 years after the first TV broadcast was launched in the UK.
The advert was very simplistic and apparently the cost of its production was only 9 dollars, very simple short announcement + usage of signifiers that stood for time and America. ( the advert was for Bulova - a watch company).
- A form of advertising can be found even in 3000 BC , the Sumerians invented pictograms which could and were used to communicate messages through making marks on rocks and in caves.
- In 105 AD , paper is discovered in China.
- Invention of mechanical movable type printing (1439, Gutenberg)
- First newspaper advertising (La Gazette) - 1631 (France)
- "Tatler" , the first world's magazine - 1709
The above show the evolution of writing and advertising very briefly, there were plenty of other important historical events that had an impact on the printed, sound and visual advertising we have now.
Finding "the first ever advert with graphics/illustrations" is not easy, advertisement suddenly became popular at the end of 19th century, many companies and advertisers used and still use slogans to promote their products and attract the attention of the public. Obviously, the point of advertising is to try to sell the product in the best possible way.
In 18th/19th century, it was quite common that skinny and what media calls now "ideal" women were not found attractive, so seeing an advert for a "get fat" product now seems quite weird and out of place:
We can't really judge on the effectiveness of this advert , the idea of ideal woman was different , maybe this was a successful ad for those women who did want to put on weight, but because nowadays women and even men tend to desire to be skinny and fit seeing a product like this would not be appealing to most at all.
I think that it is not a surprise that Coca-Cola was one of the first major companies that started advertising their products by print.
This coupon was made in 1888 to help to promote Coca-Cola, it was one of the first ways in which Coca-Cola advertised their product, it was not an advert only, it entitled a holder of this ticket to redeem it for a free bottle of coke, which was an even better and effective way of advertising.
I think that we do not have to think or talk about the design of it, the information is all there, the logo is there, the quality or layout is irrelevant. Advertising in this case was by giving people something for free, and obviously, testimonials are important, people try something, they like it and they buy it.
Audio-Visual/Visual Advertisement
First ever TV advert was broadcasted in America in 1941, so around 12 years after first TV broadcast in the US and 8 years after the first TV broadcast was launched in the UK.
Sunday 10 February 2013
Banned and censored adverts
There has been many adverts in the history of advertising that have been censored or banned, the decision on banning/censoring some come from the ideas they show and/or the content.
Most of the time the sexual, violent and criminal references get the advertisements banned, some advertisements in the past have been scheduled to air only in evening hours, mostly because of the worries of children watching them and being negatively influenced.
Here are some banned advert examples:
Sexual reference
Sexual and sexist reference - objectifying women
Not clear reason, however I believe it is because of mixing the reality and the game nature
such as violence and murder?
Scary and freaky advertisement - not suitable for children
Media effects
Examples of the media effects campaign methods (not only in advertising):
An interesting article on TV ads media effects:
http://www.math.utah.edu/~lzhang/teaching/1070spring2012/Daily%20Updates/examples/feb13/Effects%20of%20television%20commercial%20repetition,%20receiver%20knowledge,%20and%20commercial%20length%20a%20test%20of%20the%20two-factor%20model.pdf
Saturday 9 February 2013
Questionnaire methods
We have thought of a few questionnaire methods to research and gather information for our project, we are not sure what method will be the best to use and would work the best for the idea we have.
At this stage we thought of:
At this stage we thought of:
- Gathering information through online questionnaire
- In person interviews (voice recorder)
- Video interviews (which may be used in the actual project
It is unclear to us at this stage what kind of questions we will ask to gather the information, however we will work on this so the interviews have a point.
We thought about showing people some sort of video footage (adverts?) and gather opinions on them, or just ask them questions about general advertising they have seen before, not only in video format.
Monday 4 February 2013
Tutorial #1 - Research
Things to research and think about* :
- Questionnaire - find questionnaire methods , check for existing researches etc.
- Existing research on power of advertising - media effect ( psychological and scientific ideas within advertising )
- Yes Man? Men?
- Battle Of Orgreave - Jeremy Deller
- Media manipulation - examples
- Research advertising - examples of effective and non effective adverts
- Banned adverts or censored
- History of visual advertising
* after research we will hopefully come up with ideas for questions about the media advertising for the questionnaire *
- Questionnaire - find questionnaire methods , check for existing researches etc.
- Existing research on power of advertising - media effect ( psychological and scientific ideas within advertising )
- Yes Man? Men?
- Battle Of Orgreave - Jeremy Deller
- Media manipulation - examples
- Research advertising - examples of effective and non effective adverts
- Banned adverts or censored
- History of visual advertising
* after research we will hopefully come up with ideas for questions about the media advertising for the questionnaire *
Tuesday 22 January 2013
Week 1: Idea and References
Names
Natasha Best, Wlodzimierz M Borzemski
Initial working title
“Power and Control”
Summary of the proposed project in 25-50 words
We intend to produce a hybrid media project that combines video, typography, animation, sound and possibly interaction. Our main theme would be influence and addiction. We will try to explore various subtexts of power and control. Most of our film material will be found footage.
Key references – conceptual / technical / practice
Conceptual
• http://www.politicalspeeches.net/
• “V for Vendetta” – film
• “Shutter Island” – film
• “Saw” – film
• “My Strange Addiction” – series
• Spoilt Child- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgllLFH8TlU&NR=1
Technical
• Juno credits style tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e70vUHvekM
Practice
• “Juno” – credits
• “A Scanner Darkly”
• Short rotoscope Film example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZOHv9B0j7o
• Mad Men credits - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXyWBmbQL84
POWER AND CONTROL - MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS
(Soundtrack and lyrics inspiration)
JUNO - CREDITS
(Cut-out animation style)
SAW
(The power and dominance, making a choice)
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