2. • Audience
Initially the audience was quite difficult to identify. When I conducted target audience research surveys a lot of responses stated that they
thought that the community centre would be used by all age groups at different times of the day do the variety of activities run there.
However they are directly competing with the council run community centre in the villiage which is bigger with a wider variety of facilities.
Personally at the minute I don't think they offer enough to appeal to a wider age group. This could be because they are still a relativly new
business and are still setting up. From what I have seen when I went there I would say that the main demographic of people that it currently
applies to are the elderly since I see mainly elderly people there. Another issue would be the fact that mostly during the days when I went to
film younger people would have been at work or at school, even during the weekends that I was there I mostly saw elderly people. This could
also possibly have something to do with decoration and styling of the community center especially the Little Teapot Tearoom which has a very
femanine styling. I think the tearooms are deliberatly styled in a stereotypical femanine way as that is the sort of costumer that they want to
attract and that certainly works as I have often seen elderly women and sometimes there husbands having tea there. However due to this
styling I don't see it attracting people of my age group. The only time I have seen younger people at the community center is during the
christmas fair when a large amount of people turned up. It got to the point were it was so busy I couldn't film inside as it quickly became a
health and safety hazard to carry a camera and large tripod around. The christmas fair is a good example of what the community centre was
intended for and I think if they hosted more events or daily activities that would attract a wider demographic such as the christmas fair then
they certainly would be able to appel to a wider age group. Again this goes back to the fact that it is a new business in the early days of setting
up and this might change in the future.
From this I found it difficult to come up with ideas on how I could make a video to promote a business to a younger audience if they didn't yet
offer the facilities and event that would attract them. I also didn't think it would fit in with the style and tone of the video that I had in mind. I
realised that since its main demographic was a small number of elderly people in the villiage I should perhaps focus on promoting to that
demographic in order to attract more people to the centre. My intention was to include a historical element to my video so that newcomers
could learn about the history of the community centre when it was a school as well as promoting the business in its current form. I also
wanted to do this and be very respectful about its history and I thought the best way of doing that would be to get a former student of the
school (who would now be elderly themselves) to provide a voice over. This meant that my video became a quasi-documentary/promotional
video piece instead of primarily being just a promotional video.
3. • Audience
However I think through doing this I defainatly achieved what I wanted to. My video opened with Pam (the lady who provided my voice over)
talking about her specific history with the school and how she attended it when she was young. I thought that this would be a good way of
making the video relatable both for existing elderly customers and hopefully new ones as they may share or have a simmilair history. I also
found old footage and photo's online which I added in with a cinifilm effect to give it a historic visual style which worked well with the historic
recollection. It is my hope that an elderly target audience will enjoy this as the history of the school which would be important to them as
they lived through it. It is my hope that by telling the story of someone that went there it gives them a sense of nostalgia.
I then used a timelapse segment of the clouds to indicate the passage of time in the "story" from when the school closed in the 1970s
through to when the plans to re open it as a community center began in 2013. Once Pam started talking about the school in its modern form
as a community centre I switched to shots of the community centre in operation as well as having text periodically appear on screen to show
information. I think this also marks a shifting point in the tone of the video. At the start whilst still being relativly upbeat it has a very nostalgic
and mellow, remincant tone about it. At this point after she talks about "stepping into the building after 55 years being emotional" I think it
shifts and becomes much more posative and happier when she talks about how important and valuable the community centre is as well as
how good the facilities are.
I also made sure at this point to include clips of people actually enjoying the community center as it provides visual evidence of how good the
place is for someone that is likely to be watching the video. As much as I wanted to tell the story of this school and talk about its history I did
have to keep in mind that this was still a promotional video meaning it was important to show the facilities and the ambience of the
community centre in its modern form so that it can attract potential customers.
From the moment I first walked into the building and thought that they would be a good idea for my client project I knew what I wanted the
tone and the style of the video to be like. I wanted to create a gentle, mellow and relaxing atmosphere in my video since I though that was
what was best suited to the style and ambience of the community center itself. To do this I used a classical piano track as the background
music as well as making sure that the enviroments that I was filming in were all well lit & bright. One thing I didn't want to do is to use a
colour grading on it as I thought that for this specific type of video it wouldn't work as it would make it feel unatural. It is my hope that when a
potential customer sees this video they are immediately attracted to the place's warm and inviting atmosphere.
4. • Client & Product
It is difficult to specify what my clients requirements were as they didn't really have any. The only thing that was really specified to me was
to do what I was offering which was to make a promotional video. I think the main reason for this was that my client as well as my liason
had never done anything like this before. In other words it was a first for both of us. Also I think that because the situation is different in
that I aproached them instead of them aproaching me made a difference.I think we learn't a lot from each other from working together. I
did get somethings specified to me however these were only minor directional pointers such as they wanted me "to get a shot of that
specific thing" or "be here at this time to shoot that specific event". It was never indicated to me that they wanted the video to be in a
specific style or have a certain tone to it. They were happy to give me creative freedom in this project to do what I wanted which I think is
good and shows that they placed a lot of trust in me. Maybe since this wasn't a paid project then it doesn't really matter though. In some
meetings they were actually asking me for suggestions (again I put this down to the fact that they were inexperienced in doing something
like this and didn't fully realise the opportunity and control they could have had).
Whilst it was nice to have this creative freedom I think it also would have been good to me if they were more specific and controlling as it
would have tested me skills at working to a specific brief by a real client. I did actually end up giving them a few suggestions and advice
myself. An example would be warning them about not having too many shots of the christmas activities in the video. The reason for this
being that they said to me that they wanted a video which they could show all year round so I realised that we had to be careful that it
didn't have too much of a festive theme to it.
In the end my client was extremly happy about the decisions I had made with this project such as my choice of styling, mood, tone and
filming choices. I'm glad as it shows that they think along the same lines as me when it comes to the business itself and how its image is
percieved by the public. It also shows that I can succesfully interprit what a potential client may want in the future even if they are
inexperianced in working with someone else and communicating there wishes and needs to that person. It also shows that I am able to look
at the business from the viewpoint of an outsider and acknowledge traits such as the atmosphere of the enviroment as well as what
appeals to customers both current and potential. I can then review my observations and work out how they are best translated into the
medium of video in order to attract new customers and please the current ones.
5. Comparison to Professional Products –NCS Promotional Video –
Skeleton Productions
Link To Professional Product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flQ1gPyX1ok
This video that I have chosen to compare mine to is like mine a promotional video. This one is done to
promote the National Citizenship service for young people. The video is made a company called
Skeleton Productions that specialize in promotional videos. As a result this can be considered a
professional product. I have chosen to compare my product to this one as they are both trying to
promote the theme of community and involvement. They do this in different ways. Mine promotes the
community center and its facilities and justifies why we need these facilities as well as why community
is important. This video on the other hand promotes the idea of coming together to create a
community by meeting new people and doing activities with them.
Since the themes of these two videos are similar some of the characteristics and technical aspects are as well. They both use interviews with the name and role of
the person being interviewed appearing on screen. This is something that is done in professional Television interviews and is something that I tried to recreate. I
did slightly manage this however I only could find one person to interview and they weren't comfortable being on camera so I had to settle with it being a
narration. They both have background music though it is much more noticeable in mine. The reason I say this is because the background tune in the NCS video is
very repetitive and doesn't have much of a melody compared to the track that I used in mine. This is something that I think I did better on my video as it gives the
video more emotion which I think could have worked really well on the NCS video. They are also both similar lengths, the NCS video finishes at around 2:19 and
my video finishes at 2:45. I think that whilst a shorter length is better on a promotional video due to people having short attention spans this couldn't be avoided
in my video as since their was only one person being interviewed the narration became much more like someone was telling a story. If I had cut bits out of this
story to make the video shorter then the video would have felt incomplete.
Aesthetically they have some very similar shots in. They both include "action" style shots of people doing things and enjoying themselves. I think this is a really
good way of promoting something as it gives the viewer to see what you are promoting in action and that people are enjoying this. One thing I found is that it
particularly important to capture the right moment as otherwise it will look staged. You have to make it seem that the subject it unaware of the camera. They also
both include close up shots of objects and shots were the background is blurred out. When mine does this however it is usually different as mine are usually pull
focus shots. Had I been able to interview someone on camera I would have liked to be able to have the subject in the foreground and the background blurred out
as it makes the video look much more cinematic and professional. One thing they both incorporate though is the use of slow motion in certain shots. This is
something I like and have picked up from other professional productions or just productions with higher production quality as it also adds a very cinematic edge.
6. Comparison to Professional Products –Emirates Promotional Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUVA3iAdgZE&t=0s&list=FL_oZnr
We6Ts36Xjg2mXEzdA&index=2
This was something that instantly caught my eye when I scrolled past it on YouTube for multiple reasons. The first reason being I have family that live in the UAE so I've
flown Emirates before. The second reason being something about the video felt odly really familier. It took me a while to realise I had seen this video before, 8 years
ago, not long after it was originally released in August of 2010. In september 2010 I lived as an expat kid for a few months in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when my dad was
based there because of his job. I remember now that Emirates were using this video heavily in the region to advertise back in 2010. Seing this video again brought
back lots of good memories and I'm interesting in looking at it again with a more educated eye then I would have done 8 years ago.
Firstly this is a prime example of a video that has been done with a big budget and its purpose is to show of the Emirates airline and the city of Dubai. Whilst that is
the purpose of any promotional video, it is extremly typical of Dubai's culture to "go all out" in order to show off and make a statement. That is something that is
reflected in this video as it seems that no expense has been spared in this videos production. By this I mean that this video includes things like drone shots of DXB
Airport as well as planes in flight as well as what has to be paid actors throughout (because of how fake and photogenic they look) and proffesional CGI work. This on
top of paying the production crew must have cost a lot of money. This video was produced by a company called cheapest2 in 2010 however from what I can tell this
company doesn't exist anymore as when I try and click on any of there website links either from there YouTube Channel or on a googlle search I get an "Internal Server
Error message." However from what is left on there YouTube channel they were obviously proffesionals at producing promotional videos and commercials as they
have worked for several other airlines.
From the obvious fact that this was done on a big budget I would say that technically it was done very different from my video as they will have had a large budget, a
full camera crew, paid actors, a large editing suite and access to advance CGI software and drones. I had none of that and I had to make do with just myself, a camera
and tripod, Premier Pro on my laptop and no budget. The thing I find very amusing however is that despite the fact that I was at a clear disadvantage I still managed to
make something that seems more genuine then this proffesional product. I think this is due to the fact that I filmed real people enjoying their experience at the
community centre compared to this video which seems more staged. I can't place my finger on precisely why it seems like this, it just does. One interesting thing to
7. Visually they are more simmilair. Both of them use elements such as time lapses, close up shots, pan shots, zoom shots and
text apearing on screen to provide information to the viewer. I think that they also both do a good job of fitting the style and
tone of what they are promoting. As I have already stated in my video I wanted a gentle, mellow and relaxing tone to go with
the community centre which I think the piano music soundtrack does a good job of creating. However this sort of thing
doesn't fit for the city of Dubai or the airline as the lifestyle is very fast paced and busy. I think the music that has been used
for the Emirates video fits really well as it has almost an orchestral "action movie" style to it. This is acompanied by an almost
bulgarian choir style of singing perfectly captures the wonder and emotions on traveling. Unfortunatly I can't find any
information on who the soundtrack is by which is a shame as I really like it.
8. Strengths
I think one of the biggest strengths that my project has is that it does a good job of creating emotion throughout the video whilst still maintaining an
ubeat and happy tone. I think one of the biggest contributing factors here is the music that I have used. I wanted a track that was primarily piano
based so that it could evoke a sense of gentleness and grandness. Despite this I also wanted it to have an ubeat feel. I eventually came across a
copyright free track on YouTube which I used as it fit the style perfectly. Finding the right piece of music was one of the most important parts as I
didn't want to start editing without it. The reason for this was because I wanted the music to line up with what was happening on screen. I did this
succesfully as you can see in some parts of my video that when text appears on screen it is accompanied with a loud piano chord. I did this because I
thought it would be a good way of increasing the visual and audible appeal of the video. Another visual strength that I believe my video has is the use
of smooth slow motion shots which were shot in my iPhone. I thing it gives some shots a slight cinematic edge to them.
One thing that I thought my video did well is create a feel of community which was one of my intentions in the first place. I think the use of old
footage from the surrounding areas as well as short clips of people enjoying themselves in the community center. I think this helps show the warm
atmosphere of the community center which is important since this video is designed to attract customers and if they see the atmosphere that is
created on video and like it, they may visit the community center itself. If this happened then my video has been successful with its original intentions
which was to promote the business.
I would also like to praise the person that provided the voice over for my video: Pam Trace. I think the way her voice comes across on a microphone is
very good. Her speech patterns were really good and felt genuine instead of monotone and boring which can often happen when you have someone
that is inexperienced with recording voice overs. I think this links in nicely with the script of the voice overs. I didn't actually write a script for her to
say as I wanted what she was saying to be genuine and have truth and meaning behind it rather then have her read from a script that I had written.
Instead I gave her some points that she could talk about then left her to write up her own answers and expand on them. She did this wonderfully, I
also worked with her in order to turn it into something that could be read without the question being there. I did this so that when I was overlaying
the voice recordings onto the video it would flow better rather then having to break to show the question that was being asked. This gave it a more
story like feel rather then an interview feel which I believe succeeded in making it feel more genuine.
9. Weaknesses
There is one weakness that stands out to me amongst all others. That is the fact that the person that s providing the interview does not appear on camera. This is due to the fact that they wearn't
comfortable doing this. It was difficult enough finding someone that was willing to do an interview in the first place. I understand why this was difficult. The majority of my target audience was the elderly
for this video as that is the primary customer range of the community center. I can understand that it can be very intimidating for an elderly person to have to sit in front of a big camera and microphone
and answer quesitons. People were further put off when I told them that this video was going to go online as they start to worry about how they look or if they will be judged by others for it. This lead to
me having to make the compromise of just having audio recordings instead.
I think that had I had more time to do this project and perhaps if I had a wider target audience then I would have been able to easily find more people that were willing to do a proper interview. If I were
producing a client video again I would perhaps focus on something that has a younger target audience as I think that since younger people have a much bigger online and media presence then they
wouldn't feel as intimidated giving an on camera interview.
One big technical issue I had was with the audio. When I was editing with earphones the background music sounded loud enough but still quiet enough so that it didn't compete too much with the voice
over. However when I take out the earphones and listen through my laptop speakers (which admitadly aren’t great) the music sounds much queiter and much less grand. It also makes the audio appear
louder and could perhaps lead to some people turning up the sound before the voice over comes on making it appear too loud. I tried to fix this when editing however I found that whatever I changed it to
the music would be too loud and compete too much with the voice over. Perhaps I could have used a different audio track however I liked this one as it had the right melody and feel to it and after hearing
it I could visualise it with my video so well that I couldn't concieve using something else. I also edited the video to line up with the music so that throughout the video when something happens on screen it
is accompanied by a perticular music cue. This is easily missable however if you aren’t using a good pair of headphones. I do think it does depend on the background noise in the room as well as how good
the speakers on the device you are using are as well as how good the audio technology on the device is. For example it sounds better on my phone then it does on my laptop, however me earphones
plugged into my laptop makes it sound better then the same earphones plugged into my phone.
One other audio issue I had was that if you listen carefully you can here a clock ticking in the background of the voice over segment. This was something that I had to accept when recording as we couldn't
go anywere else with better acoustics. I thought I would be able to remove it after in Audition however due to my inexperiance using the software I was unable to do this. At one point I nearly corrupted
the entire audio file and since I was abroad I was not able to go back to re record anything. Fortunatly I had backups but I realise that next time I need to wait untill I am in class and ask one of my tutors to
help me do this. Had I managed my time better I would have perhaps been able to do this however I did struggle a lot with the timing of things on this project. I did manage to filter some of it out in
Premier so that it was less noticable. The background music on the video also made it less noticable however I would have preffered to get rid of it entirely.
I did actually run out of footage at one point and I had to look for gap fillers. This is why I ended up using old photographs and a timelapse fof the sky to fill certain segments. This is not due to me having
enough footage as I had plenty. However a lot of it was much of the same thing. Because of the time I had as well as the schedule I had to work to, I didn't have as much of a chance to film different events
as I would have liked. I was also limited to what events of interest that the client had on and what I was allowed to film. Since they are a new business things are still relativly quiet which made it difficult
sometimes. Another issue I had was that since this project was done in december there was a lot of festive decorations and events such as the christmas fair which I could film. The only issue is since this
was a promotional video that is to be shown all year round I didn’t want to focus too much on the festivities as I didn’t want it to become a theme. SInce these things are out of my control I struggle to
thing of things that I could have done better in order to prevent myself from running out of footage. I think If I had more time I would have been able t find more old photographs and perhaps some old
film footage of the school and surrounding area which would have worked nicely to fill in some gaps at the start were the narrator is talking about her childhood at the school.
One minor issue I had was that some shots are perhaps jerky and slightly shaky. This was unfortunatly because of dodgy tripod that I had from college. I did fix this issue by fillming some stuff on my phone
or freehand as well as getting a new tripod that didn't have any issues. Unfortunatly because much of what I was filming were events based so there was no way I could do reshoots. I was able to stabilize
some footage in Premier as well as cut some bits out which fixed some issues.
10. • Action Plan
I think in terms of organizational skills and logistics this project has by far been the most difficult to organize. Despite this due to my accumulated past experiences
with these projects it has been the most successful in terms of organization and time management so far.
Firstly one of the most important things I had to do was organize myself and my availability around my clients for meetings and filming dates. This was relatively
easy to do which allowed the initial stages of production, the filming to progress quickly. One major issue I had though was I was filming some events that my
client had on and as such I had to wait for those dates before I had any footage which perhaps left my with less time to edit. I then had to figure out how I was
going to find time to edit. Since I had to wait until the last minute before the Christmas holidays to film due to lack of client availability I needed to find a way of
editing my video at home over the Christmas holidays. Normally I would have just bought Premier pro and installed it on my desktop at home but since I was
going abroad on holiday I could not do this. This allowed me to justify the purchase of a laptop that was powerful enough to edit on. This allowed me to edit
freely in my own time whilst I was abroad as there were some days were we weren't doing anything which allowed me to enjoy my holiday whilst avoiding getting
bored. Had I not done this I doubt I would have been able to finish this project on time since we would have had only one week after getting back to do the
evaluation. I'm glad I was able to take full advantage of the time of at Christmas as this almost was like being given bonus time as it allowed me an extra margin to
keep on top of everything as well as get ahead on what I was falling behind on. On my next project I think that because I was forced to wait until the last minute
to film I don't think I will want to do a client project again for my FMP as I won't have the bonus time of to keep ahead and I don't want to have that risk especially
when my entire grade is resting on that project.
In terms of technical aspects there were some issues I had with this project that I will be addressing in my next one. The biggest one being that whenever I get
equipment from college I will check through it making sure that it works as at first I had a dodgy tripod which caused some camera shots to be very jerky. I was
able to stabilize some of it in Premier using a warp stabilizer however it is still noticeable even with the effect applied. I think that if I ever needed a person to
provide an interview again I would deliberately take more time to find several people that were comfortable being on camera rather then one who wasn't. Whilst
I think I was able to adapt this issue well in my project as it gave the video a much more personal feel I would have liked to see how it would have looked and how
different it would have been had I been able to interview people properly.
Conceptually I new what I wanted the tone and style of my video to be like from early on. I think I succeeded in making this style through the careful use of
research into existing products and planning. I do think that my audience research could perhaps have been a bit more detailed and I could have collected more
primary information. This was difficult to do however since I was away however I won't have this issue with my FMP. This coupled with the fact that we have more
time on the FMP then we have had before on other projects means that I should have more time to get extra detail in on my next project.
