How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?
For my Nike commercial, I carried out a detailed research on different conventions used for brands like Nike and Adidas commercials. To understand the codes and conventions used we watched and analyzed several sports videos. Through these commercials, I learned that these commercials often have a bigger message behind them than just trying to sell a product. The message is often captured by highlighting the sounds, camera angles, and mis en scene. The camera angles were important, especially in our commercial. The camera angles convey the message that the brand is trying to get across. Most of the used camera angles are medium close-ups and closes. This is done to emphasize the athlete's expression which creates a connection with the viewers. Our commercial represents young athletes. Our locations and mis-en-scene used in the commercial represents the typical track athlete. We showed our actor in bright settings of a track field and the outfit of a typical person getting ready for their meet. By using these conventions and mis-en-scene the audience can relate to the person more, therefore, persuades them to buy the product. In our commercial, we used a piece of energetic music in the background to represent the energy that is felt through the body of the athlete. We also used no dialogue because we were trying to show him mental preparing for his run. We try to follow most of the conventions used because it is known to get the audience to buy Nike products, challenging those conventions could have led to low sales.
How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?
The commercial is aimed at a young athlete, so we try to get the audience to relate to the athlete. The product engages with the audience because it is being worn by someone passionate about their sport. The thing that will make people watch our commercial is that we take away all the dialogue from the commercial which is typically used in all commercials. Taking away the dialogue allows the audience to focus on the actor's expression which we can see the emotion that is running through them as they get ready for their run. To distribute our commercial, we would various social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat because most athletes have social media. We would place our ads as they are scrolling through their timelines and stories. We would also use paid sponsorships from well-known athletes because many young athletes idolize these people. If they see people how they look up to wearing our Nike product they will be tempted to buy it. We would also advertise our Nike product on Monday night football. The reason for advertising during this time is because many dads are watching the games with their sons who possible play sports so they would more willing to buy it if they see their favorite player with it especially if they just won a game. To get to a larger platform, we would use YouTube. Young players are watching reruns of a certain play which would be the perfect opportunity to place a Nike commercial.
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Through this commercial, I learned to stay more organized and on top of my schedule. Though we didn't have a huge group I still had to keep other people grade in mind, so I was more aware of everything and trying to keep everything on schedule as much as possible. Organization I must say is one of the hardest things to do. I often get things misplaced then ended leaving what I'm doing for the last minute. Another skill that I developed was problem-solving. While filming our video we had multiple classes come out onto the field as we are filming. These people constantly got in our shot, so it was annoying. We had to come up with a plan to get the shots we need while they were on the track. At that moment I learned to keep my patience intact. Communication is an important part when making anything together as a group. For this assignment especially I had to talk to my group to talk through all the ideas I had to make sure they agreed with what I came up with. I also had to be open to listening to the ideas that they came with also. Communication is a two-way street and that's one of the biggest lessons I learned through this project. Another skill that is developed through this assignment is your researching skills. This assignment requires you to be familiar with all the codes and conventions that are associated with your commercial type. Honestly, when I first started this, I didn't think I was going to have to do any research for this class, so I was surprised when I had to research on multiple occasions. However, since researching is an essential part of many classes I take it was good to hone my skills
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
Through this assignment, I gained knowledge on how to use software like Pinnacle Studios. I never had any use for editing software before, so this was all new to me. By taking AICE Media Studies I learned the how-to of the process. The question I always had on how they got that animal to talk or how did they get that car to fly. The hardest part of this assignment was using Pinnacle Studios I believe. As a class we all had difficulties getting the software to work, but I feel that our group had the most difficult times. Our Pinnacle Studio was constantly lagging making it difficult to get anything edited on the computer. After having such difficulties, we switched to iMovie, which was much easier than Pinnacle Studios. Inserting our music provided to be slightly challenging also as it wouldn't turn into an MP3. This my first attempt to ever trying to do it, but after getting help from a classmate I found it to be easy. The easiest thing was filming the video. We had to use the school cameras which aren't the fanciest, but they get the job done. At first, using the tripod was a little confusing figuring how to use the pan and tilt part but we eventually got the hang of it. I'm proud of my ability to use a lot of new technology like the camera, SD reader, and Pinnacle Studios and make a video that I can say is pretty good for my first time.
