Evaluation of My Work

​

My advert is a thirty second peace of footage advertising the anti-drug laws. Trying to scare people away from using drugs, the advert starts off with a girl talking to her brother who takes drugs and trying to get him off from doing drugs but it’s an argument and you see from the actress’s point of view. Where she sees a monster because of the drug misuse. I did that because I want people who are addicted or misusing drugs to see how people see them. People who are misusing drugs gets to see that people don’t see them how they see themselves, they see them as monsters. The intent for this is to scare people off from doing drugs making them feel guilty and bad for their love ones for having people see them as those monsters but I don’t believe I made it clear enough at the first act so I needed a shot to make to make it clear on the fact its people taking drugs what makes them turn into monsters. So I had a shot under a bridge to with people sitting down normally then a cut to a shot of their friend then looking horrified which it then cuts back to the people under the bridge and they are now monsters with drugs in their hands. That shot was to make viewers understand that its drugs what turn people into monsters and also how they’re friend now sees them. The shot was meant to hit home for a lot of people. The final shot was meant to hit home for everyone. With the couple arguing because he’s taking drugs with monster like scales slowly showing up because of the drugs and they both start to argue and it ends up with the man slapping the women and it fading to text what says keep the monster within. I used the music which is very slow but has hard beats to make the music more impactful and combined with the fact the women gets slapped it makes it worse with beat the same time as the women gets slapped. I researched into what people are scared off hoping that seeing people being turned into their phobias would scared off from doing drugs. I found out people are scared off snakes and clowns so I tried getting them into it them being my first and last monsters within my ad. I also chose to have the group of teens as zombies because I felt like the damaged skin and teeth shows more what a drug addict would be like than any other monster I can make it relate to.

During the filming I felt very confident about it. Because I had a make-up student helping me to do the monsters effects. I was really proud of it and what we have done. I was also proud of the shots I did as well. And how I edited it I was able to line it up properly with the rule of thirds. So I left very confident but I was feeling more worried about getting the shots wrong in some way and having to re take and being behind in my work so I took multiple takes and completely different camera angels so I can experiment and try out stuff to what looks the best. Even though I did have to retake some shots because I didn’t think of a POV shot I wasn’t originally planning to add in so I had to retake to change it a little but even though I had to retake I felt very confident with the final footage and I didn’t get behind. I was more nervous when I uploaded the ad because I wasn’t 100% sure on. So I decided to keep editing it to improve it because I finally reached when I was happy with it and decided to make that my final version.

Even though I am really happy with my final version of the ad there are of course certain bits through it I was happier with than others. If I could improve anything I would have wished for a longer run time to help the song and the advert to come to a natural end and to let people to relax and take in all the information rather than having it all rushed. People who watched my ad often asked for a re watch to take in all the information and the longer version of my advert I made didn’t have the same problem. People understood it because they had time to take it in. There were also problems within the make-up. I did really appreciate Matt helping me out by doing the make-up but during the lizard effect It was coming off because of the heat and the fact he was sweating made it came off so during a lot of the takes the make-up effects were coming off. That I was extremely worried about because I didn’t want it to make the film worse because of that. Another thing what I wish I could improve was the actors. I wanted to get more people to play different roles so I can tell all different unrelated stories for it to make more of a harder impact and to relate to more people.

I believe my work is very relevant because of the use of techniques within it. The use of cuts what go in time with the beats make it very pleasing to watch and listen to. Also the POV shot I was proud of because it makes it clear that you’re seeing the guy on drugs through the girls eyes which is exactly what I wanted. And the cut when the girl shuts the door it goes straight to black with text on it giving a fact about the percentages of people who over does. Which I like as a shot because of the fact it’s well edited so when the door close it goes straight to the text and it feels a lot more natural. Also with the make-up student helping to do the effects of the monsters made it look a lot better. Combined with the fact we based them on drug addicts and peoples most feared phobias to get people to have more of an emotional reaction to it. I feel like this made my work stand out more than the rest. The scene were the lizard man was arguing with his girlfriend and he ended up slapping here I felt was also very well edited because it went from her shouting to him shouting at her and then to them both shouting at each other. I felt like it looked a lot smoother and feels it as well like this. The shots where one of them are shouting at the other without the other one not in shot gives them rooms s it looks like they’re actually next to each other talking especially when its goes to the shot with both of them and you can see the space between the two so it looks a lot more realistic and real.

The conclusion to my advert is that I am really proud of what I have achieved because of the shots I have taken. A lot of people from my class, either being classmates or lectures have mentioned that I have taken good shots. Also with how I edited it moving it around so it suits the rule of thirds so if the shots weren’t lined up to the rule of thirds or had too much space I could simply move it to line it up with rule of thirds or zoom in or out to make it look even better than it did beforehand. I also had a lot of people mentioning about the use of colour grading through it and I can understand that because I tried to use colour psychology through my advert. So I made the scenes with monsters and people suffering with a dark blue tint for people to look and it and see it darker and more unappealing. While the scenes with the people who aren’t on drugs and are more positive are getting a happier brighter orange filter so people look at both of them and are thinking that the people who do take drugs are seen as more down and low than the people who haven’t taken drugs. Trying to use colour to get the audience to feel the way I want them to feel. I would’ve liked to have more people within my advert so that it can effect more people and I wouldn’t have to reuse the same actors through it and it would centre less around the girl like I originally wanted to. I would’ve also filmed the bridge scene on the other side of the bridge instead of the side I did end up doing it on. The reason I didn’t however is because it was hard to reach the other side. The actors also didn’t feel safe standing there because it was hard to get your footing in and we didn’t want to risk the equipment. So we decided to film it on the other side what was safer. Which I was disappointed on because I would’ve liked to have it in because of the fact it would look a lot rougher and with the graffiti it would’ve looked a lot better in my opinion. But because we filmed on the other side we got a shot of a swear which was grafittied in the back ground and I didn’t notice until it was too late. I also couldn’t edit out because the scene wouldn’t have made sense so we had to keep it in but it really bothers me that we had that in.

I would do quite a lot to make it better. I am really proud, of it but there is a lot of work I would do to it for the next time. I would start by doing test shots on location text time so I can see how easy it would be to do the shots and to practice so I won’t have to use footage I’m not proud of in it and I won’t have to worry about doing retakes because I’ll have tested how it would look. I also want to get better at using premier pro so I can make the final peace look a lot better and feel more official. So I can also experiment more with effects to make it more interesting to watch. I also want to take the skills of going and meeting people like matt to help me with my makeup during filming to the next project so I can find more people, hopefully actors or maybe other types of media to make my video look more official like getting someone to make custom music but I would love to experiment more with filming and trying to do more of my own original idea and rely less on others to help me find good text and fonts to learn this information on my own.