Evaluation
Within my project, I have used a digital SLR camera to take photographs for both a photographic storyboard and a print advertisement based upon a flat plan. I used a combination of shot types for maximum effect in my photographic storyboard. For example, when introducing the audience to the product I used a close-up shot of the product, which was a jar of crab paste. The close up shot of the product made sure that the jar was the most important thing in the frame and gave the audience a chance to read and remember the label. When showing the full group of models in my advert, I used a long shot. This allowed me to fit all of the models into the frame. When showing one or two models together, I used a medium shot. This generally shows a model from the thighs or waist up and so is very appropriate for a character establishing shot. When using the SLR, I also used a few basic techniques, such as depth of field. Toward the end of my photographic storyboard, I used two almost identical shots together. One of which showed a blurred foreground with the group of models clearly visible in the background and one which showed a blurred background with the jar of crab paste in focus in the foreground. This would have happened in one shot if this was being filmed and would have been effective in drawing the viewers attention to the crab paste, as the depth of field would change, bringing the crab paste into clear focus.
I also used Adobe Photoshop to edit my photos and create my print advertisement. I adjusted the brightness and contrast to give my photos a more sleek and professional look. I also used text and shape manipulation to create a suitable slogan and style for the advert. I think my editing was effective as the colours used grab the audience's attention and I don't think that the adverts look to unprofessional that it distracts you from the content.
I think the work submitted in this blog gives a pretty accurate insight to my editing and photography skills. It shows that I have used Adobe Photoshop and digital cameras before but I think that there is a lot of room for improvement. There are a lot of techniques and jargon that I found myself unfamiliar with when answering the 'Initial Skills Audit'.
I think that there are definately weaknesses visible in my work. One of which being that I don't have much experiance with photography, so I had to be shown by my groupmates how to use certain features. I think that as I use cameras more and more throughout the course, this won't be a problem. I simply need to familiarize myself with an SLR. I also don't know a lot about the layout of advertisements and I think this is clearly visible in my print advert. To improve upon this weakness, I could simply research print advertising and loosley base my future work around existing layouts common in the media.
If I were to complete this project again I'd plan out my photographic storyboard more carefully, as I think this is the main reason my work didn't look entirely professional. I think that it is easy to tell that some of the shots were taken with no prior planning and so they look slightly amateurish and unprofessional. I'd also take the time to do a little more research on similar existing print advertisements. This would give me a good idea of what I'd have to do to achieve a professional look within my advertisement.
Before it was re-branded, I don’t think that crab paste had a target audience. If anything, I think it would have been people in their thirties onwards as I don’t think that buying a cheap seafood paste would cross the minds of the youth of today. We tried to change this when we re-branded crab paste. Our target audience wasn’t gender specific, but it was people between the ages of 14-19. We leaned more towards a heterosexual audience, but not in a way that the gay community would find it inaccessible. Also, we didn't take socio-economic classes or psychographics too far into account as we thought this would be too much of a niche market for crab paste.
I think that the romance element of our advertisement would appeal to a teenage audience in the same way that adverts for products like Clearasil and Lynx shower gel do. Our advert was based around the same concept of a product making you more appealing to the opposite sex (this could have easily been changed to same sex if we were targeting a gay audience). In particular, I think our print advertisement would appeal to teenagers. The park setting is somewhere teenagers would often be found and I think that the slogan - “bringing people together” is very fitting for the image of our two models cuddling.
Although I’m happy with our advertisement, I think there are a few things we could done better that would have made the advert a lot more effective. The main thing that needs improving in my opinion would be our organization. Our photographic storyboard in particular wasn't really planned, we had an idea of what we wanted to do but we didn't have any shots planned out beforehand. This meant we ended up just taking photos and hoping they'd turn out the way we wanted. This would certainly be a point to improve upon next time we are set a task like this. Another thing that could be worked on is our control of our models. We didn't have a way of properly communicating what we wanted them to do and I think that it shows in our adverts. Our models did a great job, but they don't look entirely comfortable. I think that this may simply be because of our lack of experience working with models and shouldn't be too much of a problem next time.
Also, I don't think that our product was tailored to meet the demands of our target audience. This made it quite difficult to advertise in the way that it was just hard to come up with ideas. I think that if our product was packaged in a more modern, stylish container with a sleeker, more modern colour-scheme than orange and blue, it would have been much easier to market to a teenage audience.
