ASA Ads

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), founded in 1961, are an agency that help to deem adverts as sensible and make sure they don't harm or offend anyone. Anyone can make a complaint about an advert, but they don't cover all types of adverts. For instance, they cover magazine adverts, TV adverts, cinema adverts and radio commercials.

The ASA also work with other regulators, such as the picture to the right. This is to help consistent regulation of advertisements, the two lead relationships being Ofcom and Trading Standards.

They also have a lot of rules considering children and food/drink advertising. Ads targeted directly at or featuring children should not contain anything that is likely to result in their physical, mental or moral harm. Some rules are:

- you must not present children in a sexual way.
- you must not publish advertisements in outdoor media where children may be exposed to it.
- you must not encourage children to copy any practise that may be unsafe.

One example of an advert that ASA have dealt with is, regarding children, American Apparel (2012), and an advert they published in Vice magazine. Two people reported the advert as offensive and irresponsible because of a picture of a girl with a sweater, socks and pants on. They claimed the company had sexualised a 'child' with this kind of image.

The response given from the company was that the model was over 18, and she was wearing clothing made for adult consumers in an adult magazine. They also pointed out that the ad had no nudity involved.

The assessment from ASA was that the picture contained no nudity, but the model did appear underage and the picture itself had sexual undertones (position of model, unsmiling expression, etc). Because of this, American Apparel had been told not to show the advert again.

Additionally, regarding food/drink advertisements, there are boundaries:

- you must not encourage excessive consumption of food or drink products.
- you must not encourage unhealthy lifestyles in children.
- you must not be misleading about the nutritional benefit of the products.

If you don't abide by these rules in advertising, there could be a rise in complaints, a loss of profit and it might even damage your business.

An example is Swizzles - a company who produce sweets and chocolate products. The ASA were informed that the company had a 'Swizzles Town', which was a virtual game where they could promote their products. They also used the character Scooby Doo to add popularity to their website. The ASA were concerned that the company was using online games, videos and featuring popular characters to promote unhealthy lifestyles for children. ASA also called Swizzle's 'irresponsible' for using a licensed character on their website.

Swizzles soon replied to the ASA, claiming the virtual Swizzles Town wasn't aimed at children entirely, but also at adults and families. They also said the website was just helping reflect the retro theme of the brand. Regarding Scooby Doo, they said that they had featured the character because of a new line of products including the character.

The ASA concluded the investigated areas of the website were breaches to the Code and rules to advertising food and to children, and were withheld.

I think the ASA's work is great, and it's good that people who make offensive or misleading content may have huge consequences. However, I also think that the ASA, or even just some of the complaints, are a little exaggerated. For instance, the American Apparrell advert. American Apparrell is a fashion store, and in their advert they featured those products - a jumper, a pair of socks and underwear. I even researched their other adverts and they are the same theme - very underdressed women, and some were even more explicit than the one reported. I think the situation was over-blown and it was published in an adult's magazine, so anyone who don't like the style should choose to ignore it.

Source: https://www.asa.org.uk/

Creating My Story

To turn my film into a project from an idea, I started to develop into how to shoot it, where, the storyboard itself, etc.

I started with a storyboard, to get the basics of my film onto paper. I decided to draw out the first couple of camera angles in the first couple of scenes. To the right, you can see the storyboard I created. The arrows represent the camera directions, or the movement of people/extras.

After getting an idea of what my film would look like, I edited my script around the story board and annotated it.

I annotated things like the shots, certain moods to be created in parts, and adding detail to directions, like walking (fast/slow), etc.

This helped me sort out what shots I needed, and helped a lot with my shot list.

I created a shot list to organise what shots I needed in what scenes, and it's acts like a sort of checklist. It helps me to check off what scenes I need to do, and what shots to include, so I don't miss anything. I've also added descriptions to help if I've forgotten what idea I had what that shot, or to explain to someone who is reading it.

Additionally, the scenes are colour-coded by location. I did this because I put the scenes in order, and some locations are repeated. This way, I know when scenes are in the same location or not.

Starting a Story

Earlier this term, we got given a brief on a short film. In this brief, we have to plan the film, start the pre-production, production and analyse the outcome after.

To start, I made a list of ideas I had with the brief. (The brief is to the right.) Firstly, I thought about just having the scientist making the decision but that was most people's idea, and I wanted some individuality in my film. My second idea was where there were more characters involved, and they were trying to hunt down the scientist to make the right decision. However, while planning it, I realised the plot was too long and complicated for two-three minutes. Also, there was no 'right' decision as it's a matter of opinion, so I didn't like that some people wouldn't be on the same side as my characters.

Finally, I had the idea of simplicity. This was where the scientist makes a short film to explain to people his decision years after he's made it. I thought this could be powerful and effective, yet simple.
To the left is my MindMap, which I made to organise my ideas. This includes scenes, locations, structure, etc.

After, I realised I needed to start on a script, but before I wanted to get to know my character. I made a detailed profile on my character, including beliefs, backstory, etc. To the right, you can read it. This helped me put a real person behind the character, and so the script didn't seem too unnatural.

I used Celtx for writing the script, which made it so much easier. I've introduced Celtx to my blog before, and it helped a lot when writing my script.

Prior to writing the script, I also did research on cold fusion, and found a lot on how much our world would supposedly change. Mostly to the lack of jobs, cut connections with countries that businesses are based around oil production, and now I understand the consequences of cold fusion and this 'decision'.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

The media has always swayed people and their opinions, sometimes even without even knowing it. Some examples are:

- the attacks on Paris and other countries.
- the lack of reports on Ebola in 'small-world' countries.
- politics related reports being biased. (Donald Trump)
- celebrities and reports. (Curtis LePore and his girlfriend vs Sam Pepper)
- Katie Hopkins and her opinions in general. (Mass walk-out in Brunel Uni)

Passive audience...
- don't question anything usually
- are seen as 'weak' and easily influenced

Active audience...
- question media
- are involved with the media around them
- have an opinion of their own (usually strong willed)

Using Photoshop, I made a small image with what I learned with the Hypodermic Needle Theory.

Planner Update

In recent weeks, I've been updating my planner to keep organised. As usual. Lately, however, there's been some pieces that are a lot - too much - to put on one 'box' in excel, so I've been using notes to expand on those pieces of homework.

I'm glad the planner is working and keep me on track.

My Board Game

For the past couple of weeks, I've been designing my board game, the cards and even the logo for my 'brand'. It's been a long process but a rewarding one. I decided to go to for a fun logo with lots of colours. Below you can see it:

I really like it, because it's fun, simple, colourful and effective. At first I though of a colourful puzzle piece, but it didn't go down well in Illustrator.

My board is a little different, however.

My board game itself is a bit less colourful, and I've tried to add a media twist to it by adding media-related pictures to the board itself: a camera, an Oscar, etc. I think this added some individuality to my board.

I did use a variety of colours for some of the other spaces, and when the cards are added to the board they will add even more colour.


The colours I used for my logo and board are pretty different. So, for instance, my logo is bright and colourful to attract people in, but also because it's a 'games company'. My board, however, had primary colours of shades of grey, with splashes of colour. this makes the game itself even grown-up and educational, which suits my older target audience.


My cards, to go on the board, I'm quite proud of. I used shapes like circles and rectangles, and added test inside. In the circle, I made the text loop around, with looks professional and pretty polished. I used the same colours, on both sides of the car, on my board so they'd match. You can see one side of my cards here.

Ad Analysis of Victor Frankenstien

Advertising is a way, verbal or visual, of promoting something like a company, organisation or even a book or film. There are so many adverts everywhere, you come across them on roads, streets, shop windows, TV's, radios, online...everywhere.

I decided to analyse a movie advert I had come across on YouTube one night, because I really liked it and it was different. On YouTube, you get the 'skip' button after watching five seconds of an advert, but this certain advert I watched all the way through. Here it is.

At first, my impressions were curious as they said they'd shock Daniel Radcliffe is I pressed skip, and - though it was an obvious joke - I guess I liked him too much. Then, when it continued, I found the overall advert really funny and different from other adverts. Also, James Mcavoy and Daniel Radcliffe are on my top list of favourite actors, so I had to love it. This is actually a type of advertising: celebrity branding. That's where a company or brand use celebrities and their status to promote a product, etc.

The advert's target audience, I believe, is young adults to middle-aged people. The reason why I think it's so big, is because it's an intriguing film, but also many people - young and old - are fans of the actors, or, at least their first movies. Harry Potter fans, anyone?

The language and dialogue they use in the film is really relaxed and informal. This makes the whole advert seem less 'sales-y', and makes the advert come down on your own wavelength and almost relate to you. This makes the audience relax and listen to what the actors are saying. Not only that, but it intrigues the audience to watch the trailer itself and start to become interested in seeing the film.

I feel the biggest 'ingredient' of this advert is comedy. It's comedy that makes a person watch the trailer in the first place, and it makes you love the actor's personalities, making you want to see the film and see them in action.

Flash and Text

Last week, in class, we discovered how to animate text in Flash. There were a lot of things you could do: make the text enter and exit; make the text zoom; make the text spiral, and loads more.

To start, I decided to make the letter of a word spin, slowing down and speeding up, which took some time getting used to, but I got there.

HYPERBOLE

A hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration of something so it stands out, and sensationalism is the presentation of something so that it provokes excitement.

These two words link perfectly, and it may not seem so but they are. If you use a hyperbole well that it can provoke sensationalism, and, in media, hyperboles are used widely.

With newspapers, they look very simple and word-y, so they need to make certain things stand out, like the titles of breaking news stories. For example, the newspaper to the left has an extreme hyperbole. 'Final secret to the universe unlocked'...is pretty over-the-top, and the fact is had made page seven only makes it seem less serious. 

Reflection Post (Debate)

In class last week we had a debate on whether the representation of women in TV was fair. My group agreed with the above point, so, a week prior to the debate, we started to make points and find statistics to back up our points.

We found statistics like for every one lead, serious role for a woman in TV, there are six 'real housewives'. This particular statistic showed us that women are still being represented unfairly in TV, as there are less lead roles, and more gossiping, reality TV stars who were classed as talkative, generally thin and rich.

Additionally, women's appearances on TV are the 'girl next door', extremely beautiful, tall, slim, and not overly smart. Women on TV who were overweight tend to get negative comments on their bodies, and, it was found, 80% of the time these comments were followed by canned audience laughter.

In their professional lives, women are generally housewives or their careers are ignored. However, if their careers are shown, they are generally feminine jobs, such as secretaries, teachers or nurses. despite this, there are women in TV who further their professional lives, but they tend to fail. Of course there are women roles who are high in power in their jobs. Like for instance, action and fantasy or spy movies, but these women roles are limited and, sometimes, they even end up being the villain overall. For instance, in Fringe, a woman who owns a huge cooperate in science in actually evil for a couple of seasons.

Another example of women's professional lives and their portrayal is Big Bang Theory. Though it's a great show, it goes by the stereotypical dumb, blonde who has a failing actress career, and the intelligent female scientists like Amy or Leslie are portrayed as unattractive and nerdy.

Above were just some of the points we planned to make on the day of the debate day. Unfortunately, I wasn't very well on the day of the debate of the day so I couldn't participate, but I enjoyed making the research points and giving evidence.

Introducing Celtx

According to my film schedule, I should be working on my storyboard and script. To do this, we were introduced to a website called Celtx, and this helps you to organise filming projects with scripts and etc.

It also helps you to make schedules and storyboards too, which is helpful, rather than designing the layout yourself.

Also, I made a mind-map of ideas for the brief we were given. Here below is the treatment and mind-map I have made for the film.

This is the treatment where I have detailed the synopsis and some characters.

My mind map is a lot more detailed, and I've also added notes to some of the 'nodes' to go in even more depth.

Using Flash

Today we were introduced to Adobe Flash, where we were able to create our own short piece animations. This is done by a long series of images piled up together. It uses, mostly, the same tools as Photoshop and Illustrator, so it wasn't hard to use them. However, it was just a personal preference of mine to use a digital tablet to draw the images. As I didn't have one, the animations I created were pretty limited, but it was nice to try it out.

Film Schedules and Scripts

Last week, we looked at how to prepare for filming. Firstly, I made a film schedule to keep me on track with certain tasks. It also helps me with deadlines, and organises the work that needs to be done.

As you can see, I've listed important tasks, and even marked if some have higher priorities than others. 

We also looked at scripts - as that's mostly the first thing that needs to be done.  I looked at an online script of Atonement. Below, you can see a script and it's all highlighted certain colours. 

The key is: blue, character; green, dialogue; pink, location; yellow, stage directions; purple, props; underlined words, costume. 

This helps me to know what needs to be included in the script - practically everything.

Game Board Ideas

We were given a brief of making a board game, and, as a class, we made rules and a name together. This meant we could spend more time on making the actual layout of the board individually.

We named it 'Reel of Life', and it's media related. The rules are all about having jobs/internships in the media industry. This made me realise that the target audience was probably 15-24, and had some interest in media, or media related topics.

Based on that, I decided to have images of media things - like a camera - on my board. 

In Illustrator, I decided on the colour scheme, design and those combined. To the left is a very rough draft of what I want my game to look like. You can see where the positive and negative cards would go (like community chest and chance cards), at the bottom and top of the board. 

You can also see the moving spaces, and a random shape in the middle. That shape will somehow be the spinner, representing a reel somehow. You may also spot the awfully done media objects poking out of the board. 

I decided on a grey theme as that seemed professional and more mature, but the splashes of colour show that it is a game, and attracts mature young persons. 

I also attempted to design the token cards in Illustrator, too. I want to improve them by circling the text around the inner circle, so it looks professional and polished. 

That's all for this week - hopefully my ideas will be more advanced by next Wednesday. 

Design Trends

Today, I looked at design trends on cosmetic websites. I'm forever shopping on these sites, but I never actually noticed their designs and how they're similar/different.

The first website I looked at was MAC Cosmetics, and I noticed how fancy their site was. For instance, they have snowflakes falling from the top of the screen for Christmas, so they're obviously keeping up with the holiday trends.

Also, I noticed they used black and white a lot, and flat icons. These icons are basically 'flat' and they don't have a shine to them and look like a bubble (like the old Apple iOS). However, when your cursor slides over them, they cause a shadow on the sides.

Maybelline was similar to MAC, in the colour theme and icon look, however they did differ.

Maybelline had bigger images, and more advertisements. It hasn't got any Christmas themes, either, like MAC does. Finally, Maybelline used the entire screen on their website, rather than MAC hadn't. This might make MAC's website more mobile-friendly, but Maybelline may have a mobile version, too.

Finally, I looked at Barry M's website. This website had similar traits to Maybelline, like how there are big images that pop out at you, and how it had a Christmas theme like MAC.

However, it was very different to the other websites as it used a pastel colour theme, rather than black, white and a splash of colour. There was also videos and blogs of 'How To', and etc, teaching people how to apply their products. This attracts a whole new target audience of young teens/adults, who wear makeup but aren't experts on it.


I also took a step further to look at the people who use these companies, and see if the styles of
websites match. For instance, MAC attracts the profile to the right.

Generally, it's an older audience shopping at MAC (according to a sample size of under 200 people), and they're mostly females. Well, that one was obvious. It also went on to say that the average person earns/works a lot so has, generally, a lot of money.


Next, I looked at Barry M's general customer, and found something very different. This time it showed a profile of a 18-24 year old, and I looked at the brands this person shopped at, as well as Barry M, and it was generally high-street shops, like Primark and H&M, etc. They also used social media a lot, like Instagram and Twitter.


Overall, I learned that there are certain things that work better for cosmetic websites (like the black colour theme and flat icons), but it only works for some. For instance, if Barry M followed the trend of the colour scheme, then it wouldn't attract the audience it does and it wouldn't be as successful because of that. So, target audience has a huge impact on your company and how it is presented.

'Clay-mation'

We were shown two clips that include animation with clay.  Firstly, we were shown a clip of Morph - and it was cute, friendly and very childish. It ended with a happy ending, and was just a random little plot that wasn't significant or complicated. The clay was made up of clear, clean shapes, and - again - wasn't too complicated.

However, we were also shown a clip of clay forming into a body, in a very different way. This claymation was more complicated, longer and more detailed. There was a lot of structure and detail in the hands, and head, etc. This plot was a bit stranger and more complicated, and it didn't necessarily have a happy ending, but it was more realistic.

This showed us the differences in claymation, using the same software and materials. For instance, you can make a child-friendly short clip, or a strange yet creative mini-movie.

In class, we took this on board and set off to make our own. We worked in pairs, and we had to have two things approach each other and then something to happen. In ours, we had two snails approach each other, but then it escalated a little.

We used a portable camera, moulds of PlayDoh and the software iStopMotion to create our short clips of claymation. We used to use small movement, but it was hard to keep the camera steady - even with White Tack - and it does get a bit tiring after a few minutes.

Overall, I'm happy with the outcome, at least of my first claymation short piece.

Term Two Planner

 Last term, I kept up with my planner really well, and it helped me to keep on track with my homework and tasks.

Also, it helped me organise my blog posts, and make sure they were all there and published.

With this in mind, I decided to make another planner for the upcoming term, and I've already started it.

I'm hoping that I won't grow tired of filling these out, but, so far - touch wood - it's the best method to keep me and my work organised.

I'll update you as I keep filling it out - lucky you.

Gender in TV and Films

In class, we looked at films and gender roles in films.

This was really interesting because of the difference in male and female roles and their stereotypes, but also because this has changed over time.

For instance, there have been many major female characters in films in the past, like Satine from Moulin Rouge (played by Nicole Kidman).

In this film, which was released in early 2000's but set in the late 1800's, Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are the leading characters of this tragic love story.

However, something to notice is, even though there is a leading lady, the other women in this film are all under control by male characters. Especially in the song 'Roxanne', where men are leading the tango with the women, but also you sense this because the entire theatre is under the control of a man, and even he is under control of another man.

This gives you a feel of how women were portrayed to men is those times, but how we have moved on from that.

Nowadays, we have films such as The Hunger Games, Divergent and even Devil Wears Prada where there are leading female actresses - or even an almost entirely female cast in the Devil Wears Prada's case. This shows how we've moved on from a time of women being controlled, to women taking a stand.

However, there are still limitations in films today that concern both women and men. This flaw is stereotyping in films, like how men are perceived as either stupid or horny or the heroes, and how women are perceived as dumb or frigid or the damsel.

I made a list of examples of stereotypes and films that either lean away or towards the notion.

Finally, we discussed the Bechdel test in films, and we were told to find a movie where two women were talking to each other (that had character names) for over sixty seconds about something other than men. At first it was hard, but then I found films like Confessions of a Shopaholic and The Devil wears Prada were actually pretty easy to use as they were about, well, other stereotypical girl things like shopping.

Apart from that, there were short scenes I found, like inThe Hunger Games between Katniss and Primrose, which passed the test, but others like scenes in Juno that didn't.

Creating Cribsheets

In class today, to kick off the second term, we learned about location crib-sheets and constructed some of our own. We got given a brief of a film to produce - a period romantic comedy, about zombies. With this, a camera, tripod and a collection of crib sheets, we went to three different places in Bath.


Green park was our first location.




The pictures to the right show the natural shots we got of this area. However, in the first shot, you can see a line of cars in the traffic. This shows just how close the road is to the park, and how if you pan too much, then you'll catch something on camera you don't want - at least for a periodic film.


Despite the traffic and modernised area, we did manage to get a couple of shots, which had mostly natural surroundings and that we thought that could be used for a periodic film. For filming, however, it will be a lot harder unless we film without moving the camera at all.


We also took images (like below) including some different shots, using objects like benches and certain hedges. I think this was effective, and seemed quite romantic also. However, one flaw would be that if we raised the camera, we would've caught the park equipment in the background, which is too modern for our brief.



Using these pictures, and our own surrounding at the time, we put together a crib sheet for Green Park.

You can see it below.

In the crib sheet, we looked at the levels of noise, obstructions and popularity. In this location, there were a few children and dog walkers, but there were sheltered and secluded areas of the park. In the main issue we had was fitting the scenery with our brief, as, like I mentioned before, there was a lot of modern things, like swing sets, slides and construction sites.

Overall, there were some good areas to shoot, but they were small and limited.


The next location we looked at was Norfok Crescent.

 Here it was a bit more complicated to find a place to shoot, because it was basically a field with a row of houses around it, but we did find a small slope where you could see the top of the house (first image). However, it was very dark because of the shade of the trees, and it had an eerie feel to it - despite the houses - which soft of lined to our brief.

However, as you can see from the next picture, there were a lot of cars, and this ruined the look of the entire setting, especially as the cars didn't fit the 'period style' film, and added traffic noise to the area.

Below, is the crib sheet we made for this location.

Overall, we said it was a pretty area and had not many people around, which makes it a lot easier to film, but there were lots of cars and not much area to actually film without coming across an obstacle like a car, or sign, etc.

We, also, said that if we wanted to film there that there would be an issue with finding sheltered areas for costume/makeup, as there were no 'corners' in this field out of shot from the filming.

The last location was the Royal Crescent.


Here, there was a bandstand which looked authentic, and could be used in romantic scenes. We decided that this would be suitable for our brief, and took some wide shots of the bandstand, and the area surrounding it. We also took an 'over-the-shoulder' shot, which could be a possible shot we could use for our filming.


 With the fallen leaves and contrasting green grass, this location was extremely pretty, and the only fault we could find was having a hard time associating zombies to the area. However, after a quick brainstorm, I realised that we could just use a certain time of day - like sunset or night time - to set a more eerie mood if we wanted to.


We also captured images of the houses along the Crescent. Sure, there were some cars but it was a lot less than the previous locations, and you could get them out of shot easily. The final image you see, you can see the tall houses and some cars. I didn't really like this part of the location and preferred the other two images we had captured at the Royal Crescent.

This final crib sheet shows that we liked this location the most, but there were still downsides. For instance, it was a lot busier as there was a park next to it, so there were a lot of locals, dog-walkers, children and mostly tourists. Also, it was very posh and grand, so it was hard to link to the zombie brief we had, but perfect for our romantic theme.

Overall, we still preferred this area to the others and I think the crib sheets were a very helpful way of remembering and dissecting the data and information we had collected.