HA4 - Task 6 - Evaluation

I have chosen to create my own television advert for Herbal Essences, the famous throughout the world shampoo brand. The fact that this is a well known brand made it both easier and harder to create my own version. It made it easier as I was able to look up lots of examples and take inspiration from them. However because they're so well known, it was hard to come up with something original rather than just copying what they do in their own advertisements.
The fact that most shampoo adverts have the same codes and conventions also made it easier for me to shoot my own as I could follow the simple structure that others have set.

Before shooting my advert I put quite a lot of research into finding out what the codes and conventions of your typical shampoo advertisement were. I came up with the basic structure of - actress is fed up of bad hair, finds out about certain brand, uses it, has beautiful hair, attitude and often life changes.
After finding this out I began to create my own storyboard complete with cameras shots and angles which were to be used. I again took inspiration from the adverts I had already watched when deciding on what shots I was going to use. The most popular being head shots and close ups.

My idea was to have a young girl struggling to tame her dull and lifeless hair. She would look fed up. She would then try her own fruit hair remedy which would not be pleasant until a friend recommended the brand Herbal Essences which she would then use and love. This would end with her whole facial expression changing and her showing off her freshly washed and styled hair.

I also had to fill out an equipment booking form before I could start filming, which I sent to Chris Gladwin which was accepted and I was given a camera and able to film the next day. I filled out a risk assessment form and a production log which helped me to record and keep track of what I did on certain days/weeks.

When I eventually started to film I found that the storyboard I created earlier was extremely useful. It gave me a clearer idea of where to start and what I needed to do which saved me a lot of time as I wasn't trying to make it up as the day went along.

I used Chloe Whittle as an actress in my advertisement who proved to be very helpful throughout. She not only starred in it but helped me to film a few of the shots and gave me constructive criticism if she thought I could do something better. Her suggestions helped me a lot as sometimes I became stuck on what to do.

I was lucky because it only took me one day to film my whole advert, and then I was ready to go back to college the next day and import all of my footage onto the computer and put it into Adobe Premiere Pro which we were going to be using for editing.
The only problem that I encountered was the fact that I had shot so much footage that my advert was over two minutes long, rather than the allocated 30seconds that it was supposed to be. I had to start cutting lots of things down whilst still trying to keep it making sense and not looking too jumpy and all over the place.
I also realised that I hadn't really advertised the brand itself that much throughout my advert, so thought it was best to import a Herbal Essences logo off of the Internet to use right at the end of my ad, just to remind people of the brand.

As there was only a small amount of speech in my advert, I decided to use music in the background to make it more interesting and attention grabbing. I decided on the song by Andy Grammer, Keep Your Head Up which fit in nicely with the style of my video.

After watching it through and making sure it was done to the best of my ability, I rendered it out and uploaded it to my YouTube channel, ready to place on my blog when needed. Overall I am happy with the quality and effort put into my work, however after watching back the version I uploaded to YouTube, I have realised that there is 21 seconds of plain black screen after the video has finished playing, this isn't accompanied by any music at all, just blackness. I have since discovered that this is because when I rendered it out, I selected a larger time scale than was needed. This, thankfully doesn't effect the overall quality of my advertisement.

HA4 - Task 5 - Post-Production

HA4 - Task 4 - Production

HA4 - Task 2 - Ideas Generation

HA3 - Task 2 - Advertising Structures

There are a few different types of advertsing strucures that compaies use when trying to gain interest in their product. They each work better than others depeding on the message they wish to put accross...

Realist Narrative - This is an advert which has a believable and realistic story behind it. An example of an advert with a Realist Narrative is the Apple iPhone one below.

This advert is cleverly done to show people in their everyday settings using the iPhone to listen to music on. This will show viewers that it is versatile enough to be used in a variety of settings and can appeal to people of all genders, races, abilities and ages. This is good as the more people they can interest in their product, the larger their target audience becomes and the more money they can create.

Anti - Realist Narrative - An Anti-Realise Narrative is an advert which does have a story behind it however the story is obviously fictional. For instance -

This is a good example of an anti-reallist narrative as the story starts off quite normally with a man sitting down to his breakfast with Cravendale milk. It then goes on to feature cats growing thumbs and being able to human things such as reading a book and filing their nails. This advert is humorous and memorable so catches the viewers attention and makes the brand stand out amongst others.

Animation - Animation adverts are simply adverts made up of animations such as stop motion clay or cartoons. An example of one of these is -

The advert above is made up entirely of animation and text. I think it is a good example as the things which thway want to stand out (such as the facts and figures) do as they have been created using large green font. The whole advert looks sort of like an instructive diagram which is quite different to other things being advertised at the moment.

Documentary - A documentary advert is a type of advertisment that will explain a story alongside a day to day situation. This type of advert is similar to a realist narrative.

This is an example of a Documentary style advert, as it is as though they are documenting the life of an animal that needs saving/helping in some way. These style of adverts are usually focussed on a serious matter like the one above which is for the animal charity, RSPCA. 

Talking heads - These adverts are when the actors look directly at the camera which can usually be found when a brand/company are advertising something serious/scientific.

This is a good advertismet to illustrate Talking Heads as it shows you in good detail the people talking at the camera abou the product/company. In this case it is Asda talking about their 'Big Rollback' in Spring.

Stand Alone - This is when an advert doesn't ave a follow on. It is just one single advertisment which gets the point accross to an audience. Stand alone advertisements are designed to stick with the viewer without having to be repeated. I have chosen the Dairy Milk Gorilla Advert as it is very memorable.

This is a good example of a stand alone advert as anybody that watches it instantly remembers it as it is so different to anything that is already out there. As it is not your everyday boring advert, the audeince will want to watch the ad till the very end to find out what is adverising.

Series - These are adverts which follow on from each other or are very similar. These are popular as the audience like to see what the company can come up with next. A popular example of adverts in a series are the BT ones which feature a family who use BT to keep in touch with one another.

These adverts are good as they feature an every day family overcoming everyday things. In this particular one the audience are left waiting to see what is going to happen next when they discover one of the characters is pregnant. This is clever as it makes the audience want to carry on watching the advert instead of turning the channel when one comes on, therefore gaining more interest in their product.

HA4 - Task 3 - Pre-Production

HA4 - Task 1 Research for Production

Herbal Essences Shampoo -

An advertisement for shampoo usually involves a woman showing off her hair which has been affected for the better by the product. This woman will usually be good looking and have great skin.
These adverts will be brightly lit but look natural all the same.
There will be a big focus on the hair, often with it being styled and groomed in some way, starting with bad hair (Dry, damaged, untameable) and then ending with perfect hair (Smooth, soft, styled)
The voice over will sound professional with scientific words used to make the audience think they're getting something that really works.

Herbal Essences adverts in the past usually involve a woman in the shower (or other water source) using the product and having a good time whilst doing so.
The noises being made whilst using it confuse anyone hearing on the outside as to what is going on in there.
There have been a lot of celebrity endorsements for Herbal Essesnces which include Nicole Sherzinger and Ashanti.

The target audience of this product is mostly females with a desire to look good. The females who actually buy this product will be between the ages of 24 and 45. Younger people wouldn't purchase this product themselves, however they're likely to have it bought for them by a parent etc...
As I will be trying to get a younger audience interested in this product, I will be using younger women in their teenage years with a more relatable storyline.