Planning

This was the storyboard I created to use as a basis for my production. It was made to be more simple and up for interpretation, being more flexible for use during production itself. Unfortunately CamScanner didn't pick it up too well, and the only other editing options for it made it blinding white and even more illegible. The text simply gives context to the images.

This was the shot list I created after the storyboard. It was made after a few adaptqtadap where made to the plot, but it's still fundamentally the same.

This is the risk assessment I made when I decided on using the springboard studio. There weren't many risks so it's not completely full, but the ones I did find I outlined.

This is the recce report on the studio I made following my previously stated decision to use it and it's greenscreen.

Research

The first thing we need to do in the assessment is to compare two different video based adverts and two print based adverts related to the product we've chosen. Due to Justin's advisement, I've picked to do a bicycle, specifically the brand that I own which is Giant as I cycle everyday on it. Because of this I've chosen four adverts, two print and two motion, to analyse and compare.

The two print adverts I shall compare are:

An old French bicycle poster from the company "Terrot & Cie Dijon"

And another old bicycle poster, this time in English. The company in question here is "Triumph Cycles"

Meanwhile the two video adverts I shall compare are:

This 30 second Giant bike advertisement advertising the giant bike range in general
Link

This 40 second Giant bike commercial with seemingly similar goals to advertise the bike range
Link

So, I shall start with the print ads and then move onto the video ads, going over each individually before comparing the pairs.

Starting with the above French advert, I immediately notice the high use of typography at the top and the bottom along with small amounts used in the scenery. It's clear that there's a red and white theme that the type is keeping to, but interestingly there's fluidity to the font type and size with more important parts being larger, more solid and bolder while less important parts are slimmer, more calligraphic and smaller. 

Also despite the subject being very prominent, I'm rather drawn to how expansive the background is, displaying an extreme long shot depicting a mountain, a small village, some forests and the mountain trail that the subject and other cyclists appear to be on all in the same shot. This natural imploring of several different locations seems to compliment typical ideas of a bike, and are used to emphasize freedom and the ability to go anywhere and I believe is a use of pathos in this case, invoking these feelings in the audience.

The subject is a rather well dressed woman, and while I'm not well versed in the clothing style of the time, it would seem to indicate that it's for a more wealthy audience. Despite the woman's presence a lot of the bike is still visible, albeit drawn, and displays a lot of the bike's features such as the gears, wheels and frame, the front wheel being especially eye-catching with how it's in the forefront.

Finally, as a couple of notes to this, it had a rather small colour banner at the bottom which seems to be there for the purpose of making the typography pop out more and section the information attached to it from the background. Also, the entire poster is not a straight rectangle, instead being stylistically shaped likely to draw attention to it and make it more interesting. Overall, it looks very professional.

Now for the above English advert. This one also appears to be an older, more vintage poster going by the use of art rather than live images, the art style, and the layout of the poster. This time the typography is a lot more sparse but still rather bold and hard. This gives a lot more of an open feel to the poster. Also the top text is made to disappear slightly behind the subject, giving some depth to the whole thing. 

Again the thing is shot with an extreme long shot, although less of the background is shown, and there's not as many different locations shown this time therefore more emphasis is put on space than diversity.

The subject this time is shot with a low angle, having even more focus on the tire than the first poster. The lady seems more average with more emphasis put on the well drawn bike than her. To note, the lady's face is more visible, showing off her enjoyment of the product, which I would also say is pathos advertising.

Now, comparing them, there are some clear differences and similarities. The similarities are the shot types used, the apparent time period of the poster, the way the product is portrayed, their use of pathos, the use of scenery and the use of bold typefaces to show importance of certain words. The differences include the shape of the poster, the apparent wealth of the human subject, the amount of type, the use of banners and sections and the variate of sections in the shot. 

In the similarities I think the shot types, the way the product is portrayed, the use of scenery and the use of bold text are all common conventions of bicycle adverts as they all help emphasize key aspects of bikes such as power, freedom and quality. Both the time period and the specific use of pathos in these advertisements seem to be more happenstance than directly related to bike ads, but the use of pathos ties in nicely to the freedom and leisure aspects of the vehicle and is very easy to play into and get good effects.

As for the differences, I'll go through them one by one. I believe the shape of the poster is simply a stylistic choice, although the appeal and fancy of the first poster's shape could possibly draw in more wealthy and well-educated people as it connotes quality. This ties nicely into how the first woman looks more well dressed and affluent than the second, and again draws a different, more wealthy audience. The next major difference is the difference in the amount of typography on each. The first has a rather high amount of text that entails all sorts of details, possibly pointing towards more of a bike enthusiast audience rather than an average audience. On the other hand the second one has far less text, being more simplistic and open, not letting itself subtract from the main focus of the bike. Also, a minor point is that the first uses a band of red at the bottom to section off text from the rest of the image whereas the second doesn't do this. This could be to help the text stand out better or simply because the standard background isn't a good colour for the text to show up on. Finally, there is a large difference in the amount of scenes and locations in their respective extreme long shots. The first shows many more places of interest in the background than the second, giving more of an impression of freedom in the bike and how it's used.

The parts I definitely wish to include is a variety of locations, shots that clearly show the bike, a minimalistic approach to text, colour sections for text to stand on, the use of pathos to help sell and a bolder typeface.

Now, moving on, I'll compare the two video adverts I picked out. There was a large amount of said adverts I went through before narrowing it down to these two. For the most part the others were either advertising something else using a bike to make it unique, or they were far too long to do a full analysis on. Thus I picked the two mentioned before as they where close to the 30 second requirement of the assignment and is actually advertising bikes.

The first one I shall look at is the 30 second ad. The first few seconds are mainly close ups of different parts of the bikes and the location the bikes are made, causing the audience to focus on the way the bike is put together and how authentic it is. Afterwards it moves into views of the bike itself cycling, displaying how well it works and getting the audience to focus on the product with its use of medium to long shots along with pan and dolly shots to keep it in shot and keep it clear. The variety and the transition speed of these shots also help to make the bike feel faster and have better performance. The inclusion of what appear to be chest mounted handheld cameras recording the bike in action really helps add a sense of authenticity and realism for the audience. The final shot before the animated company reveal at the end is a bird's eye extreme long shot showing a cycle path surrounded by tree covered hills, playing into the themes of freedom mentioned earlier.

Now, sound-wise it starts off very quiet, creating tension by only using the sounds of what seems to be paint that's being sprayed and clangs of metal until the voice over comes in. As well as creating tension and anticipation it draws attention to the visuals and helps reinforce them. Those sounds along with sounds of the bike as it comes into play seem to swell into backing music intended to hype and add anticipation and excitement to the scenes they accompany while still synchronising with the Foley and other sounds throughout. The dialogue serves to highten and improve the visuals with what is said, emphasizing how the bikes are hand made to improve the experience the riders have. 

Overall I think this plays both into Ethos and Pathos marketing as it's playing on the feelings of the audience and how they want to ride bikes that make them feel as good as the advert says while also making the company seem more trustworthy and reliable by emphasizing how they hand make all the bikes and therefore have great quality control among other things.

Next I shall look into the 40 second ad. The video starts with big close ups of different parts and aspects of a stationary Giant bike, these shots continuing to be interspersed through the rest of the advert, soon being accompanied by wider shots of the bike being ridden through streets, being used and ridden through dryer off-road areas, and simple shots of the whole bike on it's own. Despite being ridden the focus is always kept on the bike particularly because the amount of different close ups of the bike outweigh the amount of scenes with someone was riding the bike even though they have about the same amount of screen time. This intense focus on the bike and it's components gives the audience the sense that the bike is well made and has good performance and links largely to logos advertising as it's visually showing the audience what the bike is made of and therefore how well it'd work. Accompanying these visuals are singular words appearing on screen that resonate with the concepts of a bike discussed before and use pathos to make the viewer want that bike as they want those qualities in a bike. The text fits the theme of the advert and bike advertising in general by using bold font and simpler words. Also stylistically the transparency of the font aside from the outline helps not to take away from the images they display over. It ends simply with the word Giant in the same font, linking it to the semantic field of the rest of the words while ingraining the company into the audience's head so they remember it.

As for sound, there is nothing aside from the slow heavy beat of the music, the choice of which seems to fit with the style of the bikes being practical and useful. As it's the only thing heard it draws attention to itself and gets stuck in the audience's head better, especially with its simple beat.

All in all I feel that this advert uses Logos and Pathos equally to good effect, being very simple and clear in its message yet rather open to interpretation, therefore sticking in the audience's mind easily. It feels monotonous and has a good impact through that as it very clearly differs and strays from stereotypical bike adverts yet still has a lot of the features of one.

Now, to compare them I'd say there are definitely some parallels but also differences. As for what's similar I believe they both share the use of close ups, moving shots, quick transitions, and a use of pathos. On the other hand the differences are the types of music, the use of sound, the use of typography, and the opposing use of Ethos and Logos.

Going more in depth into the similarities, the use of close ups in both is used to accentuate the functionality and authenticity of the bikes and make the viewers believe the bikes themselves are of good quality. The moving shots that are used featuring the bike are to emphasize the usability san the function of the product and accentuate it's speed and general movement. The speed at which each scene transitions to the next is also to show speed as it helps the whole advert move quicker. It also allows more content to be put into it. The use of pathos to entice the audience with how well the bike works and how good it feels to use it is exceptional and comes across strongly in both.

As for the differences, the types of music being different gives a different atmosphere to each. The first builds anticipation with its build up and then hypes the listener to want to buy this kind of bike. Meanwhile the more monotonic feeling of the second gives the impression of the bike being able to handle regular use and hard tasks, generally giving the idea of endurance over speed. In terms of sound beyond music, the first actually uses it, giving context to the situations, enhance the feel of the bikes movement, add to the feelings felt by the viewer with dialogue, and more. Meanwhile the second doesn't, which makes the audience focus much more on the minimalistic music used, which in turn also draws attention to the bike and the visuals, giving focus on the product more than the concepts surrounding it, although that's substituted with the text. Speaking of text, the first doesn't use it until the logo at the end which in a way means no attention is taken away from the rest of the visuals. In the second text is used to reinforce the ideas and concepts presented by the visuals and are made simple and bold to easily invoke feelings in the audience. Finally, the first uses noticeably uses Ethos while the second uses Logos. Both of these I feel isn't as prominent as the Pathos in both, but it's still there. The Ethos in the first is meant to make the audience trust the manufacturer as they're willing to show you some of the processes in making the bikes, leading them to believe they have nothing to hide. Meanwhile the second subtly uses Logos in a similar way the first uses Ethos. It shows you in close up detail different physical parts of the bike and while there is no written or verbal explanation of them it still makes the viewer believe these parts are of high standard and quality.

Out of all of this, I feel they've strengthened my want to use pathos in all of my advertising, have extended the ideology of the typography to video advert and not just the still, has made me interested in using fast paced editing and transitions along with moving shots, and made me interested in using less sound and more music. 

Now, after all that, we are also asked to look into the demographic of our product and what kind of person we're likely trying to sell this to. To do this we've split it into several sections that we'll look into individually.

Age:
Ok, so to start we need an age for this person who happens to rides a bike. This can be pretty easy to work out.

To start, my first place to look was of course the web. After a few dead ends I managed to find the website of a Cycling based News/Magazine company known as 'Cycling Weekly' that cover and offer a variety of different topics, products, services, and a subscription, all of which cover both digital and physical mediums. One of their fitness news posts titled 'Average cyclist is 43, male, 12 stone, and 5'10": how do you measure up?' surveys and reports the average cyclist and insights the reader to compare themselves to the figures. Now this is an absolutely perfect start for me as it not only covers the age of the average cyclist but also the gender which I shall cover later.

What I find interesting is that the highest density of people, over 50%, is between the ages of 36 and 50, which might sound like a lot, but is actually rather narrow. Up that to just over 70% and you sill only have between 31 and 55. While bikes are universally used we're only looking for a specific age which luckily this gives as 43.

But this isn't where we stop. To confirm this I'd like at least one other source, possibly two if I can find them. The next website I went to ended up being an american business magazine company known as 'Forbes' who did an article on different types of cyclists in 'Who's Out There On The Roads? The 4 Types Of Cyclists' which goes into the different types of cyclists and how they use the roads and and bicycles. In the article they also go into passing detail of different ages, genders, and income of cyclists. The information on genders and income I'll save for later for use in those respective sections, and I'll focus on the section where they go over the age.

Interestingly this study pins the age as younger. Now this might be due to a difference in year, location of study, or simply luck, but it does give us a second reference point. Before I start making any assumptions or estimations, I would personally like a third source, but it proved rather difficult to find one that was more general than specifically to do with racing or similar events or groups.

So in the end, taking the average between the two sources we have an age of 40.15, but for the sake of round numbers, I'll say 40.

Gender:
Gender also should be relatively simple to find especially since we already have two sources that give us a starting point.

Starting with the 'Average cyclist is 43, male, 12 stone, and 5'10": how do you measure up?' survey, we get the following information.

To say that I'm surprised by this would be a horrible lie, but what I do find to be a tad jarring is how sheer the difference is, with how only a tenth of cyclists being girls. Despite my lack of confidence in finding a different outcome I shall continue onto the next source I have lined up, which is of course 'Who's Out There On The Roads? The 4 Types Of Cyclists' which gives us this information.

This seems far more likely, with 4 in every 10 as opposed to 1. Of course with the other source being so much lower it'll bring down the average considerably.

Running the numbers, we get an average of 75% to 25% of men to women. This round cut of a quarter to three quarters feels like it makes sense, and still firmly puts men as the target.


Income:
After a long time searching I was unable to turn out with any other usable and relevant data in regards to this section aside from the one we've already found at 'Who's Out There On The Roads? The 4 Types Of Cyclists' which tells us this.

This rather high income pinned on cyclists suprised me considerably as I expected it to be more akined to a 'poor man's car' than that. Although in a way it makes sense as the racing and serious off-road aspects are exceedingly competitive and even rather elitist at times. Despite this I'm still rather suprised.

For the math I'll assume the other three quarters earn average income as nothing else on the topic is stated, which in the UK is £27,600. Also for this I converted $100,000 into £78,690 (which isn't as high as I thought it would be before, but that doesn't matter).

After running the numbers once again we get the grand average sitting at £40,372.50 which again shall be rounded to £40k for simplicity's sake.

So finally we have the basic demographic of a 40 year old male earnings £40k a year. This is both suprising and oddly predictable in my opinion depending on how you look at it. Of course my background as a student altered my unspoken hypothesis but now I have a clear answer.

Introduction

In this assessment, we have two linked tasks. One task is to make a 30 second advertisement on a product of your choice, and the other is to make three print advertisements. These two tasks should have clear links to each other in style as if they were part of the same advertising campaign. The entire process is split into four different sections categorized as: Research, Planning, Production and Evaluation.


Research

In research, we are informed to look up and analyze different advertisements and products to help us develop our own ideas for an advertisement campaign along with concepts of the individual components, i.e the three prints and the video. The more specific requirements are to analyse and compare the micro-elements, conventions and persuasive methods of two different print based adverts and two different video adverts, all of which need to relate to the product you've decided to use. Along with this, you need to make questionnaires, surveys, and general research into the target demographic of the product. Through all of this you're expected to begin to make observations on how all of this will affect your decisions later on.

Planning

Planning is able to be further split into two sections: Ideas and Planning Documents, although it's counted as one unit.
In the ideas section of this segment you are to describe how your research has affected and helped develop your original idea. From there, you're to outline three different variations of your video advertisement and then go on to write a paragraph or so on which one of the three you picked and why you went for it. After this paragraph you need to write a treatment of your chosen idea in which you describe the scenes, characters, and micro-elements you will employ in written form. If applicable to your advert, it's also required that you produce a script to go alongside this.
The documents section of this segment simply requires you to give evidence of using a variety of pre-production forms and documents that are normally standard to fill out before production either due to how practical they are for completing the production efficiently and at a high quality, such as shot lists and storyboards, or to ensure the safety of people and equipment on the set, such as risk assessments, release forms and location recce.

Production

In production you quite obviously need to show evidence of your advertisements. Aside from that you also need descriptions of what you did as you produced both types of adverts, reflections on how you worked with the crew, and then more descriptions on how you made the adverts in their respective programs.

Evaluation

The evaluation is a 1000 word assessment and report on the rest of the project. It must cover the success of the project, how your research shaped your decisions and ideas as it developed, and what media based skills, knowledge and understanding you used during the course of the assignment.

PS
It's important to note that the theme of assessing and giving reasons for your decisions is prominent throughout the whole assessment, not just where I have mentioned it.

Ideas

My product idea which I got from Justin was to do an advertisement based on mountain bikes as I cycle on one to college each day. I rather like this as an idea as it seems to be something I can easily do, especially since I've been cycling since I was very young, and i'm specifically knowledgeable in mountain bikes. I realize there are a lot of different possibilities for advertisements for a mountain bikes. The following is the three different directions I want to take said advert after reasearching into bikes and advertising before.

One direction to take it would be a family direction, showing off how good it'd be for a family to go out together and bring them closer together. They'd go out on a trip together through the woods, enjoying themselves. This would mostly use Pathos to attract customers, showing off how good the family feel on the bikes. I thought of using wooded locations after seeing the variety of locations used in other adverts.

Another direction it could be taken is for use in commute, showing a plain folk cycling to work and back care free. It shows off the bike as an alternate mode of transport to motor vehicles, being cleaner and less expensive and generally nicer to use. This idea would generally use a combination of Pathos and Ethos, with an emphasis on Ethos as the bike is better on the environment and encourages the use this product over others. Yet pathos would still be prevalent as the plain folk is easy to relate to.

The final idea I want to explore is leisure, with the bike being ridden through a park or forest showing off how good the bike is at being a bike. It would show off things like the suspension, gears, speed, comfort, and handling along with other facts and stats. it would heavily include Logos and would aim for the more avid bike riders, possibly including some snob appeal directed at bike fanatics. It would emphasis how powerful, unique, and necessary this bike is in professional off-road/freestyle cycling.

Out of the three I'm particularly leaning towards using the second one based on the commute as commute based locations are what I'd readily be able to access. Also it seems the most likely to appeal to audiences as it strongly uses both Ethos and Pathos, the latter of which I've found in my research to be primarily used in cycling adverts. While I believe all three ideas could work, I believe the second would work the best out of all of them.

Working Tile – Ride Giant.

Audience – 25-40 year old male, but with attempts to remain unisex/androgynous.

Outline – A man is walking, having trouble with his back or legs as he goes. He is impatient, checking his watch as he walks. Suddenly, a bike shoots past with a smiling man on it, enjoying himself. There are subsequent shots of this man weaving in through interesting terrain. It'd keep switching between the walker and the bike, showing how the bike increases health and fitness level. At the end the person on the bike gets into work with a smile, giving a healthy sigh, while the man walking is still walking and possibly in pain.

Character Breakdown

• Man on bike:
• Name - not spoken or relevant
• Age - 30 (but looks younger)
• Race - British Caucasian
• Gender - Male
• Man walking:
• Name - not spoken or relevant
• Age - 40
• Race - British Caucasian
• Gender - Male

Visual Elements

• Lighting
• The lighting will mostly be natural as its primarily exterior shots. Basic key lighting will likely be used for close ups of the bike or the two characters, focusing on simply making them clear and visible rather than adding any effects
• Camera angles and movement
• there will be several close ups of the man walking and the man riding the bike along with medium and long shots of walkers and the bike. More movement would be used in shots of the bike, particularly pans to emphasis the movement of it. The walking would likely be filmed more in high angle shots than low angle shots, and vice versa for the man on the bike so to show differing levels of power and dominance with the aim to make the cyclist look superior.
• Editing
• editing will be focused more on making things smooth, adding transitions, and adding product information and messages throughout as opposed to adding any major visual elements.
• Setting
• the setting would be across different streets, roads, and wooded areas, showing off a variety locations it could be taken.
• Props
• there aren't really any other props needed other than the bike itself.
• Costume
• casual clothes are likely going to be mainly used to help give the idea of the people in the advert being plain folk.
• Graphics
• graphics will include text and boarders, but not particularly much else.

 Audio Elements
The only audio elements we plan on including are music based, the rest being silent. The music is to be more upbeat and jovial to give a positive and energetic feel to the bike. Anticipation and tension will likely be created in the beginning of the track, but past that it's meant to be uplifting to employ Pathos as much as possible.

Rationale
I've decided to chose this idea as it's got rather easy to excute elements while still utilising marketing strategies well. The skills we will need across the crew is as follows:
 - minimal acting to play the roles (with at least one person being able to ride a bicycle)
 - camera knowledge and usage to be able to record and preform high quality pans and and still shots.
 - lighting knowledge to be able to light a moving subject well and make sure they don't loose definition as they travel
 - Premier Pro editing to be able to utilize and decide between multiple takes of shots, put it together in a coherent and mostly predetermined story, and edit it together with necessary transitions, effects, and graphics to produce a good quality final product.

Primary and Secondary Research
We have rather a lot of secondary research based on the three marketing principles of Pathos, Ethos, and Logos along with more minor reaserch into advertising tropes and techniques and how to use them such as Snop appeal and Plain folk. I've also done specific research into these techniques and principles and how they're used in specifically bicycle adverts. Furthermore I've done a small amount of reaserch into the general demographic of people riding bicycles.

Requirements and Resources
Cast and crew:
 - Morgan Nelson
 - Jack Palmer
 - Alfie Hudson
Technical equipment:
 - workhorse camera
 - tripod
 - lighting array
 - SD card
Locations considered:
 - college campus as it'd have large amounts of urban areas that would work for the urban sections and could also serve as a destination. Also has minimal legal issues regarding its use
 - the Kings Lynn walks (both old and new sections) as it has large amounts of lightly and heavily forested areas. Unfortunately I believe there would be legal concerns regarding using it to film and we would have to contact someone who has authority over the location
 - greenscreen as it would allow for a far wider range of locations while still having low amounts of legal requirements as we have one on hand. Of course it provides editing complications later, but I feel it's a strong choice

Constraints and Contingency
Outdoor weather and lighting could easily become a problem as rain, wind, darkness, or considerable dreariness could delay and halt filming. While we could easily reschedule that might prove fruitless, and thus changing tact to a different location or even the utility of a greenscreen could be a solution.
The actual filming may be difficult as the use of pans and tracking moving subjects can prove difficult. I don't have as much of a solution to this aside from making sure we do multiple takes.
Of course we only have limited times between lessons and times we can have cameras in use, so there may be limits concerning time. If this occurs then we may cut and alter the plan as necessary.

Legal and Ethical Considerations
Legally there are three possible issues that could come about.
Firstly, we outright might not be allowed in a location. Depending on the reason for this we could easily ask officials or people with authority over the location of we may visit to film, although if the answer is a no we need to simply find a different location.
Secondly we might not be allowed to film there, likely due to it being a public area. The same rules would apply to this as what applied to the first. If we're told no after asking we find a different location.
Third and finally, copyright may be an issue in terms of music and graphics we use. Normally we would have the same mentality as the previous two problems, asking for permission to use certain content, and then moving on if we're told no, possibly even looking for copyright free music and graphics instead. But in this instance Justin has advised us that for this particular topic we shouldn't worry about copyright, but next unit we should and thus I will.

Proposed Schedule
On the 20th of November we plan record the most of the scenes after lessons, and then they are to be edited together in the following two weeks.

Production

In this we're to describe the full production and editing process it took to create both the moving advert and the posters including problems we faced when creating them, how we solved said problems, and how we worked as a crew together. Of course I shall do this with each product individually starting with the posters.

This, the first poster I made, didn't take all too much to make. Like the other two posters I had decided to use online graphics and images to create it partly for simplicity and ease and partly because we had not shot the video advert at the time so I couldn't take images from that to use.

In terms of how I made it, I'll start from the beginning.
Firstly I added the autumn background to the image, adjusting the scale to fill the frame.
Once I had done that I added the wheel using the brush select tool and copying to just add the wheel and frame and leave out the spokes. Once I added it as another layer and changed the position and scale so it was where I wanted it I went to effects, looking to soften the edges and change the shadowing and colour so it looked like it fit in with the current scene more. After a lot of changes with the effects I managed to get rid of the jagged edges left by the brush select and somewhat alter the colour with the help of Tony. The two of us had differing opinions on how much the wheel should have changed, with me wanting to give it a more orange and sunset colouration with the indication of a higher light source while he wanted less change and a lower artificial light source so the wheel stood out from the background more. In the end I went with his judgement.
Next I added the 4 scenes inside the wheel. These where a little complicated to do but once I had worked it out it was the same for each. They each where on their own layer and where all behind the wheel. This was important as it let me keep the crisp edge of the wheel as I did this. I then one by one added a mask that made everything other than the shown part of the image transparent. At first I had problems getting consistent parallel straight lines, but I worked out that if I used a rectangular select tool I could choose to mask only what was in the selected area, in effect giving myself a ruler. Other than the straight lines inside the wheel I also had to mask the corners, but that didn't prove to be too difficult either and I simply did that freehand.
After making the masking process I made the semi-transparent border, taking inspiration from the posters I had seen before but adding a small twist of my own. To create this border it took three major steps. First I used an elliptical select tool to select the circle I didn't want selected, not even a quarter of which was actually in frame. Then I promptly used options to select the inverse, giving the borders of my frame. Then finally I went to the gradient tool and began tweaking the settings until I had a gradient that would fade out outwards (radial gradient) and changed how quickly it would fade so I would keep the line in place at the edge of my select. Once that was done and I had blue and transparent selected as the colours I chose the point of origin to be roughly where the centre of the original circle was, and set the edge to be around the bottom left corner of the frame. Thus the blue border was created in a new frame.
Finally, the text and logo was created as a copied image for the logo and two text layers for the "ride free" and "ride giant" parts. I used character editing to change how bold the text was along with the spacing between lines and individual letters.

Next I made this poster, again using images and graphics to make it. This one took a lot less to make but I still believe it has an impact.

First we started with the background mountains, which we added in a manor similar to the first poster, simply taking the mountain image we found and enlarging it to the desired size.
After that we added the floor you see. This was done with a brush select as there was a large amount of unwanted shrubbery included. We selected it, copied it, and resized it to fit with the mountains.
Then we added the bike which in this case we took extensive care around the spokes and other small details to properly include them in the brush select. After a few adjustments and the occasional use of the magic rubber tool we got a suprisingly detailed image of the wheel which we added as standard.
As for the border, it was created in a similar way to the first, albeit simpler. First we used a rectangular select to select the location of the border. Then we used the linear gradient tool to create the fade. Then we duplicated the layer to make it stand out more as I felt it had too soft of a fade and too much transparency to it. After adjusting some of the opacity options directly I got it to the perfect level I wanted it.
The logo was added as a standard image once again, and the text this time took more work as we had curved it. By curving it to fit the tire we had to be a bit more precise in the spacings to make sure it fit well.

This was the final poster I made and was probably one of the easiest to make, requiring only one image while the rest was graphics.

So of course we started with the background which was simply another radial gradient, this time simply using a lighter and darker blue to get the effect.
On top of that I added the wheel cut similarly to the wheel in the second poster using another brush select.
Next we added text and used the character editing panel to do some serious work on the spacing. Unfortunately I had to edit the space between each letter individually which resulted in it taking a much longer time than I thought it would. Aside from that we once again edited the boldness of the font and other aspects of it to make it fit and pop easily.
This entire poster was based more on simplicity, drawing inspiration from the second video ad we reviewed and slight points from the second poster we reviewed.

And now we move onto the video advert, which we shall look at in three steps: how it was made and developed in filming, how well the crew worked together, and how it was made in editing.

Starting with the shooting, we had decided using a greenscreen would be the best way to create this. We booked out the studio and took the bike into the room, and one problem was immediately apparent, we didn't have much room to begin with. We had to clear out and move all of one side of the room so we could ride the bike in front of the whole greenscreen, and then quickly moved the camera back as far as we could while still having the greenscreen in frame. Next we had to implement lighting. We used the built in studio lights to mainly light up the greenscreen, but noticed there were still some shadows so we promptly set up two lights to light up the back, hoping the two would minimise the shadows created. Unfortunately due to our setup we couldn't fit in any kind of backing light for the subject, resulting in a few issues when keying for the greenscreen in editing later on. We didn't realize this mistake at the time, but even if we had we couldn't have done much to help it as the subject was already having to be mere inches from the greenscreen.
Continuing on, we filmed several takes of a scene where I cycled from one side of the greenscreen to the other. This didn't take too much work, with the hardest part being to stop late enough to be out of shot yet early enough to not hit the wall. After that we did a scene where I faced the camera and pretended to cycle forward. This was simply a matter of attempting to be convincing and beyond that there was no problems. It was around this time that some major changes to the original concept where made due to time constraints and the other actor's request. Rather than him coughing and being in pain, we decided the non-cyclist would instead simply spot the bike go past him and then proceed to be inspired to cycle himself. Thus the next two shots where of Jack standing before the greenscreen and watching me go past, and then of him cycling past himself. Several difficulties arose from this. Firstly the camera had moved down without us realizing and how had a small portion of the black floor also in shot. Now, this would have been fine except Jack had decided that wearing very dark clothes would be fine. Normally it would, but it did mean that I couldn't easily key out the black later. Of course we didn't realize this at the time so it was never fixed. Other than that there was another problem with one of Jack's parts, being that he was not able to cycle straight particularly well. It took several attempts and me standing at the end so he didn't hit the wall for him to get a few decent, albeit slower takes. Luckily we got there eventually and got the last few shots in before watching them over and stopping due to time.

Next is how well we worked as a crew. Personally I think we're rather light hearted but still got the job done. Jack was the most hardworking of us three, making sure to keep us on track, but wasn't adverse to having a laugh and playing into our groups general banter. He played his role excellently despite the previously mentioned issues, and while his ego did prove to be slightly trying when trying to get him to do more than he already was doing. When not doing his roll he was often bossy and played director, but light-heartedly so, and said bossiness did prove helpful when critically evaluating my own performance, resulting in several extra takes my end. I of course took it in stride, knowing full well he didn't mean it to be bossy past the comedic value. I'll admit I often tease him, although he knew it was me teasing. I don't feel like my teasing and occasional random extra bits between shots simply for the sake of outcuts got in the way particularly, although if I asked the other two I might hear otherwise. Luckily Jack was there to keep me somewhat focused. Alfie was quiet, but still joined in the jokes and banter. He stayed at the camera operating it and didn't move too much from his post, but I don't see that as a bad thing. While he wasn't as involved as me or Jack he still did his job to the letter and never once complained. He made sure we weren't in shot before we began recording and kept an eye on the focus. It wasn't like he was shy or couldn't talk, but more that he had no reason to past jokes or telling us to move in some way. All in all I feel like we worked well as a group, and while we might not be the most efficient, we still manage to get the job done and can easily make calls and choices should the need arise, and while we do joke we still know when we need to be serious.

Finally we'll look at the editing process. This I'll do chronologically, going from one scene to the next and going into how it was made and the challenges of each.

Starting with the first scene, we immediately had a number of problems. Firstly we had to get the bike to stay still in the centre of the frame, which required me to get it to move backwards the same speed it was moving forwards by animating the position effect. After some tweaking and adjusting we managed to get it working with the bike staying roughly in the centre. Once we did that there was several things we needed to do that Tony and I tried to work out how to accomplish and after creating several problems ourselves we worked out that the still bike needed to be it's own file with the counter movements already in place.

After importing the new file we keyed out the green using an ultrakey effect.

Using the ultrakey and adjusting some of the more technical settings of said ultrakey we were able to get rid of the green and minimise the problems caused by an absence of a backlight. Unfortunately a new problem then reared its head. Because we had turned the shot into its own file, the edges where the ends of the greenscreen come into shot now show black rather than transparent. After attempting and failing to key it out we settled on using opacity masks to hide it.

By adding a mask to any effect you can create an area in which the effect will only happen inside of or outside of, depending on how you've set it up. In our case we've made it so anything inside the box is transparent. Our original plan was to have one for each side as both had area's that became black, but for some reason Premier Pro refused to let us use multiple unless every one after the first was to not work on anything. Thus our solution was to simply stretch the one mask up and over the subject in a blocky arch. After this it was only the somewhat simple yet tedious matter of assembling them. We had decided to have the scene be the subject traveling through multiple different locations which we chose.

This decision was made due to the variety of landscapes shown in our reasearch, particularly the first poster. Once we had picked out which ones to use we had to sync up all the transitions which was both long and tedious as all of their times had to be changed and they all had to be inverted as I had picked wipes to match up with the direction the bike was going (which wasn't their default direction.)

Once that had been added along with the text which also where separate files which need their own wipes I had finished the first scene and moved onto the next.

Also, one final thing on this scene, people said it went by far too quickly to be properly registered, so to resolve that I selected the entire section and set it to run at 50% speed, doubling it's duration. This did mean I needed to rearrange some things, but I personally think it's better for it.

The next scene was one utilising the the forwards facing angle showing us traveling through the forest on the bike. This needed more keying once again along with the backgrounds scale and position to be animated so it looked like I was traveling. Aside from that there weren't all that many technical aspects aside from how I used different transitions this time. The shot of me cycling is all one shot, but the three locations I used have dip-to-black transitions while the text changes using cube-spin transitions to add more intrigue. 

People did end up saying that the movement was too drastic to be realistic, and so I reduced it down so it looked like I wasn't going as far as I was before while cycling towards the camera.

Next was of course the scene where I cycle past Jack. Now this actually had a couple of problems, the main ones being that I needed to sync the cycling to the movement of Jack's head and I needed to sync the reveal of the words to the bike. Making me follow Jacks face was largely based on making small adjustments to the animated position until it was close enough. Luckily it makes me go past so fast that small inconsistencies don't even matter. Now, with the text it was actually a rather simple solution. What I did was I found the moment I came into frame and used the razor tool and select tool to cut out and remove the bit of text that existed before that. Then I found the exact moment I left the frame and added a wipe to the text that ended at that moment. Thus the wipe accurately followed the bike. 

The final scene has a lot going on. Starting simple, the border is simply a stacked premade semi-transparent image made exactly the same way I made the borders in the posters. The text and logo flying out of the sun is just animated scale and position effects. They all start at scale 0 in the position where they'll be over the sun. They then expand and move each when another has finished moving until they're all in position. Finally, the flying bike is a multitude of effects. Firstly it has some animated opacity at the start during the transition into that scene as otherwise it stands out too much. Then the movement is an animated position effect being used with an animated rotation effect. The change in shadow is an animated tint effect so it gets darker the closer to the sunset it is. 

This admittedly started off as a joke, but then I realized it fit well with the slogan I had created, and thus I kept it and improved upon it. Also as a comedic moment it adds humour and memorablility to the advert which is one of the best parts of Pathos advertising, a form of advertising that I know from my reaserch works well with bikes.

The final section I'm talking about which I'm talking about all at once is the audio. There's no audio except for music, and aside from repeating the first part of the first song in time with my first scene I've not done much with the music. Between those cuts and the switch in song at the end all have the constant-power transition to reduce how obvious and jerky it would normally feel. 

I picked these songs firstly because they fit the advert well but secondly because it continues the humourous theme I created at the end throughout the advert, meaning the ending scene isn't as sudden as it could have been, and I've already explained how humour is a good way to sell through Pathos.

Evaluation

In this evaluation I need to think about how my research changed and developed my ideas and my target audience, and then evaluate what skills, knowledge, and understanding I used, and then evaluate how successful the production was as a whole.

In my research I found a lot of different things regarding how bikes are advertised. I looked at two different posters and two different commercial adverts. That lead me to find out that bold typefaces are used, large varieties of landscapes and locations are normally used, there's heavy emphasis on Pathos across the board with some adverts using this in combination with Ethos or Logos, but not usually without, and there's also a lot of plain folk used in them to relate to the audience. All of these factors and more I took into consideration when creating all of my adverts, trying to implement at least something in each, especially Pathos and bold typefaces. I feel like I could have done better if I had either a wider or more varied research pool as the only posters I could find where from what I can only assume is the early to mid 20th century, and the only videos u used where from the same company within the last 10 years. Next time if I were to do this again I would do a more detailed search for research and get a wider variety and diversity of examples and sources.

I researched into target audience and found a few surprising things. Because of this, my target audience shaped into 40 year old predominantly males who earn around £40,000 yearly. If I hadn't done that research I wouldn't have known how drastic the difference between men and women are in the world of cycling or how wealthy a large amount of cyclists are. Although I have to say I feel that I didn't do a great job on this. I quite easily could have continued on to find even more details about the audience such as their ethnicity or race or a more narrowed down location. I also feel I didn't find a great amount of sources or a great variety. I found it difficult to find too many sources on this topic that appeared to be relevant, and all of the ones I found were on the web and mostly news based websites of some kind. If there was a next time I would definitely search for more sources to use and broaden my scope in terms of the type of source, hopefully including something like a book of a physical magazine to use. I would also attempt to make my target audience more narrow and specific by finding out more things related to them.

The skills I used throughout the production of my advertisements have been the ability to find and interpret information from pieces of print and moving media along with text, the ability to use the Adobe suite to create a product, the ability to use a camera to record footage for use, and the ability to plan a set of ads that coherently link to each other. This has helped me create my final product, although I'm much more adept at some aspects than others. I'm not as good at planning and research as I am at recording and editing, and thus both of those fell behind because of it. If I were to do anything differently next time I would improve my abilities to research and plan in an attempt to get them level with my more practical skills.

The media knowledge I used was of advertising tropes and techniques such as plain folk and snob appeal, how to evaluate and critique pieces of media, my work, and others work so I can then improve upon it, and how to operate the equipment needed to use to record and edit my production. This ended up helping me make my product and make good decisions to do with it as I went. Unfortunately I believe I'm not as good at recognising tropes as I am critiquing and operating equipment. Therefore if we do this again I would look towards learning more about the tropes and techniques so I can identify them and use them to a greater effect in my own work.

The understanding I used was the understanding of advertising ideologies and principles including Ethos and Logos and Pathos, how audience affects the type of advert you're trying to make, and what decisions you should make based on the research you've done. This has helped me develop and improve my production as I make it and make better choices when making it. Out of these three, my weakest area would be the research based decisions. Next time if we did this again I would attempt to learn how to put my bias aside so I can make decisions based on new information and reduce my tunnel vision in that regard.

In terms of this being a success, I believe I've done rather a lot to make it successful but there's definitely a lot to improve on.

In research I believe I did well in how I analysed and compared the 4 different adverts, but when it came to the research into my target audience I feel I fell far short. If I did it again I would implement my own primary research alongside the secondary research with things such as questionnaires and surveys while also vastly improving my secondary research with a far greater variety of sources. Of course it also couldn't hurt to improve the variety of sources I compare too.

In the idea and planning stage I need to think more carefully on the practicality of what I want to do and how easy it might be, for instance it's difficult for us to use a car unless we have our own. But aside from that I feel I did well coming up with a variety of well informed ideas and a treatment for said ideas. I just need to remember next time to make sure all the ideas are feasible.

In production I feel I did quite well to shoot and then put together the production with the help of the crew. Although coordination was a severe issue as we needed to make sure to book things like cameras and the studio in advance otherwise they got booked out. Next time we should probably have some kind of proper schedule to work by.

Finally the last complaint I have is that I didn't manage my time well in the slightest. Next time I shall definitely plan ahead and make sure things are done on time and do my absolute best to avoid distractions and procrastination wherever possible.

Aside from that, I believe it was somewhat of a success. Perhaps it wasn't the most successful it could have been, but it could have been worse also.