An Introduction to the News

Documentary Mini-Task

Audience Questionnaire

I sent these questions to a selection of my peers in order to gather relevant information that would help me to create an effective advertisement.

 The first question I asked helped me to figure out which age demographic my target audience is.
70% of people said that they were within the range of 17-19 y/o; 20% of them said they were between 20-22, and the last 10% were 23+.

 The next question was asked to determine how whether my target audience consumes Pot Noodle products. 55% of people said that they do, and the remaining 45% said that they do not.

 Question 3 was asked to ascertain whether current Pot Noodle marketing is effective or not. 40% of people said that they have, while 60% of people said that they have not. This tells me that perhaps the current marketing of Pot Noodle products is insufficiently effective.

 The last question was asked to find out if current Pot Noodle advertisements are entertaining. The sample for this question was significantly smaller than that of the previous questions, as only 40% of people in the survey had seen a Pot Noodle advertisement recently.
 75% of people said that they did enjoy the advert that they had seen, with the remaining 25% of people being indifferent.
 This tells me that current Pot Noodle ads are somewhat on the right track, and means that I will need to analyse and consider what they did and didn't do successfully.

TV Advert Evaluation

Above are five questions I asked five of my peers whom had seen my re-branding advert.
 All five of my respondents managed to figure out what the ad was about; all of them saying something along the lines of 'Two guys make a deal with a Pot Noodle'.
 When asked "Who do you think this ad will appeal to?" most of my respondents said 'I don't know', but two of them said they think this would appeal to teenagers, without giving any reason why. This was not what I intended from my advertisement; real Pot Noodle ads already appeal to this audience, I intended to appeal to slightly more mature audiences, to do this I tried to make it a little less 'goofy' than existing Pot Noodle ads.
I asked my peers if they would purchase the product based on this advertisement: three of them said that they would, and two said that they would not; one of whom gave the reasoning that "I would buy a Pot Noodle if I wanted one, not because I liked one of their adverts".
 Most of my respondents couldn't manage to think of anything specific about the ad that they liked; one of them said that they like how it is goofy, but "in a serious way".
 Three of my respondents said that they disliked the lighting of the short, saying that it was too dark in most of the shots. They also pointed out various inconsistencies in shot framing, lighting and composition.

 We chose Pot Noodle as our product at the last minute; we had already done our re branding presentations and ideas, when one member of our group suggested we try to recreate one of our previous pieces with new characters, and an emphasis on Pot Noodle.

 I think that our finished ad could effectively sell the product if the quality of production was a little higher; unfortunately due to our lack of experience in film making, we ended up with various errors in lighting consistency, and composition. If we were able to eliminate these inconsistencies I think that our production would have been very effective. 

 I think our clarity of communication in this ad was effective, the point of the ad was that one of the individuals forgot to bring the payment, instead attempting to exchange a Pot Noodle laying in their bag, which brings him success; telling the audience that 'you never know when you might need it', further re enforced by the tagline at the end of the ad, stating that exact thing.

TV Advert Analysis

Short Film Review 3 - "Cool Unicorn Bruv" (Ninian Doff)

Cool Unicorn Bruv is a short film created as an entry to the 2013 running of the 'DepicT!' short film competition.

 The short opens with a long-shot of two of the characters, one of whom is describing the features of a bike he intends to sell to his peer.
 We can immediately determine the setting by looking at the architecture surrounding them, and their strong accent; this short is set in London.
 We then see an over the shoulder shot of our salesman further describing the features of the bike; specifically a little bell that goes "ping".
 With the other character saying "I like that...", we cut back to the long-shot, this time they kneel down to better observe the lower portions of the bicycle. We then cut to a medium shot, with the potential buyer asks the salesman "What's with the shocks?", referring to the shock absorbers on the frame of the bicycle. The salesman responds by saying "Imported. The best. You can't even get 'em here!", the buyer then replying "Niiice!".

 We then hear the sound of horses hooves landing on pavement, to which the pair then turn their heads to above the camera. The horses hooves acts as a sound bridge, because we then get a motivated edit to a medium-long shot of a man walking a unicorn down the road.
 The potential buyer asks this stranger "What you got there?", we then get a shot-reverse shot in which the man replies "Its just a unicorn innit?!", to which the buyer replies "Oh yeah!".
 He stands up to get a closer look at the majestic beast and proceeds to ask questions such as "Can it fly and sh*t?", "Can  it go really fast?" and "Can it grant wishes?". The man gives answers such as "Nah that's Pegasus", "I can draw the energy out of the universe, ride the frequency of the cosmos and that, and travel the fourth dimension" and "Of course it grants wishes man, its a Unicorn". Our salesman buts in, stating "Yeah well this has got like, ten gears so...".
 The salesman is not happy with the appearance of this stranger, as it is distracting his potential customer from the transaction. He attempts to regain control of the situation by aggressively barking "Alright thank you... See ya later yeah?". The stranger leaves with "Alright. Safe".

 We cut back to the long-shot of our two main characters, with the unicorn exiting shot on the left. The salesman then asks his peer "So do you still wanna buy the..." during which his peer interrupts him with "Naaah!"; exiting shot.
 The short then ends with a long-shot of the man walking the unicorn down the road, with a pull-focus to the salesman who calls the man an obscene name.

 My favourite aspect of this short is the juxtaposition of these young, London men and the majesty of the mythical creature; you would not expect to find such an animal in a borough of London. The characters also seem to act abnormally calm during the interaction, as if unicorns are commonplace in the world.
 As well as that, I appreciate the great cinematography and acting throughout the piece, making it feel like a real TV-drama

Re-branding Pre-Production Paperwork