DCA Productions

This is a reflection for the adverts me and my group made for unit 30, the aim of the assignment was to see how we were with advertisement production by creating two. Individually we generated ideas and then took them forward as a group.
One of the ideas that we took was Aaron’s who suggested to make a ghost advert, the reason we chose to use this was because we thought it could look like a ghost video that you usually find on the Internet and ghost videos can become viral.

The other idea was taken from myself which was the temptation advert, my reason for this advert was that as I was thinking about what we could do, I thought all these companies are always saying that their product is irresistible but on their advert people are sharing or never really try to show how good their product is, so why not show the consumer just how irresistible the product is and that you can’t resist the ‘temptation’ or ‘fight the feeling anymore’, I also thought it would show humour which is the type of advert which is viral and stays in peoples memory or even subconscious which will allow the product to pop into the consumers mind when they are out buying this type of product.

First off the advertising techniques, for the ghost advert we used interesting character, (the ghost), this character was created and defines the role it plays, Aaron took the role of the ghost in the advert, this was to scare the rest of the characters played by myself, Chloe and Adame, I guess you could even say this advert uses the Rebel technique as Aaron scares us away so he can have the chocolate not something that people in society do, and not seen by a normal ghost video.

The Temptation advert uses rebel as the character played by me steals the character played by Aarons chocolate when he goes to get his coat; this is an unnatural thing to see in the society which shows the rebel part of it, Humour was also used as the character played by me eats the chocolate and his eyes begin to water from happiness, the non diegetic sound then cuts out and Aaron’s character comes over and looks at my character in a strange scary kind of way which goes well with the cut of the music as the awkward moment between the two has engaged and neither one knows what to say.

The editing for the Ghost advert was just one shot the whole way through, we took three individual shots and overlaid them to give the ghost effect the layer with the ghost the opacity was turned down so Aaron was see through, a shot with nothing on screen was used so that when Aaron picks the chocolate up it would no longer be there, a green filter/tint was used over the video and a gradient/noise burst effect as we were making the shot look as if it was being filmed from a CCTV camera.

The editing for the Temptation advert was a mixture consisting of mainly fast paced shots and a few medium paced shots, I think this type of editing gave a positive reaction with the style and story of the advert, the boy was trying to see what the other boy has since the Dairy Milk had caught his attention and notices its a Dairy Milk, then a close up of the Dairy Milk, then shows boy forgot coat, other boy stands up sees Dairy Milk has been left and runs over, (music kicks in), a little manipulation of diegetic time when he opens the bar, (not cutting a long period of time). there was no special effects or overlays or anything but it does use diegetic sound for music, (Reo Speed-wagon - Cant fight this feeling),

If I was to watch these adverts never having seen them before and had to give my opinion on them, I would say that the ghost advert seemed strange at first and would notice it was on CCTV, I would get the feeling it had something to do with a creepy supernatural creature from previous experience of watching ghost videos, (especially if I didn’t know it was an advertisement for Dairy Milk), after I would wonder whats going on, seeing the ghost I’d know why the people ran and be thinking this must be fake, (or if I knew it was an advertisement for Dairy Milk would laugh at the idea of the ghost), and after seeing the ghost pick up the chocolate and eat it I would find it humorous.

To improve this I would have added some kind of diegetic sound such as a creepy quiet beat, or added the diegetic sound which the audience may think is non diegetic such as the moans of a ‘Ghost’ or something, but the reason their isn’t non diegetic sound is because CCTV cameras don’t usually pick up sound, but some diegetic music would have worked.

I would also say that the Temptation advert was easy to understand what was happening once the close up of the Dairy Milk had been shown, (I’d know thats what the boy was trying to look at), after watching the rest I would find it quite humorous, the stealing of the chocolate and after the diegetic sound cuts, (music), that awkward silence between the two boys and the way the boy who returns, (Aaron), looks at the other boy, (myself/Declan).

To improve this I would, (if I had more time), use more of the shots we had and longer so the audience had more viewing of Aaron walking out of the canteen, I would also have used one of the other alternative endings to see how it would have looked and gone through them, if I had more time to edit I would have added some diegetic music to the parts before the ‘Can’t fight this feeling’ so the atmosphere could build up before the chocolate bar was taken.

Looking at both adverts I’d say they were successful in continuing the tradition of Cadbury’s previous Dairy Milk adverts, the random style, humour and interesting character, i.e. the gorilla advert had interesting character, was random and can be seen as humorous. These are the kinds of adverts that are implanted in to consumers minds and subconscious and is a very effective way to sell the product, I think randomness fits the times we are in today as well, in my opinion if these types of adverts were shown in the past, either ours or the gorilla advert I don’t think it would receive as much positive feedback as it does nowadays.

If I had a chance to redo this I would have a better idea of what goes into a Dairy Milk advertisement and just how quickly 30 seconds can be used up in editing, I would come up with more random ideas know what the audience wants. I would throw random words into a bucket and pick them out, or maybe use some other type of animal.

A few problems that was come across during this Unit was the CCTV camera had to be at a high view but we had to try and press play with out moving the camera, but this was overcome by doing the whole thing in one shot, then it was later broken into the individual parts that were needed.

Another problem was that after the holidays when we came back the Temptation advertisement’s shots in the edited version in Adobe premiere pro had gone all ‘missing’ and had to be found but every time I clicked a shot it froze the program I then went onto the computer which had it on the Local C drive and did it in a different way which worked and the problem was overcome.

Both advertisements do not offend or harm any viewers, they does not break any rules or regulations.The ghost adverts actors used a mixture of ethnicities and sex, (we had a Muslim boy who was French, a German boy, an English girl and an English boy)

The Temptation was also used a German boy and English boy, this advertisement does include the rebel technique which could be seen as encouraging stealing but I believe bot advertisements do not break any morals in a way that encourages it, but if somebody says it does in the Temptation advert with stealing then thats their opinion as individual people from the audience will have several opinions.

After uploading the Temptation advert I put a disclaimer to say that me or DCA productions do not own any of Cadbury or Dairy Milk products and that we were not making any money from the advertisement, this way the advert will not get banned for Copyright Infringment.