Advertising through the ages

Advertising has evolved a lot through the ages, they have become more psychologically based and targeted more at a specific audience.
The very first advertisement ever was in the US on July 1st 1941. It was a 10 second ad for the Watchmaker Bulova He paid $9 for a placement on New York station WNBT before a baseball game. The first advertisement in Britain was on ITV on the 21st Sept 1955 for Gibbs SR toothpaste and the first advertisement that was in colour was for Birds eye frozen peas. The first interactive commercial was for Chicken tonight and let the viewer press the red button in order to get the money off voucher.
The Gibbs SR advert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSSpugVNQD4

Companies place their products in programmes where the actor or actress will wear or consume the particular product. Perhaps an actor might wear a specific make of watch or drink coca cola during the show to promote that product for the company. This is another effective way of advertising their product.
Companies take a product now and market it as much as they can by strategically placing it exactly where the manufacturer knows it will be seen. For example in the middle of a programme like Top gear they would place an advert for shaving foam and razor blades or cars. This is because they know that the main audience watching the show will be male. Therefore they are hitting their specific audience that would want this product directly. Here is an example of such an advert that advertises Lynx deodorant for men.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCZ-6y2UEfM

Another example of this would be an advertisement for a new or existing toy. This would be placed in the middle of a children’s programme after school, this would captivate the children and make them crave the product. Such an advert would not be put on later in the evening as the specific audience would most likely be asleep. For example, adverts during Art attack would have children’s art sets and other toys. The programme the children have been watching would enhance their need for the product. This means they subconsciously want all the products and would pester their parents for it. Thus making the placement of the advert successful. Here is a typical example of a recent advert that might attract young girls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ylbW0OBKJw

ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority and they are an independent regulator of advertising across all Media. They work to ensure that all adverts are legal, decent, honest and truthful. They have a complaint section so viewers can contact them if they are not happy with an advert or they think it is on at the wrong time i.e. something sexual on before the watershed. This body was set up in 1961 to make sure the product is not claiming to do something that is impossible or misleading.
BARB is the Broadcasters Audience Research Board where they show the viewing figures for television, PC’s, laptops and all tablet devices. Any one can go on to their website and see the figures for any programme or channel. So when you are deciding to place an advertisement, you will see where to place it and at what time. Thus enabling you to decide who the relevant audience for your product is.
There is speculation that television adverts are being threatened by digital recorders as viewers can fast forward through the adverts miss them altogether. According to research in the UK, this is not necessarily so. 22% of households had a DTR at the end of 2008. Data from these homes showed that 17% more television was being watched. 82% of the viewing is the usual linear TV without any fast-forwarding. The other 18% of people do watch the programmes at different times after recording them but they still watch 30% of the adverts at a normal speed. This means that overall, people owning a DTR watch 2% more adverts.
The amount of people watching television on the Internet has gone up dramatically. They can watch catch up T.V on sites such as 4OD where you can watch programmes they missed on E4. This has not even stopped advertising. A lot of online television will force you to watch one or maybe two adverts before you can watch the actual programme. The limited amount of adverts online means that getting those spots is extremely expensive.
There are prime time slots for adverts and these are highly expensive. ITV starts from a surprising £1500 for a 10 sec slot. This is an astonishing price compared to the $9 dollars for the first advert. An example of charges is the channel ITV , they charge on a monthly basis. January, February, march and august being the more affordable months and the most heavily demanded months are pre Easter pre Summer and pre Christmas. They sell their space in multiples of 10 seconds with the most popular time length being 30 seconds. Anything over 30 seconds is pro –rata.

Editing techniques

Film and video editing has always been a fascinating and diverse art form. It has an almost invisible importance, captivating viewers without them even noticing.

The use of simple camera techniques can create dramatic impact; guide the viewer through the story; emphasize certain areas and generally control the pace and emotion of the film. This has lead to a high level of engagement with the viewer and no matter how the editing techniques have evolved we are still captivated by watching films. The viewer has evolved with the editing techniques resulting in the high level of devotion and engagement to the wonderful world of film.

The earliest films were not over a minute long, meaning they had no or limited narrative. A great example of this was the work of Louis Lumiere. His film ‘‘La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon’ was known as the very first motion picture. It is a silent documentary made in 1895 that consists of a single shot in which workers are simply leaving a factory. It is only 46 seconds in length meaning its narrative is limited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpKZx090UE

It was quickly discovered that only by editing shots together could you create a more lengthy and complex story. So by the early 1900s films began to cut and paste scenes together. A great example of this is ‘The great train robbery’, produced by Thomas Edison and directed by Edwin S. Porter in 1903. This was the first film to actually tell a story by adding different shots together. As well as adding scenes together, the inclusion of crosscutting was a main feature of the film. This technique hadn’t been used before this.

Cross cutting or alternatively, parallel editing is the technique of alternating two different scenes which are meant to be occurring simultaneously, usually in different places. The clip below is an example of where this has been used in the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc7wWOmEGGY

Here you can see how the scene switches between the robbers and the person they tied up. It continues to switch to another group of people then back to the robbers.

Edwin S. Porter demonstrated in his films that a director could create their own time and space, controlling the very pace of the film. Prior to this, film narratives were simply linear. Two events occurring at the same time would usually be shown from start to finish in succession.

Although Porters films were a breakthrough at the time they were still very basic. Each scene only used cuts to join scenes. This is where director D. W. Griffiths came along. He is best known for his groundbreaking film ‘The birth of a nation’ (1915) which changed the previous primitive idea of editing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEznh2JZvrI&feature=related

Much like Porter he used the crosscutting technique. It is much more clear in this film than in porters that each scene is happening simultaneously. He switches between the two scenes rapidly which builds up more tension and speeds up the pace. This keeps the viewer more stimulated. As well as the crosscutting technique he incorporated new techniques. He used intercutting within scenes. This got rid of the static feel of previous films. It meant that you got to see a scene from different angles making the film flow better according to the emotions of the piece.

He would cut from long shots to close up shots of people. This added a lot more intensity and drama to the scenes. One of the main techniques used in this film is called continuity editing. It was used to maintain a continuous and clear narrative action. This maintained a fluid movement between scenes. A good example of this technique is shown below where the two women are entering a door from the outside. The scene cuts from the outside to the inside. This meant that no matter how far apart the two places actually are, they could both be used smoothly in one scene.

Porter and Griffith paved the way of editing for many years. The techniques they used such as crosscutting, continuity editing and intercutting within scenes are still used in films today. A very successful modern use of crosscutting can be seen in the key scene below from ‘Silence of the Lambs’ (1991). A film directed by Jonathan Demme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts1x6uADFtM

Following on from the Griffith style of editing was the Hollywood style, ‘invisible editing’. This of course became extremely popular. It incorporated the continuity editing style that Griffith used but also developed other techniques such as the 180 degree rule (a guideline that states that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other), the establishing shot (an extreme-long shot at the start of a scene indicating where, and when the rest of the scene takes place) and the short reverse shot (one character is shown looking at another and then the other character is shown looking back. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes they are looking at each other).

Here the techniques are more perfected with the use of colour but apart from that the same techniques have been used. This proves the importance of these techniques. You can see straight away by intercutting within scenes it allows the viewer more insight into the situation.

Altogether the Hollywood style is very subtle and continuous. A great example of this Hollywood ‘invisible editing’ is the work of Alfred Hitchcock. His film ‘rear window’ (1954) especially incorporates all these techniques.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDXoboe7o1w

As you can see that the film begins with an establishing shot as it shows the surroundings of the characters. It then moves up from the cat to other establishing shots that show the surroundings of other characters. The 180-degree rule operates quite obviously in the one–on-one scenes between Kelly and Stewart. The camera refuses to cross the invisible line. The line that is made by the master shot that has established the characters relative position.

All these techniques get used in films made now creating a wondrous array of feeling and emotion. It is these techniques that have enhanced our love of film and fully engaged us over the years.

2011

back after xmas and straight into the next assignments which is 6 charities who want us to make a 3-5min promo for them to send to investers so we went to 4 meetings and chatted to the individual charities members with the support of fiaza and aziz who are from the film board to help guide us and ask the right questions to get the promos right. then we chose what we wanted to do and picked our names out of a hat and allocate us to 2 charities each in groups of four. then we decided on days to film two days for each charity. We will be filming this week and on the days our groups arent filming we will come into college.

Easter Holidays

Well back from the Easter break and finding it hard to get back into the swing of things but sure i will manage i have been working on my Now poster. A man came in from the progression centre at the library to give a talk on UCAS and how to apply to universities and the point system. I looked at the Middlesex University website and saw they were doing a television course and decided i would like to go onto this degree course in the future if i can get enough in loans to cover my living expenses, that was the main thing stopping me so i did a calculator thing and it appears I may well be able to do it.

REFLECTING ON MY POSTER

Reflecting on my movie poster

I feel my movie poster was effective as it was quite a dramatic image and left you feeling you would want to see this movie, it showed what Genre it was and gave you a good idea what the film was about without telling you the film and spoiling it for you. I came up with the idea to do this as I wanted to get my kids involved as it would be free actors. Lol

The skill level I have reached is beginners as I have never used photo shop before and I am only getting the hang of it and I am still learning. I have handed assignments in before the deadline so this shows that I am handling my time management very well.

WHAT INSPIRED ME TO MAKE THIS HORROR POSTER?
What inspired me for the Genre of the poster was I thought about it and decided I fancied doing horror because of the special effects that I could get involved in, blood and gore. I went on the internet and looked at many horror posters and they were scary, jumpy, bloody and suspenseful. I liked that Genre and decide to do it.
There were many with scary, creepy and strange children movies so I decided to use my daughter, she had experience of being in other films so she was perfect and knew exactly what to do so it would be less hassle than getting someone who has never done this before. Then I decided to use my dog who has never done this before but was a very well behaved and trained which they say never work with children and pets I know see why. lol The crew also used ourselves as actors so we could cut down on the numbers involved incase different people wouldn’t turn up on different days. I decide to use the hanging of the girl photo for the poster as it was a important and dramatic point. The other photo I chose is the one with the knife through the frosted glass as this as a poster made you think god what is happening in this film and want to watch it so I think I achieved what I set out to do and I think the poster is appropriate for the type of audience that likes horrors.

Media Studies

I have enrolled on a college course for 2 years doing media studies and i am quite enjoying it even though i am the oldest person on the course and the majority of them are 16-18years so it is a bit weird sometimes but loving the course.