Name: Gregory Bradley Creative Critical Reflection

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues? This product really brings out the spirit of vibrance. It’s meant for people to be proud. it’s meant for people who want to challenge the world with this soda. It’s green and yellow, bright, cheerful, and happy. It challenges that negativity out in the world. It’s meant to be the soda that stands out to people. Ultimately a drink you can feel emotions from! I’d want it to challenge that negative notion and get people happy, make people proud and confident. It represents all that positivity up in the world and it’s all solidified in a single bottle of soda! I think something like that could have a great impact on our world and spread awareness. This commercial was surprisingly normal. It was a normal soda commercial, which says a lot, since a lot of soda commercials nowadays are either super normal or super irregular. I decided to do something in the middle of that, so it kept a balance. I went against the convention with a little creativity, but ultimately kept the same premise.

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text? Sprite engages with audiences by being a clear, vibrant bottle that attracts viewers and grabs their attention overall. That’s how this product gets sold. If I can sell them on packaging and looks, everything else will be in the attitude of the drink (or the person!) Normally you see sprite in more open, realistic places. Places like stores, patios, benches, things like that. I wanted to capture that homey, warm feeling that comes with just sitting down and enjoying a bottle! A lot of soda commercials either tend to be too realistic, or too far out. I decided to get a mix of the two, making my commercial somewhat of both. You'd see this commercial in many areas, from regular after-show commercials and youtube videos.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project? I’d say they developed greatly. At first, I was a bit lost. I didn’t really understand the direction I wanted to go with this commercial. I cut a lot of corners when it came to the idea process and development. I didn’t think much of it until the storyboard. Then, I really had to think. It was a bit tough finding a way to produce this commercial in the way that I wanted. I made the most of it though, and it definitely helped me not only develop my storytelling skills, but my film-making skills as well. I was tested in all categories, and tried my best to integrate things I didn’t know how to do in order to make sure I learned.

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? I did a lot of things! I shared this project with my friends, got their opinion on it. They said it was good but some told me things that I could work on and that really helped come reshoot day. I also integrated a lot of technological use in my filming. Our phone cameras really have advanced! To the point where no former camera can match unless it’s excessively expensive. I also used technology in the editing process. I used a program called After Effects to edit my project. I wanted to make sure that it was clear cut and good enough to be posted. It took a lot of work, and I’m proud of it.

Commercial Blog!

This commercial is the result of all of my work. I had a lot of fun making it! I mostly enjoyed the cool creative shots i thought up during the process. If there's one thing i wish i did, though, it's to add more effects. I relied mostly on my camera prowess this commercial. It didn't turn out too bad, but it could definitely have been better. Overall, i like the idea of my commercial and the message it gave. Compared to my original idea, this is very different. It's just a happy commercial! And most importantly, props go to my wonderful actor who volunteered to help me. I really do enjoy how it came out, and hope to further my knowledge and video-making prowess!

Maybe my editing was too good for Sprite!

Today i did some more editing. Small changes, nothing too big. I tweaked the timeset a bit to make sure it fit the limit i had. I also addressed some discrepancies in cuts i used. I decided to change the music, though. It didn't really fit what i had in mind for it. I wanted a happy, cheery mood, but not too happy, as it kind of takes away from the commercial itself. I think people would focus on it too much, get thrown off by it. I also did a bit of cutting, and moving around of clips. I really liked how i put it together overall, though. I wanted to bring it all together, and here it all is! Music really ties something together and turns it into one. It was a bit hard to find the right track, though. I didn't find any good effects to use, unfortunately. Nothing really caught my eye. Well, nothing except the cool effects the people in the commercials do, but that takes a lot of time and money. I don't have much of either unfortunately (haha!) I tried to make it work to my best ability, in both my editing skill and my cameraman skill. I'd say i did a pretty decent job of both for my first time. Either way, that was about everything i did for editing. I really liked going over every single clip, finding that right shot, looking for the angles and how they all interact with eachother, and that kind of thing.

Is sprite hiring editors?

Today marked the official first day of editing. At first, i didn't know how to approach it. I figured since i was experienced with it, it would be easy. Not quite. It was hard to put everything together considering all of the shots i made. It was also very long... I had a minute of content in total. I was glad that i wasn't under anywhere, though. It's better than being completely under in seconds and having to do an emergency reshoot. I wanted to piece things together in a quick and easy fashion this time around. As it turns out, it fit surprisingly well! I ended up getting everything mapped fairly quickly. I decided that i wanted some effects, but then in the middle decided to stop. I was steering away from my own purpose from the ad, to get people to buy sprite! Effects would take a lot of the attention away from the sprite, so i decided not to. The editing went smoothly, though. I did a lot of fades, but i figured in some instances cuts would be enough. Overall, it was fun to edit and experiment with things. I tried a lot of new things, like cuts and shots, that i had never tried before. I plan on going more in-depth with editing, and finding things that work, without taking away the overall impression. I want to experiment more with zooms, and slow motion.

Reshoot? Soda Problems??

After editing, i really wanted to re-film some parts, so i decided to do that. We filmed again to properly outline the core focus. We re-filmed most of the aspects of the commercial, and got some good shots. I tried to utilize more filming features, like pans, crops, and more of those. I wanted to again focus on the feeling that the article gave. It went pretty well! Except when the soda burst suddenly while shooting a scene where we did a camera angle and threw the sprite. We had a lot of those bursting shots. I found them funny, but unfortunately we couldn't use those shots for something creative. We learned a new method of opening any soda today as well! Luckily, i had something planned out just in case.We didn't only use a single sprite, i used multiple, and decided to buy two cases to ensure it. We had a lot of fun with other people recording too. It was like an actual sprite commercial with a lot of people, and i'm sure people enjoyed the sprite they got to keep! That was my incentive. Seems like something a business guy would do. As of now, there's only one shot i'm wondering about. It's a first-person shot, almost like the camera-man decides to go into the commercial and he's like, "Give me one too!" I thought it would be funny. I think it's a great addition, but i also have to be careful with the ideas i have. Too many could take away from the core commercial, but too little could make it seem dull and boring. Nevertheless, today was a pretty fun reshoot day, and i enjoyed it.

Production Blog

Today was pretty neat! I ended up doing some editing as i finished recording fairly quickly. I had some bad shots, but otherwise i did well in making sure i had others to compensate for them. It turned out surprisingly well! Though, there’s a hole in plot, and it ended up significantly different in comparison to the actual storyboard. I realized that my clips were positioned in a way to where if i had a few more, i could make an actual STORY of a commercial! I found that to be really cool. So i decided to change the premise of the commercial. It’ll be about a guy finding a lost Sprite bottle, and drinking it when he finds it again! I think it’ll be a great ad to cover the overall idea of a sprite.

Everything went surprisingly smoothly. I’m glad everything worked out, i had a lot of extra seconds though, so i had to cut a huge chunk out. Our cuts were a bit lengthy, but we got everything we needed. Next step is the in-depth editing. I want to go further, maybe add effects and stuff to my video. I feel like i did good with camera angles, but it can ultimately use work. I have a lot of improvement i can make.

Today i also helped someone else record their ad. It was a pen ad! I found it really creative. It really outlined the pen itself, i found it kind of ironic as well that the plot was about cheating on a test... considering this is a project for school and all, but i thought it was creative!