Skills Development1) The first and probably most important skill that I have developed is how to create a Flat Plan. Seeing as I have never created a flat plan before, it was good to learn what they did and how they were important. Without a Flat Plan, I don't think my advert would have turned out anywhere near as "organised" as it did. By using the Flat Plan I knew exactly what I needed to do and how it was supposed to look without having to improvise on the spot.
2) Another important skill that I developed was learning how to correctly target an audience. Once again, I had no skills or knowledge of how to do so and after taking notes and watching presentations, I feel that I have at least a slight understanding of how to target a correct audience, but I still have a lot to work on in order to get it perfect.
3) Despite already knowing the basic tools on Photoshop, a skill that I picked up whilst creating my print advert was how to move cut one image out from another and transfer it onto another sheet by using 'save selection'. I had always taken a much longer, drawn out process of doing this but being able to simply save selection and drag it across really made things a lot easier for me.
3) Despite already knowing the basic tools on Photoshop, a skill that I picked up whilst creating my print advert was how to move cut one image out from another and transfer it onto another sheet by using 'save selection'. I had always taken a much longer, drawn out process of doing this but being able to simply save selection and drag it across really made things a lot easier for me.
Skill Weaknesses
As I have only just learned how to create a Flat Plan for an advert, I think that I still have a lot more things to learn and therefore this is one of my weak points. By no means was my Flat Plan 100% perfect and I was a little bit confused about what had to go in the Rationale, but I did try my best. Linking in with this is the fact that I also don't 100% know how or what I need to do in order to decipher my target audience and how to appeal to them. I believe I can learn a lot more in both of these fields and that it will be really beneficial to my work when I do. These are the two core things that will help me create better adverts.
Key Questions
1) Obviously, in order to create my final print I had to create a flat plan for it. In fact, for my print advert, I had to use all of them: flat planning, targeting and audience and in the final steps of my advert, 'save selection' on Photoshop.
2) I have used them all relatively effectively, as my print advert did turn out the way I had planned it on my Flat Plan. It wasn't 100% exact but it was fairly similar, the models in similar positions and pulling similar expressions, the main theme of the advert being the smiley face created from the blu-tack. As for a targeting and audience, I think that I probably could have done better if given more time to think about it, but generally, I think it does appeal to the target audience I had chosen. The target audience was 16-20 year old males who enjoyed a bit of humour and I believe that our advert captures this.
3) Because before I began Media this year, I had no knowledge of target audience, flat planning or anything like that. Simply by creating a flat plan and being able to appeal to a certain audience is proof that I am already starting to develop some skills.
4) The main weakness with our storyboard and advert was that fact that the pictures from the camera came out very blurry. When they were on the camera, we didn't really pay attention to it but as soon as we loaded the pictures onto the computer it was obvious that they were very, very blurred. This was because we had some how managed to change the SLR settings to 'manual' instead of 'auto'. Apart from that, we probably could have taken a few more photos too, so we had a wider selection of what to put in our storyboard in particular instead of having to deal with the bare minimum that we already had. Perhaps if we had a little bit more time to plan and base our product around an idea the final product would have been more professional-looking but apart from that, I think it came out very well.
5) As said before, I would make sure that I took a range of different photos, maybe even some of the same thing but at different perspectives and camera angles so when looking over the photos I could choose which one was more effective. A bigger selection would make my choice vaster and would mean that I wouldn't have to just deal with what I had. It leaves less room for mistakes and having to re-do things.
6) It would easily be working out how to target and audience properly. I struggled with coming to terms with all of the requirements for targeting an audience but I think within time and me learning the proper way to go about things, it will become a lot easier. Another thing that would help me move towards a more professional outcome would be more skills in Photoshop, such as using the Pen Tool to cut images out more precisely and learning more tricks with the fonts.
Additional Questions
1) Beforehand, my product (Blu-Tack) was probably aimed at an older audience, such as 25-30 year olds, who are home owners and wanted to keep their walls clean and intact whilst hanging things up.
1) Beforehand, my product (Blu-Tack) was probably aimed at an older audience, such as 25-30 year olds, who are home owners and wanted to keep their walls clean and intact whilst hanging things up.
2) Our new target audience is aimed at 16-20 year old males who have a sense of humor.
3) The main feature of our advert that I believe would attract our target audience was the "male humor" within the advert. The advert shows a young couple sat a couch. The boy is holding his arm across the screen and holding grinning lips shaped out of Blu-Tack to his grumpy looking girlfriend's mouth. This would tap into the male sense of being more dominating whilst also being funny.
4) I probably could have used different, more "mainstream" looking models compared to the ones that I did use in my advert. The problem with using models that are more alternative looking means that it immediately cuts out a whole section of target audience based on purely appearance. If I used more mainstream looking models, then I could appeal to the whole range of teenagers instead of a small proportion of them.
5) Apart from changing the models, I would probably change the setting purely because we had to make use of the couches in the Arts Centre. I would probably set it in an actual room and have a long-shot instead of a close-up shot, to emphasise that they are just a regular couple in a normal room.
6) I would say that yes, it is, but not 100%. As stated before, there are quite a few things I could change to make it even more appealing to my target audience, such as different models, setting, ect, but apart from that I think that it does appeal widely to 16-20 year old males who enjoy the 'humor' factor out of adverts instead of the 'facts' side of things. It plays directly into the idea of a "nagging girlfriend" and then having a quick solution for it. Although you couldn't really shut your girlfriend up with some Blu-Tack, the suggestion is funny and therefore makes the viewer more aware to what you could do with it.
7) It demonstrates it simply by me saying what skills I have developed, my weaknesses and what I thought I have done well. By being able to explain myself and my choices I hope that it shows that I have at least a vague understanding of what we have been doing and what I have done with my advert. I have tried my best to appeal to my targeted audience and hopefully I have managed to pull it off well, especially with playing into the humour side of things. By creating my Flat Plan and sticking to it means that I know what I have to do in order to stick with my original ideas and not to go off on a tangent with random out-of-nowhere ideas.
