Commercial: Creative Critical Reflection

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

Similar to most Nike commercials, our commercial seeks to display our product in an everyday setting but being used to defy the conventions of that setting. Specifically, our scene starts off with a panning shot to show a student in class waiting for the bell to ring. But after a cutaway to show the clock, the actor, instead of walking out of class like every other student, sprints out of the classroom, slides down the stairs, and even jumps over a ladder. Therefore, the commercial is trying to represent those who stand out thus appealing to those who live average lifestyles hoping to change that.

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?

The intended audience of this commercial are younger individuals who want to stand out and defy expectations. We do this by beginning the commercial establishing a relatable setting for almost all students, but instead of doing what they would have typically done, leaving class calmly, the commercial shows that by wearing Nike the consumers can defy the norms of society. But at the end of the commercial it reminds the audience that the actor is just a normal person who can be clumsy and trip showing that anyone can do what we just saw the actor do when they have the right apparel on. Since the audience is younger, putting the commercial following shows that have a watcher demographic of younger people would be the most efficient way to distribute the media.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Although going into the project my group and I had a set plan on how we wanted to create our commercial, following that plan wasn’t as simple as that. Time management was probably the most important skill that I developed working on the film. With only two days for filming, fitting all the shots we needed to film into a total of 3 hours was definitely hard at times. I had to figure out how to improve the time it took to film a shot without sacrificing the quality of that shot. We did this by doing several practices runs of each shot so it would only take us 1 or 2 takes to get the shot right. Similarly, my planning skills by creating my storyboard improved significantly. What started off as just a simple concept in my head now had to be a 6+ panel story board that was due by the end of class. I was able to complete it by picturing in my head how the commercial would go from shot to shot and eventually landed on 9 shots that we couldn’t change too much once filming started.

4.     How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

Throughout this project we used a culmination of software, hardware and online to make our commercial. To start off, we used hardware like my iPhone to record all the shots. After we finish a shot, we would go back through all the takes and would favorite the one we liked the most so that by the time we edit we know which take was the best. During the editing process we used iMovie as our editing software due to it being free and simple to use. It allowed us to do everything we wanted to without any complications. And lastly, we used YouTube to find all the songs we wanted to try for our commercial.

Commercial Blog

 Throughout the duration of this project I had a lot of fun. My groupmates and I worked very well together and created a commercial I'm really proud of. We all took the lead in separate parts that fit our strengths and diving up the workload this way was extremely beneficial. We worked together through a lot of ups and downs but still managed to get it done. Whether it was finishing a blog at 11:59, hurting my butt sliding down the stairs, or even nearly deleting the entire commercial, we persevered. Even at home I was still able to pull my weight when it came to the editing. For my first commercial I learned so much about how films are made and I'm ready to start applying that knowledge into real life experiences. Although it was a lot of work at times, I believe the end goal was worth it. And if anything this got me even more excited for the next project. The rest of the year in this class is looking very optimistic.

Finding Music

 During my second day of editing I was thankfully in school and able to help my groupmates. We only had one major task today and that was finishing the entire audio for the commercial. The plan was that we each came in with a couple song suggestions and would try them all out. The day before I listened to many different songs ranging from Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd all the way to Good Feeling by Flo Rida. The first song I suggested was Butterfly Effect by Travis Scott. We added it to the commercial and did a couple listen throughs to see how it sounded. Ultimately we decided that it was too slow and didn't fit the energetic nature wanted for the commercial. The second song I suggested was Hot by Young Thug. At first we tried the actual song and didn't like it but then I suggested we use just the beat without the vocals. We definitely liked this one a lot more but still wasn't what we had hoped for. My third and final suggestion was Life Goes On by Lil Baby. Similar to the last song we tried the instrumental and actually liked how it sounded. It wasn't perfect but it was the best song we've tried thus far. After settling for that song, me and bliss focused on the ending where it fades to black into the Nike logo. It took us a while to get right but eventually we did and it looked good. We then ironed out a couple other mistakes in the editing as the day started to wind down. Right before we were ready to call it a day, Luke suggested another song for us to use. The name of the song was Run That Race. After listening to it for the first time I instantly knew that It was perfect for the mood we wanted in the video. So we threw it on the commercial and it sounded just as we'd hope.

Editing From Home

 For today the task at hand was editing. Unluckily, I wasn’t able to make it to school today to edit in person so I helped out mostly at Home. Since I wasn’t at school I was able to start the editing before my group mates could so I decided to put all the clips together into a 30 second video so all they had to worry about was the audio and other effects for the commercial. The first thing I did was upload every single take that we liked for each scene into iMovie in the order we wanted them to appear. This part was really easy to do since we had the story board plan out all the shots and we had ordered them prior to the actual editing process. I then trimmed all of the clips to start when I entered the shot and to end when I left the shot. But even after all of this trimming we had way too many shots and the commercial was 15 seconds over time. So the first thing I did was delete all the unnecessary shots which ended up being the one of me running with a wide shot and another scene of me running past the camera that was similar to another shot. Now with all the necessary scenes I was still a couple seconds over the time. My next idea to shorten the video was to trim each shot a bit more. For example in the scene of me sliding down the stairs, there is an additional 2 seconds to the original shot where I ran off to the left. But seeing how that didn’t add anything to the final project I cut it out. I did similar things to all the other shots and finally got it down to less than two seconds over the 30 second limit. I was talking to my group mates for advice and Luke suggested that I sped up some of the clips by 10-20% and see how it looked. So I tested this out for every scene and for some of them it worked. Obviously the first shot of me tapping my feet didn’t look good sped up since I was tapping them way too fast and it looked obvious it was sped up. Similarly with the shot of the clock I couldn’t speed it up because the time needed to be accurate. But for some of the scenes of me running around the school, they actually looked better when I did them faster. The two ones I changed were the wide angle shot of me throwing off my jacket and the shot where I slid down the stairs. With the commercial now at the 30 second length I sent it over to my group and trusted them to do the rest of the editing. 

Intentionally Tripping Five Times

 On the itinerary for October 4th was wrapping up the filming. We only had three more shots to do so as a group we wanted to make sure we do them all right since we couldn’t refilm anything after this day. Sadly bliss couldn’t make it today to film but she still helped us from home. The first shot we did was the one of me changing shoes. We had to think a lot about how to do turn me taking off one shoe and putting on another while running into a shot less than 5 seconds. After multiple attempts we landed on having the shoe I had on very loose so that I could kick it off and than put on the other shoe while hopping along. We took a couple takes and sent bliss the one we liked the most and once she approved of it we went on to the next shot. We wanted to refilm the scene with the ladder next because we didn’t like how it looked last class. So me and Luke grabbed two of our other friends who finished their filming already and asked them to hold the ladder up for the shot. This only took us one take to get right so we didn’t spend too much time on it. And just like last time we got the best take approved by bliss before moving on. The last shot was probably the hardest and the one we planned out the most for the commercial. It was going to be the last part of the commercial where I finally make it to the track but trip and fall when I get there. We tested out many different angles for this shot ranging from a low angle close shot to a very far wide shot. Eventually we landed on a angle we liked and did a couple practice runs to make sure the tripping looked believable. I had to find a way to balance looking real and not actually hurting myself during this part and we ended up finding a medium between the two. We also had to wait for other groups filming at the track to finish because we didn’t want to have them in the background of our commercial. After a lot of falling we eventually got a shot that the three of us liked and stuck with it. I washed off the dirt from my hands and knees and went back inside to conclude this long day of filming. Unlike last time I was able to make it away with today’s filming session without hurting myself. 

Hurting my Butt Sliding Down the Stairs

 On September the 30th, my group and I started filming. We already had all of our shots planned on so we decided to film all the outdoor shots first. This is because we were the first group to start filming so we had to wait for the classroom to clear out for the shots we did indoors. We went right to the stairs because we knew a lot of other groups wanted to film there so we needed to get those shots done early before the other groups started. The shot we did on the stairs was me jumping onto the side of the stairs and sliding down the edge. We started by doing a practice run of the shot so we knew where the cameraman needed to be. As you can see in the picture Luke was directing me for where to start running and how to angle my body so you can see the Nike apparel. On my first run-through of the shot, I slid down too fast and landed on my butt. Luckily, It didn't hurt too bad and I realized what I did wrong so I was able to get it right for the real shot. The next shot we worked on was the scene where I threw my backpack and took off my hoodie while running down the halls. I suggested we made this a wide shot where you can see me throw the backpack right when I enter the shot and pick it up right before I exit the shot. It took many tries but we eventually got a take we liked with everything going right. Around this time we went back into our classroom and filmed the scenes indoor. I had to have an anxious face and seem like I was staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring. As the camera panned down to my feet I started to tap my foot to further show how anxious I was while showing off the Nike logo on the shoe. We filmed two more scenes of me running through the halls to put in between the other shots in the commercial. In one of them, I hurdled over a ladder but after we reviewed the shot we decided we want to refilm it during our next filming day because the people holding the ladder looked awkward without moving. To end our filming day we planned out what our final shot is going to look like. We practiced where the cameraman should be so I had to lay down on the track for a couple of minutes until we found a wide shot angle that worked. We have 2 new scenes we need to film in the next class and one scene we need to reshoot.