AICE Media Studies Blog

 1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues? Jansport backpacks is always at the forefront of new designs, movements, and ideas. No wonder everywhere you look at school you see their backpacks. They've truly created trends. It's clear to see. We purposefully made our commercial representative of current social issues. Bullying is shown in the commercial, referencing the still, relevant problem of bullying in schools. 2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text? By talking directly to the audience, we directly engage with them. Asking them questions and handing real time simple solutions with end with our product. I think a transliteration of this commercial into a magazine, blog, or news ad would be practical. In 2 paragraphs you could convey our message and reassure the reader of their decision. 3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

 There were a lot of lessons we gained as a group for the commercial. Making the ad has given us the skills we'll need to work on future projects. The first thing we did as a group was research and planning, which enabled us to find inspiration and come up with a commercial concept. It was slightly different from the commercial in the storyboard. We all realized that we needed to spend more time on the storyboard and consider whether it was what we wanted the commercial to look like. It's ideal to make changes to the storyboard during the storyboarding process rather than during production. We were allowed to begin filming from here. The ideal strategy for filming is to be prepared but to just go for it; starting to film was the best decision I ever made. It feels as though it isn't over. It went by so fast. Maybe it was due to how easy it felt. 

 As we finish our editing I can see how much we've done. Its been such a short time but we did so much. Editing, filming, etc. I actually tried to edit it myself. Turns out it was already quite sufficient. We added some personal humor. Making our commercial more relatable. I know I said that we did not want to add dialogue. But we added it. The dialogue definitely improved the commercial. We made it sound inspirational. It added a sense of influence. Now hopefully people will buy jansport. We know our commercial was not perfect. I think we all learned how to collaborate with each other. Take other people's ideas. Make them our own. Care about people. Listen to the ideas. I realized I'm not the only idea maniac.

 Now that we finished filming, it is time for editing. Jade cut all the clips. She cropped them and uploaded them. She decided to use iMovie. She also added music in the background. We decided that it did not need dialogue. We felt that we could tell our story without it. I helped Jade somewhat. When it came to the colors and saturation of the commercial. I also learned the new skill of iMovie. At first it looked simple. But with time it got harder. I thought it was a simple editing tool. Watching Jade do magic on our commercial was hard to follow. I think that if I needed to edit something in the future, I could use iMovie. There is more components we need to add in the future. I like how it is so far. It needs that extra boost. But sometimes, simple is better. It'll be an important decision that will make or break the commercial I believe.

 I shot everything in one day. Since our storyline of our commercial was a continuous plot, we had to make sure everything was done in 1 day. The weather, costumes, and timing. These are all important factors that must align. Especially since the commercial was continuous. If one thing changed, it would be noticeable. It also worked to our advantage that the commercial was 30 seconds. We cracked out the commercial quickly. With the help of Addison. She created our storyboard. A vison for what it should look like. This helped us with smooth sailing. We kept the dialogue silent. We decided that we were going to put music over it. More like a representative commercial. Leaving the video dialogue less. Allowing our audience to interpret it themselves. I am excited for the editing process. I believe it will be easy. We intended for it to be simple.