Week 8 – Gareth RB Edwards

Reflective Journal
Week 8
Monday 09-11-2020 to Sunday 15-11-2020

Promo Video Brief – "Make 'Em Laugh!"

The quote “Make ‘Em Laugh” is the name of a song, sung by Donald O’Connor, in the movie Singing in the Rain (1952) whilst he is performing an amazing slapstick dance routine. It is a favourite of mine and comes to mind when I think of humour and comedy. We may not be aiming with our promo video to make people laugh as much as I do when I watch Donald O’Connor in that clip, but we do want to make them smile.

In our lesson with our tutor Nick, he gave us the opportunity to either create our own idea from scratch for our promo video, or to react to a brief that he had created called “Don’t Come to Amersham”. I was immediately intrigued by this title. I realised that, obviously, no-one is actually going to want a promo video to persuade people NOT to go somewhere, so there must be a twist. And as I have mentioned many times, I like twists.

Nick explained that the idea of this brief is that a client wants a promo video made to persuade people who live in London that moving out to Amersham is a good idea. The idea is that because of Covid-19, living in London isn’t as popular as it was, and many Londoners are wanting to move out to somewhere more pleasant. Amersham Town Council wants to promote Amersham as a desirable place for these Londoners to move to. The Project Deliverable is 30 second video for use on a range of platforms including TV and Social Media Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Regarding the Target Audience, the Primary Audience is London residents, in particular the half of London residents who are looking to move home out of London. There is also a Secondary Audience of existing Amersham residents, with an aim of promoting a “sense of pride and ownership in their community”. Another key message that was required was to have a take-away message that people in Amersham are funny, warm, ironic, entrepreneurial and community minded.

So far, so good, but I hadn’t heard the twist that I was hoping for. But then Nick explained the Tone of Voice that was required by the client – “Humour and wit are essential elements”. And also that “Your video will have failed if people don’t smile”. That was more like it!

Nick explained that the video should work “counterintuitively” which means that, in order to create humour, the words deliberately oppose the images on the screen. An example that he gave is that if it says “there’s rubbish piled up in the streets” then you could accompany it with a shot of “one single crisp packet which someone immediately picks up”. He also explained that the “client” had provide a script, and that it was our job to work with that script to plan, shoot and edit a suitable promo video. He did say that we didn’t HAVE to take the script exactly as it was, we could change it if we wanted.

Our usual 90%Bloopers plus Charlie G had a chat, and we liked the humour element of this. We also liked that if we use the script as presented then we could focus our time on our cinematography skills, the sound, editing etc, hopefully creating a really professional promo advert. We listened to the recorded Voice Over and it’s really good, it sounds very professional, not surprising really since it was recorded by Nadira, who is an Industry Professional. We felt this would help us to create a really polished final product.

We decided that we wanted to go with this brief, for the following reasons. As a group, humour suits our strengths, so we were confident that we could deliver a good project. We also still wanted to challenge ourselves and learn new skills, and we felt that the elements that were already pre-done are areas that we as a group are generally good at, such as the script, and so this would allow us to focus on improving in new areas such as camera skills for example. We still had a few ideas for twists that we could add to the script, to put our own 90%Bloopers mark on it.

Particularly during lockdown, I feel that it is important to know your strengths and use them to get the best experience out of a project. We have already had so many unexpected things happen due to Covid-19 that I felt we had to “expect the unexpected”. This is reflective of what happens in the Film/TV Industry, and of what IS currently happening in the Film/TV Industry due to Covid-19. Everyone is having to find ways to work around Covid-19 to try to avoid cancelling projects, but many are ending up having to be cancelled. I didn’t want our project to be one of them.

Promo Video Proposal Planning

After this introduction to the project brief, we started planning in more depth. We worked on planning our storyboard, shot list, risk assessment and kit list. We planned our location scouting. We discussed where there might be bins. We discussed what time of day we would need to film so that there wouldn’t be too many people there, to be Covid-safe. Ellie numbered the shots that we were thinking of, according to locations, to be efficient when filming.

We discussed how long it would take us to walk between the various locations that we were thinking of and started to group potential shots by location. We discussed the idea of asking Harley to film a cat that visits his garden as “dangerous wildlife”. Nick explained that Nadira hadn’t really meant to laugh at the roaring bit, “raahhh” but I said I like the laughing because it fits.

Our twist idea is to have Jack as a consistent actor in many shots actually trying to sabotage the “niceness” of the counter images that we are portraying. For example, when the VO says “Terrible violent crime problems…” we plan to have Adam sitting happily on a bench in nice surroundings. Then we will see Jack rush up to him in a threatening, scary way, then see Adam turn to look at Jack then just turn back and ignore him. Jack will give up and walk away. So, to give it added depth and a “90%Bloopers twist”, Jack is trying to sabotage the counterintuitive message of the image but failing. This should emphasise the counterintuitive humour in the shots even more.

We discussed what equipment to film on. We considered the black magic but decided that our DSLRs would be more flexible for this project. Also, we need smooth, un-shaky shots to get the glossy, professional feel that we are after, which means we will be using tripods, whereas the black magic is great for handheld shots. Also I have 3 lenses for my DSLR which could be useful when we go into our shots in more detail.

We defined job roles, came up with ideas for shots that could go with the VO script, and started talking about the tone we were after. We felt, that unlike in an action sequence where you mirror fast paced action with lots of fast cuts, we wanted a relaxed and unhurried pace, with longer cuts to mirror the fact that life in Amersham is relaxed and Londoners will enjoy it.

Promo Video Proposal

We had a Proposal Meeting with Nick to present our ideas. We recorded this, and it is on my main Unit 11 Promotional Video section of my website.

Nick liked our shot ideas so far. For example, we have found a way to include Harley who is shielding due to Covid-19. We are suggesting that he is the editor. I also explained another idea that we have to include him. That is where the script mentions the savage wildlife and the VO goes “raaarrrr!”. Harley loves cats and our idea for that is to have Harley be “2^nd Unit” and film the cat who comes into his garden including one of her meowing or yawning to dub the “raaarrr” over. Nick said that’s a really nice idea, both for including Harley, to keep our group doing good teamwork, and also for the “raarrr” dub. He thought the idea of a cat going meow fitted the counterintuitive idea very well.

As Director, I talked through the creative brief, what we are trying to achieve. To have contradicting images to the words, however also adding our own unique twist by having one constant actor showing up trying to actually do what the words are showing e.g. a field with a nice ambience, birds chirping, and then the camera pans to Jack who will let out a wonderful screech, the only sound except for the pleasant ambient sounds, and be off in the distance so that you don’t really hear it that much. Other contradictory acts will be like trying to throw some rubbish in the bin, missing, that rubbish being the only rubbish on the ground, then being a good citizen and actually picking it up and putting it in the bin. Nick liked all this and reiterated that the overall approach to this is entirely saying one thing and showing another, humorously and beautifully, that’s the point, and we are getting that point and showing it very well.

He asked if we’d thought of what type of music. I said calm, peaceful, nice gentle music, to add to the peace and tranquillity of Amersham, while the voiceover is playing. Are we going to stick with the script or alter it, do we want to add to it at all? I said I think we are going to stick with it, however if we find that something doesn’t quite line up with the shots then we may redo it ourselves later on, but our original idea is to use the voice over. Adam confirmed we really like Nadira’s voiceover. Nick said that something that he had just thought of is to maybe have a dialogue going on maybe with a character sort of whispering in Nadira’s ear i.e. saying one thing and saying another at the same time. So Nadira says “don’t move to Amersham it’s very noisy etc” and Jack whispers “no it’s not, it’s fine”, you could use captions to work round it too.

I’ve had a think about this. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure that it would work with the twist that we have thought of as Jack trying to sabotage the images so that they match the words instead of being opposite to them. If he were to try to “sabotage” the words too, then it could get confusing as to which message he is actually trying to give and which he is trying to sabotage.

Nick said that we have some really nice ideas here and we’ve understood the brief really quickly and gone with it with the humour and style, so we have successfully completed the first bit of this Unit and Assignment which is to “Understand the nature of a Commercial Brief”

Promo Video Brief – "Make 'Em Laugh!"

Promo Video Proposal Planning

Promo Video Proposal

More tutor feedback about my Research Paper Idea