Red Bull Advert

This is our finished outcome of our redbull advert.

Audience Feedback Group

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OXUJ64-koyQ

Above is a link to our audience feedback group with references to their responces to our final advert.

Evaluation

Overall, I think that our stop motion animation turned out successful. Our target audience also agrees so I think that is a good indication. We produced an advert advertising the energy drink ‘red bull.’ The red bull can had a pair of googly eyes attached to it, to show emotion and to give the impression that the can is alive. The advert starts with a shot of a man waking up, looking extremely tired and hung over. He desperately shouts “red bull”, which shows that the product is a necessity when people are feeling how he is. This is followed by a shot of a Red bull can which is placed on a shop shelf. The can will wiggle from side to side as if it is responding to the voice. The audience then watches the can travel by itself through various scenes until it reaches to the man who is in need of it.

Our advert appeared to be quite successful, however it did have its downsides. The majority of our target audience said that they wouldn’t make any changes, whereas the other half suggested some. Laurie Butcher said “you should have a tagline at the end to make it clearer”. I personally thought this too. This would have been a clear indication to the audience what the brand is and it would’ve grabbed their attention. We originally were going to have a sign come up at the end, but we unfortunately didn’t as we were short of time. Issy Lock said “maybe at the end you could’ve made it a bit more clearer that the guy was in need of the drink”. When viewing our advert to the class, people had also said this to me. When the guy drinks the redbull, he should’ve looked relieved that he has drunk it. The main reason why people would want the drink is to feel relieved and refreshed, so as Issy has stated, if we were to film the advert again, we would shoot this scene again. Film makers should always ask the audience they are targeting their opinions in order to produce a successful outcome. Their opinions are what matters most as the overall outcome is targeted at them, so they obviously need to love it.

 

Throughout the advert there are noises which the can is making. This makes the advert fun, and reminds the audience that the can is alive. We produced the noises the can was making, by recording it on garage band, then changing the pitch to make the noises higher. We gathered the other sound effects, such as the can dropping on the ground, from garage band and youtube. I thought this was a very successful part of our advert, as the sound effects were precise and on queue. We recorded the voice at the end of the advert, using a microphone, then connecting and saving the footage to the computer.

By creating the illusion that the can was moving, we used stop motion, by taking a picture then moving the can ever so slightly each time. Even though the outcome will be very effective, the problem about this technique was that if the camera jolts slightly, the sequence is ruined. A problem we had whilst doing this technique, was that half way through our recording, the sun came out and there was a defined shadow on the concrete. So we therefore had to wait a long time until it disappeared. We had to wait for many things and people that suddenly came in the scene, so using this technique was also very time consuming. However this technique has proved to be very popular with our target audience. Georgia Imrie especially liked the style and way that it was filmed and thought it made the advert really interesting.

One thing we thought was quite difficult, was moving the can and having a person walk in the scene at the same time. Through each movement of the leg that the person made, we had to also move the can slightly. I think we should’ve just had the person walking and not of moved the can, because our outcome of this scene looks quite unprofessional. When showing the people in my class our advert, Harry said one of the improvements we could’ve made, was this scene and suggested we should’ve re tweaked it. 
The main shots we used were close ups and mid shots. When the can slid down the log from the bench, we recorded a hand held over the shoulder shot, which we thought looked very effective. We had to do a lot of preparation to finally create our advert. We didn’t completely follow all of our preparation in our production folder, e.g storyboard, but they all gave a good indication into what we were going to produce. Our production team all worked fairly well together. I think the main thing is to all agree on the idea and roles set in order to work successfully. We had a number of discussions and differences on our own ideas such as different storylines and what the can should be doing. We eventually agreed on what to do.

 

 I would compare our advert to the works of present stop motion animator Tim Burton. Both his and our animations bring things to life which shouldn’t be alive. I would compare our animation to the music video for blur-coffee and tv. Both this and our animation consist of an object made to come alive, travelling by itself through various scenes. However they have produced the character using special effects on the computer, whereas we have just used a can and the stop motion technique. I would also compare our advert to the lucozade energy drink advert. Firstly because they are both advertising energy drinks. Secondly the audience is watching something travelling through various scenes in both adverts. I feel like this advert is more effective than ours, because when the actors finally get the drink, they give a sense of relief and happiness, whereas in our advert I don’t think we properly convey that message. Another advert that could be compared to ours, is the “animated coca cola coke factory” advert. Here, is also a drink which is being travelled across different scenes of the factory. All the characters helping the coke bottle to travel, are animated and make noises, like we have done, to make their character fun and effective. Our advert used pixilation of live actors, as do many stop motion animations. One example is the music video for coldplay – strawberry swing.

If it wasn’t for the pioneers and developers, we would never of been able to create this advert. They were the ones who gave people inspiration, who then gave the people ideas to develop something even more extraordinary. To exhibit my work to a range of audiences, I submitted our advert to an online competition.

 

Overall, I think we produced a fairly good advert, reaching to our target audience and target channel. My opinion can be backed up as all of our target audience said that the advert makes them want to buy the product and they think that it would be suitable to be broadcasted on e4. However, I do find that our target audience could be adjusted to a younger audience. I feel that the character is slightly childish and a younger audience may appreciate it more. We did make the song choice suitable to the advert as Maggie Coffee had pointed out.

I feel like we used the stop motion technique to a high standard and used a range of techniques to a standard quality. I feel through doing this topic I have achieved many different skills that I wasn’t so confident with at the beginning of term. I have especially become confident with the stop motion technique, general camera skills and using final cut pro. Not only have I learnt skills through creating my own animation, I have learnt skills along the way through researching different animators.

 

 

Production Diary

Day 1
We recorded the wake up scene and the shouting of "red bull". We also recorded part of the red bull can travelling in the front driveway

Day 4
We recorded practically the whole advert until the can approached the front door

Day 5
We recorded the voice over saying “red bull, call in and it’ll be there”

Day 6
We uploaded all the footage and edited most of it
 
Day 7
We carried on editing the footage
 
Day 10
We recorded the last bit of footage of the redbull can being drunk
 
Day 11
We uploaded the rest of the footage and edited ‬it

Day 12
We carried on editing the footage and found special effects to include in our advert

Day 14
We finished tweaking our advert

Research - Focus Group

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx8Ei26qDV0&feature=player_embedded

Above is a link to our focus group which was part of our research for redbull. We asked a selection of people from our target audience some relevant questions regarding our topic red bull.

Surrealist Film - Workshop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP-Y75usD7I&feature=player_embedded

Above is a link to a short surrealist film which we produced in a group of 3. To produce a true surrealist film, we based our short clip on a David Lynch type of style. It was quite hard to produce as expression films take alot of mental thinking. I thought our film was quite successful and fitted the surrealist genre.

The Brothers Quay

The Brothers Quay are identical twins. They originally worked as professionals in illustration but then went on to animating. They are now known for creating unique animation films which gets  categorised under surrealism. Their films tend to have no spoken dialogue but the sound effects and music are extremely emphasised. They are also known for creating music videos using their unique stop motion effects.

The brothers quay's work is very experimental. They have been very influenced by jan Svankmajor, to an extent that they made a film about him. This shows how older work has been developed into the modern world. Below, is a clip of their most popular film.

As you can see the film is very surreal. Objects appear to look like they’re moving by the illusion of movement, created using stop motion. Also puppets and Claymation appear to be in the film which makes the film come to life. As in the majority of all stop motions, The Brothers Quay have moved each object ever so slightly, in each picture, then played the series of pictures all at once, in order to give off the effect that they are moving. The setting is dark and gloomy, to create a haunting and mysterious atmosphere.

Jan Svankmajer - Developer

Jan Svankmajer is known for creating films which are very surreal, strange and imaginative, using stop motion animation. Jan worked for a range of different theatres, which later on inspired him to include theatre in some of his stop motion films.

Below, is a video of one of his films, based on food. When Jan was younger, he had a bad experience with food, so this is why many of his films are based on that theme. Jan is famous for being one of the most imaginative animators in time. I find this particular video extremely effetcive. He has used claymation to create an effective expression on the peoples faces, and has obviously used the method of taking, then manipulating the object each time in each photo, otherwise known as the stop motion technique.

His work has gone on to inspire many animators to be more daring and imaginative with their work. Due to Jan’s unusual and surreal work, his audience tends to be adults. This is because a younger generation may not be able to fully understand what’s going on and they may also find it disturbing. Jan has developed a different side of surreal and has shown how effective and entertaining the genre can be.

George Pal - Pioneer

George Pal was brought up by his grandparents. This was because all though they were celebrities, they were divorced. He studied architecture, then went on to work as an illustrator. His work was unpaid, so he immigrated to Berlin where he became head of the UFA studios cartoon production.

He soon left there and then began to animate cigarettes. However, in Czechoslovakia,  no-one was interested. So Pal decided to move to Paris as they were interested in his work. The first company Pal went to bought his idea, which made George famous due to how successful his animations were. He then opened up his own studios named ‘Dollywood Studios’, in Holland. He was then signed to Paramount Pictures where animators like Ray Harryhausen have worked. Here, he created many successful puppetoons. Because of this success, Paramount let him to do feature films. He won many awards for his special effects, which therefore lead him on to making his own films at his studio. George is most famous for The Time Machine and War of the Worlds.

Georges work has proven to be extremely popular and inspirational. For example, he used a series of different heads for different expressions for his characters. This technique is now used by many modern day animators, such as Tim Burton, which shows that Georges work has been inspirational. He also inspired other animators and film-makers because he was very resourceful and he always thought big on any project he was doing. George Pal used puppetoons to also create animation for TV such as Phillips Broadcast. George Pals work was extremely successful due to the fact that it was original and different to the previous pioneers work.

 

Research

We thought that our advert should be aired on e 4. This is because the energy drink we are promoting is aimed at a young generation and the audience for e4 are also a young generation. Therefore by advertising our product on this channel, we will reach our target audience.

To back up what I have said, I have found a diagram which clearly shows, that e4’s most popular viewers are a young audience. We, as a group discussed that our product should be based on young people aged between 18 – 35. So by adding the 2 percentages of the age ranges together, we can see that we are aiming our advert towards 97% of e4’s demographic! Through researching this, we clearly knew that e4 would be the best channel for our product.  

Research - Present Stop Motion Animations

Stop motion has been used for the whole part of the music video for Coldplay. Pixilation and illustration have been used to create a great stop motion effect for the video. They have done this by taking pictures frame by frame of a live actor moving ever so slightly each time. They have then also drawn an image, then changed the image ever so slightly, to create the illusion of movement.

 

Stop motion has been used to create the whole advert for a nokia phone. Not only is it a very effective technique for creating an advert, but they have also shot the whole advert using a nokia phone, which is an extremely effective way of promoting it. They have used pixilation of one actor, a boat and a series of lines formed using rakes in the sand, to create an image. It was filmed from a birds eye view on a crane, using 3 nokia phones. Every frame has to move, so the crew rubbed out a line, then re created it using rakes, slightly differently every time.

Stop motion is used in many computer games. For example ‘snake’. All the individual images of the different levels and the possibilities of what the snake could look like, have been created. Each image appears one by one, which creates the illusion that the snake is moving.

Stop motion is used in adverts on websites. For example, there is an advert on how to loose weight. There is a drawing of an image of a person turning from overweight to an average size. This is an effective way of advertising because it grabs the audience’s attention as it is a series of flashing images on the side of the website. The illusion of the person’s body weight changing, is created by a series of drawings, each slightly different, which are then all played after each other.

Research

We watched advertisements for energy drinks to give us some inspiration and tips for our advert. I came across an advert for lucozade which I thought was slightly similar to our idea. This is because of the way that the energy drink is travelling through various scenes and settings. I think this is a great way of advertising their product as it looks fun and effective. They have also used celebrity endorsement so more people will be attracted to their product.

I then came across the music video for blur – coffee and tv. This is a great example of something similar we hope to create. Both our idea and the music video have the same effective of an object travelling around different scenes.

Through watching various advertisements, I came to the conclusion that all adverts for energy drinks show that the drink gives a sense of relief or the power to do something. So what we, as a group need to show in our advert, is that the energy drink is the necessity.

Cinematography Skills Workshop

Ray Harryhausen - Developer

Ray Harryhausen is one of the most successful stop motion animators in history. Many things inspired him from a young age such as king kong by Willis O'Brien and visits to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Once he owned a camera he created stop motion animation films and took his interest in this subject further and studied photography and editing at university. Through doing this, he came up with the idea of creating a film. However his first idea was a flop as his idea on a film about an unusual creature, was unrecognised. His second attempt consisted of dinosaurs as one of the main aspects, which happened to be good quality although it was filmed in a garage. Stop motion animation pioneer George pal, recognised Rays work and hired him to create puppetoons.

From then on, Ray Harryhausen worked on a number of films. He created films which have been recreated today. This shows that his work has inspired and developed ideas into the modern world.

Willis O'Brien - Developer

Willis O'Brien was a famous special effects and stop motion animation pioneer. Willis is most famous for his creation of using stop motion animation on King Kong. This had an incredible effect on the audience as nobody had ever seen a stop motion animation so long and detailed before.

Willis had always been very interested in sculpturing. He would produce models with rubber connected on them to bring them to life, which lead on to his talent in stop motion. He then went on to produce some fantastic films using stop motion which proved to be inspirational to other animators and film makers.

The Lumiere Brothers - Pioneers

The lumiere brothers Auguste and Louis came from France. They were the first people to create a camera and a device called a cinématographe. They decided to design a camera, after getting inspiration from the kinetoscope. The cinématographe, was a device with a lantern, which projected films which the brothers had taken.

The films the Lumières' had taken, were approximately 50 seconds long. The video I have linked is the first film which was ever to shown to an audience. It was also the first time an audience had seen moving pictures projected onto a screen, so this obviously had a huge effect on people.

Later After their first public screening, the brothers began commercial production which was soon in demand across the world.

Eadweard James Muybridge - Pioneer

Eadweard James Muybridge ( 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was a famous English photographer. From a young age, he was experimental with his photography and discovering different forms of stop motion animation. He then went on to trying speed photography, which lead him to experiment with the horse in motion. Eadward set up a series of 50 different cameras all in a line, which was facing the horse track. He made sure the camera would capture each image by connecting the camera shutters to trip wires across the track. This was considered to be the first moving picture. In 1879 Eadweard Muybridge invented a device called the zoopraxiscope. This projected a series of images that gave the illusion of movement. The zoopraxiscope used discs to create movement which was similar to the phenakistoscope. However, the zoopraxiscope discs were made out of glass.

Eadweard's inventions gave inspiration to Thomas Edison and William Dickson to create another device called the kinetoscope. The kinetoscope viewing a sequence of images on a film strip by looking through a small window. It had a light positioned behind this and a high shutter speed. It was run by an electric motor which therefore provided movement of the images to go around the kinetoscope. The video below demonstrates how all the mechanisms work inside the kinetoscope.

 

 

 

Charles-Émile Reynaud - Pioneer

Charles-Émile Reynaud (8 December 1844 – 9 January 1918) created the first projected animated cartoon films. Reynaud created the Theatre Optique in December 1888 and the Praxinoscope in 1877.

The praxinoscope is an improvement to the zoetrope. A series of images, one slightly different to the other, are placed inside a drum. The difference between this and the zoetrope, is that instead of viewing the images through the slits, the images would reflect onto mirrors which are placed in the centre of the drum. Through this different method, the result of using the mirrors were that it proved to be defined, brighter and more effective.

Later on reynaud developed the  praxinoscope into the theatre optique. He wanted to expand his invention and present his moving images onto a screen. The praxinoscope only produced about a second of animation. Through using the theatre optique, reynaud was able to produce a longer amount of animation as he could use a long roll of film.  

William Horner - Pioneer

William George Horner was known for inventing the zoetrope, aswell as being a successful British Mathematician.

William based his invention on the phenakistoscope which therefore later made joseph plateau’s invention unsuccessful. The difference between Williams zoetrope and josephs phenakistoscope, Was that the zoetrope did not require a viewing mirror. The second improvement of the zoetrope was that more than one person could view the moving pictures at the same time.

 The zoetrope  works from a drum with an open top, the drum is spun, which creates an illusion of movement, the faster the spin, the smoother the image you see will be. However, if the drum is spun too fast, the image the viewer will see, would be a blur, so they would therefore not be able to see it.

Here is a video of a zoetrope and a demonstration of how it works:

 

 

Joseph Plateau - Pioneer

Joseph plateau (October 14, 1801 – September 15, 1883) was a Belgian physicist, known for inventing the stroboscope.  He was the first person to show an illusion of a moving image.

In 1832, Joseph Plateau and his sons introduced the phenakistoscope, also known as the spindle viewer. It was a device where Pictures on a disc were viewed through slots in the other, it appeared to move when the two discs were spun and viewed in a mirror. It was also invented by Simon von Stampfer of Vienna in the same year, who called his invention a stroboscope. Plateau's inspiration had come from the work of Michael Faraday and Peter Mark Roget. Michael Faraday had invented a device which had two discs that spun in opposite directions from one another. Joseph adapted Faraday's wheel into a toy, which he named the phenakistoscope.

Below, is a video of an example of a phenakistoscope. The spinning wheel creates the illusion of movement.

Josephs invention was successful for two years, until another invention was brought out which had better improvements. As the phenakistoscope was the first device of stop motion, I believe that it made a big impact towards the history of stop motion and it therefore influenced other inventors to create something better.

Tim Burton

Tim Burton’s Stop-motion animation technique is the process of photographing a model, moving it minutely then photographing it again, then the photographs are put together and the tiny movements appear to be action.

They use toys, sets, dollhouse props and clay (for facial expressions) in their stop-motion videos to create their story line. The concept is easy to understand and execute but in reality it takes an enormous amount of time and needs a lot of patience.

Stop-motion animation can be very realistic, stylistic and captivating. For example, Corpse Bride, shows that stop-motion isn't a genre, but a medium that allows artists to create whatever they imagine which has a large impact on any audience as it makes animation life like and is exciting to watch. Each character in his films, for example the nightmare before christmas, has a number of different versions of bodies and heads in order to capture the most human movements and expressions. The sets are also created with the same attention to detail, creating a dark, beautiful world. Audiences of different age levels have enjoyed animation movies as it is more realistic than cartoon figures. The only limitation it may have is that it is extremely time consuming but it is worth the effort as the results are fantastic. Below is a video of the process of the making of Corpse Bride.

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations, is a British animation studio which is in Bristol. The studio is famous for films which uses stop-motion clay animation techniques, especially those that feature Plasticine characters, for example Wallace and Gromit, shaun and angry boys.

Wallace and Gromit are movies that use a technique called stop motion animation. It is a story based on plasticine models that make the characters come to life. The animated characters are shot one frame at a time which creates the illusion of movement when all of the frames are played as a continuous sequence. Then are moved slightly, to give the impression of movement in the final film. He uses clay because it is easy to manipulate for different expression and movement but some use movable dolls. This technique may duplicate frames sometimes to be used in similar movements. A film has twenty four separate frames. A typical Wallace and Gromit film takes around 30 frames per day. It makes a lifeless objects come to life. Here is a video of behind the scenes of Wallace and gromit

Before the 80’s animation techniques were divided into two categories which was drawn animation and model or stop-motion animation. It involved photographing a series of two dimensional images such as drawings and sometimes cut-out shapes. Both techniques developed quickly in the early years of cinema. Stop motion helped reduce the work required to produce drawn animation as it eliminated the need to redraw the backgrounds and all the characters again. This type of technique seems to suit all ages depending on the story line but preferably younger children.

In stop motion animation it is life like and feels more in depth of the character and the surrounding but as a contrast it may have some disadvantages causing some limitations as time is the essence in productivity and it takes many hours of work producing limited footage. It is very time consuming.

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Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation is produced by a range of images which creates a moving image. The quicker the frame rate, the smoother the animation will be.

A frame rate means the amount of frames per second. My flipbook animation was 20 frames per second, therefore I had 20 sticky notes. Frames are the amount of images per second, below is a video explaining more about it. 

 
 
Illusion of movement
is when the audience are being tricked into thinking they're watching a moving image, when really it is just a range of images which creates the illusion that they are moving. Animators want to specifically create the illusion of movement as it is extremely effective and makes the characters come to life.   








persistence of vision

the persistence of vision is where the human eye retains an image for a brief split-second after the image was actually seen, and lends itself to animation by fostering the illusion of motion when we view images in closely-timed sequence to one another. We don't notice the fractional skips between images because that persistence fills in the momentary gap to make the motion seem seamless.