#have you ever seen brazil the theme song is so good but the original is also good

[dockaspbrak]

what if you could book a trip to the tron world i feel like id understand what tf was going on there more if thwas was the case instead of whatever it is

[madcapmoon]

Ten questions for Guy Picciotto

This is an interview I conducted with Guy Picciotto of Fugazi, Rites of Spring and One Last Wish fame back in 2006. I was working in the Italian town of Pescasseroli in Abruzzo at the time and Italy had just won the World Cup. Fugazi had been on hiatus for four years at that point and unfortunately over five years after this interview took place it looks as if they may never reform. My friends Anthony and Eugene kindly published this interview in the 10th anniversary issue of their legendary fanzine Loserdom so many thanks to them as always for allowing me to publish various interviews and musings over the years. 

1. It’s been four years since the last Fugazi concert and  each member of the band seems to have worked or be  working on other musical projects: Ian Mackaye is playing in the  Evens, Brendan Canty has been touring with Bob Mould and Joe Lally is playing solo concerts. You played a concert with the group International Silence in 2003 and I read somewhere a few years back that you had been working on music with Eddie Janney. What musical projects are you working on at the moment? Even though Fugazi itself hasn’t played a show or recorded anything new in a dog’s age, the business of keeping Fugazi’s affairs together remains. It’s kind of like tending to a monument – the landscaping needs to be kept up and the plaques shiny – so, since we are self-managed, that work continues for all of us. Lately, we’ve worked on remastering most of our old records and we’ve also added 10 more shows to our live archive project (at www.fugaziliveseries.com).

Beyond that, I have been doing alot of production work for various bands. The latest project was a record for the Blood Brothers which I co-produced with John Goodmanson out in Seattle over the last 2 months. It comes out in October I think, and it’s a fucking killer bunch of songs.

I have also been doing some music writing on my own. I did perform a few new songs in Belgium at a film/music festival curated by my friend Jem Cohen late last year – that was the first time I’d sung into a microphone live since Fugazi last played in 2002. It felt good so I want to try and get my shit together and do it some more.

Like you mentioned, I have also played some improvisational shows as a member of International Silence over the last couple of years, ( International Silence is a rotating cooperative of improvisational musicians put together by Mats Gustaffson). For the last 3 years I have also been writing with Eddie Janney, my old bandmate from Rites of Spring, and we’ve amassed tons of material but I’m not sure what will happen with it. It’s not a conventionally ambitious situation but it’s really interesting music and maybe it will coalesce into something more public at some point. But for now, I’m from the Orson Welles school of “no wine before its time”.

2. You have directed two short Super 8 films and I read you had plans to make a third short film on 16mm. Did you ever get around to making it?

Nope. I did work a bit in some capacity on the last Jem Cohen movie “Chain” – I’m listed as one of the producers but really I was more like a sounding board for Jem during the conception, filming and editing. I love film and I hope to do more of it but the Super 8’s I made were strictly goofs – an opportunity to fuck around with friends and try to learn about the process.

3. Are these films available anywhere on the internet?

Not that I know of. Honestly, they aren’t any great shakes. I do however encourage people to see “Chain”. It should be out on DVD soon and it’s really worth checking out. It’s kind of a portrait of the global landscape as it reaches a crisis level of homogeneity as filtered through the experience of 2 women, a homeless American and a Japanese businesswoman working for a theme park corporation.

4. Parts of Fugazi’s recording session with Steve Albini have recently surfaced unmixed on the internet, will those recordings ever be remixed and officially released by the band?

I don’t know. It’s possible that someday they will though it’s been a long time since I heard them and I’m not sure what context we could put them out under. Its kind of a drag that they got leaked onto the internet – if only because I think of them as being incomplete and not a fair representation of what they could be. I mean I’m not huffing and puffing with rage over the leak – but still, I don’t like sneakiness. For the record: We had a blast working with Steve and he remains one of the smartest and funniest people I’ve ever met in my life as well as a masterful recording technician. That session was the beginning point of a longer acquaintance and its been great getting to know the guy, play dice with him and play shows with his band.

The session we did was an experiment for us to try recording outside of our Inner Ear Studio homebase in DC and the original intention was just to go up and fuck around with the latest bunch of songs we were working on. We weren’t in the mind-set of “we’re making an album” it was more like ” let’s go see what happens”- we ended up having a great time but we didn’t really play all that well (or rather sing that well to be specific) so we decided to re-track it once we had the songs down better – and that became IN ON THE KILLTAKER.

5. With Fugazi you played concerts all over the world and got to see many cities and countries, have you ever thought about moving away from Washington DC to  one of the countries or cities you have visited? If so which ones and why?

I’ve definitely thought of living in other places besides DC and being someplace outside the USA, particularly of late when the political environment is so soul-crushingly depressing. I do love DC and having been born and raised here I can see never leaving but I definitely wouldn’t be weeping hot tears if I was told I had to move to either Brazil or Italy. Both countries have amazing spirit, amazing food, amazing people, amazing culture and I’ve felt really at home in both.

I also love Paris and I speak decent French so that would be another one I could definitely handle. Can’t say much bad about Melbourne, Australia either. Or Sydney for that matter. Gotta love Edinburgh, Scotland too. Basically, I think I would be easy to please in the geography department.

6. You have worked with various bands as a producer, what are your criteria for working with a band?

I don’t really consider myself a professional producer, but I also never have considered myself a professional musician. It’s just something I fell into out of my love of music and through relationships made through music. I first started recording other bands out of my old group house which was called Pirate House. Fugazi had set up a small 8 track analog studio in the basement so I just started recording my friends there and taught myself the ultra-low level basics of engineering. I did records for the Make Up, Metamatics, Crainium, Blonde Redhead, Slant 6 and others there. It was really low key and the focus was on doing things cheap and fast, before the neighbors could get too irritated. I was also learning some of the ropes just by working on the Fugazi records with the rest of the band.

Over time other bands asked me to do things in other studios in other parts of the country and when I had some time apart from Fugazi stuff I tried to do it. Mostly, I worked with friends like Blonde Redhead or Casual Dots -people I’ve known for a long time but I’ve also more recently done stuff with bands where I didn’t initially know them that well personally but was more just a fan of what they were doing like the Gossip or the Blood Brothers. At minimum, though, I like to have seen a band live and met them – just so I can get the sense of whether or not it will work. I don’t have that much time to devote to production stuff so when I do it, I really try to make sure its a good fit and that both the band and I will have a good experience working together.

7. In an interview a member of Blonde Redhead said that when you are producing their records you become in their opinion a non-playing member of the band. Is that a fair assessment of how you work with all bands that you produce or just specifically Blonde Redhead?

Production for me is really kind of a promiscuous activity – its total bed hopping –  getting to intensely collaborate with all these different groups for short periods of time – insinuating yourself deeply into the decision making process then moving on once the record is done. You get alot of creative bang without all the dirty hard practical work that goes into keeping a band functioning over the long haul.

And for me, being in the studio with another group is alot like being a non-playing member of the band – I do get very invested in what goes on. Alot of that comes from the fact that I like the music I work on. I come in as a fan of the bands I work with so it’s not just a technical task for me – I really want the record to be as good as it fucking should be cos the band is already fucking great in my mind. It can be a bruising experience because, as anyone in a band will tell you, its not easy to make good records, to take what’s in your head and translate it whole to tape (or hard drive or whatever).

When a band is actually satisfied with the finished product, it’s a great feeling because with every record you are trying to marshal a ton of crazy ass variables and have them line up into something killer which is really nuts. A good session usually happens if the band feels comfortable enough to let cool stuff happen, to get over the self-consciousness and the anxiety that can come with the process and just let spontaneous cool shit go down. I’ve been really lucky to work with some great engineers and co-producers because, straight up, my technical knowledge lags light years behind theirs = people like Don Zientara, John Goodmanson, and Ryan Hadlock.

8. While Fugazi have released many records and toured extensively Rites of Spring was a short lived band that released just one LP and an EP but is regularly listed or referenced as one of the most influential alternative groups of the last twenty years. Are you ever surprised by the enduring influence of the bands work?

I am pretty stunned considering I think we only played 14 shows and only 2 of those were outside DC. I often wish that Rites of Spring had gotten our shit together and actually toured a bit but it’s kind of a pipe dream considering how volatile the band was. It made for a great energy within the band and on stage but we didn’t have anything close to resembling the kind of discipline it would have taken for us to actually play a series of shows back to back. For one thing, every single show resulted in destroyed equipment so we were always scrambling to get some gear together for our next show.

Also, we were very young and at that age (17-19) your mental landscape is changing every minute – it’s hard to stick to one vision and be satisfied. Just a couple of years later the exact same line-up was re-united as Happy Go Licky and the sound was totally different. We were just pushing all the time so it was hard for us to stay situated in one spot. I do like the first album alot just because we did it in 2 days and it sounds feral, like a time capsule of being young and jacked up out of our minds. And I loved being in a band with all four of those guys. At the time I was pretty wrecked when we couldn’t keep it together. That people still listen to those songs honestly suprises me in a good way and makes me very happy.

9. Musically the Rites of Spring LP is different from any other record made in 1984. It seems deeply personal, innovative and completely uncontrived, for me it’s the musical equivalent of Vigo’s l’Atalante! What music, films and bands influenced that record?

L’Atalante !!! You are completely insane. Let me think – we were really into all kinds of shit. At the time it was like The Saints, The Adverts, Rudimentary Peni, Venom, Blitz, the Zombies, Discharge, the Buzzcocks, Wire, the Wipers ( who Brendan met on the West Coast visiting his sister), the Birthday Party, Black Flag, Bad Brains, Void, the Faith… alot of stuff. The Stravinsky connection was intentional too – we wanted to bust up the genres like that.

But the main thing about the band was our hang – we hung out all the time driving around town in my Chevette Scooter, practicing in our parent’s houses, working the same jobs. We were really close friends so it was almost like we could give a shit if anyone else thought what we were doing was cool or not. We just wanted it to be fresh to us.

10. Finally, I think everyone has a guilty pleasure, e.g. a television show or a band which they know they shouldn’t like, mine is watching football (the English kind), what is yours if any?

I save my guilt for the truly terrible things I’ve done in my life so I take my pleasures freely where I can. I feel no shame for watching the Wizards (DC’s basketball team) religiously. The World Cup was pretty good too this year. I never liked sports when I was younger but now I love them – I hate contingency and time so sports is a deeply masochistic pleasure.

[grandemasterpyrokitsune]

Happy 10th!

The time has finally come to talk about why PaF is so important. Really, anyone could do this anytime, but this date alone has a significance to it. To any of my followers who don’t know(and will sit through this brick wall of text to find out), today is the 10th anniversary of the sneak peek premiere of Phineas and Ferb; technically, February 2008 is when it officially premiered around the world, but I’m sure that everyone else in the fandom is eager to kick off the celebration today. I’m sure this will turn out to be a multi paged thesis, so I’ll try to split this up into parts.

-----------------------------------

PART 1: Best Day Ever

Anyway, ten years ago today marks the 10th anniversary of Phineas and Ferb. This show is considered an old soul of sorts, enjoying a long lifespan of 8 years, tons of merchandising and entertainment opportunities, the admiration and respect of many celebrities, and a very long summer. As formulaic as it appears, this show has more history to it than it appears to have.

PART 2:Busted

(This part details history of Disney’s TV animation ventures and basically life before PaF. Feel free to skip if you’re clued in to its history.)

The 2000s were considered a lousy time for TV animation . While many say it's the "worst" decade for it(whether worldwide or just in North America), I'd call it a transitional period. The 90s was an exciting a refreshing time for TV animation where the stories were driven by the creators, not toy designers. I would generally consider it more of the same from the Golden Age of Animation but more modern. The 2000s had newer technologies to work with and perfect while the ‘90s mainly just worked w/ cel animation and did it so well. Flash and CG were in their infancy, so I assume the software got a bit more attention than the stories. Primarily, companies were just looking to work with more cost effective options to make their shows with. It was a rough period,but far from the worst. Anyway, this kind of TV animation is still a relatively new type of animation. Disney were the first ones to spearhead this movement and they made three or four blocks of new cartoon for different generations of kids. 

The first block(formally known as Disney Afternoon)was ushered in with three pilots; Fluppy Dogs, Wuzzles and Ducktales. While the former two merely tested the waters and the latter was the only one successful, all three were made with stellar animation and complex storytelling for what everyone knew as entertainment for kids. After the success of Ducktales, Disney was brimming with pride and made seven years worth of cartoons for this block. Even if some cartoons didn't strike people the right way, they were still wildly memorable. While their D.C. original programming generally doesn't get more than short compilation discs, the DA 'toons get full series releases digitally and through DVD. This prompted to launch One Saturday Morning on ABC. 

With the acquisition of Nicktoon Doug, Disney paired it up with Recess and Pepper Ann, chasing after the success they had a few years before. The aforementioned series were the highest rated on the block while other series are more obscure and buried by Disney. They are acknowledged as good but were overshadowed by 24/7 network like Nick and Cartoon Network bringing a lot more cartoons to a lot more times of the day. 

Disney started to notice how much of an animated surplus they had and that they air their cartoons for weeks on end. Thus, Toon Disney was founded,which became a more visible hub for the cartoon blocks of the 90s and all other ages of Disney. At one point,they started airing Sonic the Hedgehog and making their own co-productions under their most popular TV cartoon brand, Jetix. As extensive as these programs got, they were being seen by fewer and fewer people. 

To overlap slightly with the end of OSM, Disney started making more cartoons for the Channel’s demographic. Shows like Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch, and American Dragon:Jake Long began airing and netting extraordinary ratings. In fact, Disney Channel was probably most successful in the early 2000s. It found its new groove if you will with its signature style of tween/teen sitcom and animated series. The former seem to have more clout on the network after the premiere of Lizzie McGuire,solidifying the formula. Similar to OSM, many cartoons were more or less not acknowledged the way they were 10 years before. Since sitcoms dominated because they were faster and cheaper to make, it seemed that the outcome was better. Over the course of the period (c. 2002-2008) they released the smallest selection of DC cartoons ever while the sitcoms got more and more press. It’s unclear what Disney was going to do next, but soon summer of 2007 came along...

PART 3: Gotta Make Summer Last

Disney Channel aired the premiere of High School Musical 2 and decided to air the first episode of PaF afterwards. As a result HSM 2 netted 17.6 million views and PaF 10.8 million views. We could easily deduce that eager HSM fans made up the clout of viewers, but that’s not to say the show couldn’t prove interesting to viewers anyway. In fact, Disney delayed its original 2007 release in the US to release it in February in multiple countries. Places such as Latin America, Brazil, Japan, France and Portugal got to experience the show right along with us. International promotion was rolled out which only netted PaF even more press. It became one of Japan’s most popular Western cartoons, it got wild promotion in Latin America and most of Europe(all around) made excellent dubs and gave it the lion’s share of time slots. This was a pretty good outcome all things considered.

Thus the cycle began. First came DVDs and games, then came interviews and guest spots, than movies, Disney park attractions, live events and then omnipresence.... scratch that last one, but you get the idea. The TV Movie itself was more or less the peak of the show. It remains the 10th most watched DCOM premiere of all time and the show remains one of the longest running animated series of the main Disney networks(DC, XD, and Junior). I think the last time Disney mass merchandised a TV cartoon this much was Lilo and Stitch(last one not already a franchise was Doug or Recess). The show is even part of the Marvel and Star Wars universes(non canonically of course)Even then, Disney elevated the show to new heights. It had everything Disney wanted; likeable protagonists, innocent motifs, enough songs to last for days, episodic adventures, and tons of mass marketing appeal. This simple show connected people across the world(if the Tumblr/DA fandoms for PaF were any indicator)through its mult-faceted music and rudimentary themes. While this show raised the bar, it also left the bar to be raised another notch by...

PART 4: Meet the Man of Mystery

In 2012, Gravity Falls premiered as a sneak peek behind DCOM Let it Shine. While not an instant ratings hit, it quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed Disney TV cartoons of all time. The spotlight quickly began to fade on the smartest stepbrothers around as new episodes were coming infrequently. While the numbers were still big enough to make Teen Titans Go mutter in awed jealousy, it still was becoming less of a force on the main network. However on Disney XD, it was still Adored by the Network. I remember how I felt watching day long marathons several times a month, sometimes without reason. Despite its mass appeal, Phineas and Ferb could be classified easily as a boy targeted program due to the protagonists and the subject matter. Until XD found its groove, they would continue to spam PaF for what felt like eons. To this day, they still occasionally air it in primetime slots.

The way I wrote this last part may sound cynical,jaded, and/or pessimistic. However, it’s written that way to emphasize another point. After the success of this series, Disney went from relying on a few filler shows to releasing a new show basically every year and truly giving them all the promotion they could. While not all series got the treatment we all wanted them to have, a lot more of them have come and gone to try to re-innovate and reinvigorate the brand. Phineas and Ferb (more or less) singlehandedly convinced Disney TV to put more stock in their animation division. Don’t know how many Fallers know this but Disney actually asked Alex Hirsch to make his pilot for them after seeing his work. They were actively seeking out new talent and new stories. Honestly, while Kick Buttowski and Pickle and Peanut got a lot of flac in the day, they were(to an extent) a sign that the House of mouse was trying to experiment and make something they liked to see. The latter especially seemed like a personal pet project of XD’s off sense of humor. 

I’m sure the networks would have reinvented their cartoons eventually, but PAF brought it out in the best way.  In a way the boys were kind of dc celebrities in their heyday. When you can summon a bunch of popular characters from the live action sitcoms to dance for possibly hours for a two minute music video in the name of a teal platypus made out of digital ink and pixels, that’s pretty special indeed.

CONCLUSION

Phineas and Ferb is my favorite animated series,explaining why I can info dump mostly from memory as I have in this post. While many have told me that it’s nothing special, to me it stands out as the brightest diamond in the rough and a shining testament to the duality of animation in general. Ten years from now, I hope that I can write better when I must wax sentimentality about my favorite cartoon show. Thanks to the cast, crew, creators, and fans for making summer last. See you at the 20th!

[charlie-bezkorowajny-blog]

Kit Kat advert and production

Overview

I am currently developing a short 30 second advert with 3 of my friends for the “Selling the dream” section of my course. I will be directing the advert and will be advertising a Kit Kat.

Synopsis

My Kit Kat advert will include 3 different people of various ages, genders and religions all eating a Kit Kat in a different way to show that no single way of eating a Kit Kat is the right or wrong way. Using a variety of people also shows that Kit Kats can be enjoyed by anyone that can eat them. The characters will also be in different locations to show that the chocolate bar can be enjoyed anywhere at any time.

I will use an editing style similar to that of Edgar Wright to make the advert more engaging and to help make it stand out more which will in-turn hopefully make it more memorable.

The tagline/slogan for my advert will be “How do you eat yours?” which further helps emphasise that there is no right or wrong way to eat a Kit Kat. Using the rhetorical question may also make the viewer want to go out and buy one just to see how they eat and if it is ‘normal’ or not.

Research into product

Kit Kat:

•The Kit Kat was originally created by Rowntree’s, in York, and is now produced globally by Nestle since 1988 after they acquired Rowntree. In the United States it is made and distributed by Reese’s, a part of the Hershey company. This will affect my advert if it is to be shown in the US as I will have to use the Reese’s version of the Kit Kat instead of the Nestle version.•Kit Kats are a chocolate bar with a chocolate and wafer filling made by Nestle. It comes as a 2, 4 or single chunky all in different flavours. The flavours include; orange, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, hazelnut and in some countries other flavours such as wasabi are available as well.•Ingredients: Chocolate [1 oz] Sugar, wheat flour, cocoa butter, non-fat milk, chocolate, refined palm kernel oil, lactose (milk), milk fat, contains 2% or less of: soy lecithin, PGPR (emulsifier), yeast, artificial flavour, salt, and sodium bicarbonate. Using milk in the product makes it unsuitable for vegans and people who are lactose intolerant. Palm oil is also a controversial ingredient that might put some people off buying the product, this is because palm oil comes from the African oil palm tree and to get it the tree must be cut down. Due to this, those whore are concerned with the environment may not buy the product as it involves cutting down trees.•Kit Kat bars are produced in 16 countries by Nestle: Brazil, Mexico, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Bulgaria.•Red is the primary colour of the products packaging and adverts and is associated with themes of love and energy. This creates the idea of chocolate being romantic and/or giving you energy if you need it.

Advertisement research.

1.      One of the most successful advertisement campaigns of all time is considered by many to be that of Absolut vodka.

      Absolute is a Swedish brand and in the 80’s they decided to try and market their product in the US for the first time but they need a strong and unique approach to make their vodka stand out from the competition. They decided to make the Absolute bottle the centre piece of their adverts with it appearing on every single one of their 1,500 different printed ads. Ranging from the bottle itself to a house in the shape of the bottle to even New York taxis in the shape of the bottle, it was everywhere even if you couldn’t spot it at times, making it a sort of subliminal messaging.

      In 1986 Absolute wanted to target a more younger audience who live more vibrant and modern lifestyles, to do this they collaborated with Andy Warhol who created the first ever piece of art for an Absolut ad.

     Since then Absolut has collaborated with numerous musicians, artists and celebrities to help market their drink. Absolut continued to use this style of advertising using unique printed posters for 25 years until they decided to focus more on digital advertising due to the rise of the internet. At he start of this revolutionary ad campaign Absolut only had about 2.5% of the vodka market and by the late 2000’s over half of the Americas vodka consumption was Absolut vodka. This shows that  even something as boring as a bottle can be an incredibly effective marketing/advertising tool.

2.      Advertising in the 1920’s became much more about consumerism and having all the latest products. It was around this time that the economic boom was starting and lots of people began to have and more and more disposable income to spend on luxury goods such as radios and cars. Companies started to use celebrities and sports starts to advertise their products to try and appeal to as many people as possible. This period was known as the roaring 20’s and the American people were a lot more interested in going out and having fun, to try and capitalise on this new culture many companies tried to change how they advertised their product. A great example of this change is Coca-Cola who up until this point in time marketed the drink as a medicine but changed in the early 20’s to advertise it as a refreshing and fun food.

3.      The first ever official paid TV ad was broadcast in the US on July 1st 1941 over New York Station WNBT. It was shown before a baseball game that was between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies.

4.      On of the best and most successful ads of the 1950’s aired in 1958 and was for Chevrolet. It was named “Boy meets impala”. The advert broke the convention of having lots of talking in the advert explaining the product and how it works, instead the ad contained only 21 words and was focused more on the images that were being shown than what the audience could hear. The advert is about a boy who is about o go to prom only to find out his car has been vandalised so his dad lets him drive his new Chevrolet instead.

5.      Most early commercials were rather long at around 1-2 minutes and consisted mostly of someone explaining the product to the camera while in a relevant setting. The product would be displayed next to or in front of the person and then at the very end of the advert, this made the commercials feel very factual and rather boring especially compared to he adverts of today which don’t end to have much speaking in. The early ads would also tend to include song sort of catchy tune or slogan that would be played at the end and this can still be seen in some adverts today.

6.      World war 2 had a massive impact on adverting in the 1940’s. Most of the men were off at war during this time leaving only the women, children and elderly at home so companies started to shift their advertising focus more from middle age and young men to women as it was the women that were at home and the men who were at war. There were of course still adverts aimed towards men but most were propaganda that were trying to persuade them to join the military.

      Adverts became increasingly aimed at women and were often adverting work for the women. Many of these ads showed a strong woman or a woman with a  job acting independently without the help of a man. It was one of the first times that women were shown as equals to men in advertising.There was also a lot of propaganda posters around during the war and these were basically advertising hate towards Germany and its allies.

7.      Millions of people watch TV in the UK every day so why wouldn’t companies advertise on TV if their product will  be seen by millions of people and potential customers? The whole point of advertising on tv is to get people to see your product and want to go out and buy it. The time of day effects what type of product you will see advertised and companies take full advantage of this. Early in the morning from around 7-9 you are likely to see toys and kids products being advertised as many kids watch TV before school, there’s no point showing a car ad at a time when kids watch TV as they aren’t going to be interested and can’t even get the product. During the day you will see adverts aimed at mums who have to stay at home and look after kids so products such as washing up liquid and bay stuff is shown. Elderly people also watch more TV during the day due to being retired and not needing to work and to capitalise on this companies will advertise products aimed towards the elderly during the day, for example, stair lifts are regularly advertised around this time and chairs that help you stand up.

8.      The first ever British TV ad aired at 9.01pm on the 22 September 1955 on ITV. It was made by AB-Pathe and was advertising Gibbs SR Toothpaste, it lasted 70 seconds which is much longer than today’s adverts which are usually around 30 seconds.

9.     The creator of Britain’s first TV ad was Brian Palmer. He was 26 at   the time.

10.  Radio advertising in the 1920’s was seen as the “Golden Age”. During the early 20’s the economic boom began and everyone began to see an increase in the amount of disposable income they had, this meant they could afford more luxury items such as radios. Radio at the time was a very new thing and was exciting to most people, also there was no TV at the time so this was the main source for mass entertainment at the time. 1920 saw the first radio broadcast and by 1922 there were over 600 radio stations meaning advertisers had 600 options for advertising their product, the more radio stations they advertised on, the more people knew about the product. Between 1920-1930 60% of american families owned a radio making it the most popular form of entertainment at the time with hundreds of thousands if not millions of listeners.

Kit Kat advert evaluation

For my 30 second advert I chose to create a Kit Kat advert. I took up the role of director for this project and my friends in my group took up the roles of camera operator, editor, sound and lighting operator and actors.

Initial research

Part of the planning and pre-production for this advert included the research into the product and target audience. I conducted primary and secondary research. As part of my primary research I created a questionnaire to ask other students about their opinions on certain genres, chocolate bars, social media and more. These results then greatly influenced the final product as I knew what to advertise, what genre the advert should be and who the target audience will be. An example of my research affecting my advert is that I made it slightly comical due to the most popular genre being comedy. A lot of the secondary research consisted of finding out about Kit Kats and other Kit Kat adverts so that we could take inspiration from them and to find what might or might not work in our advert. I found that the Kit Kat is often shown throughout, which you’d expect,  and I also realised that all the Kit Kat sound effects, such as biting into one, are very loud and exaggerated. I then decided to use these loud and exaggerated sounds in my advert to link it to other Kit Kat adverts and because I wanted to use an editing style similar to that of Edgar Wright which used very exaggerated and overly loud sound effects. Another area I did research into was how Edgar Wright edits his films as they have a very specific style that I wanted to incorporate into my advert and I feel I did a good job of this. To create this style we used very quick whip pans, lots of short snappy shots and of course loud sound effects.

Pre-production

There was lots of planning for the shooting and production of this advert. We had to get permission to film in St Mary’s fields as well as risk assessments for us and the equipment and the crew using it all. We also had to find actors to act in the advert but unfortunately we could only get one person to act. Due to this George, the editor, and Taylor, the lighting operator had to act, however this turned out very well as they were good in their roles. It also limited to the cast to people around my age when I initially wanted to include people of different age groups to help it appeal to more people. If I was to improve it or do it again I would ask more people so that we can get enough actors instead of having to use members of the film crew. One problem we did face is that I only drew up a story board and no script so we only had the story board to refer back to which made choosing and setting up some of the shots a bit difficult as we didn’t have much to refer back to. I feel that the strongest part off the pre-production is that I knew what I wanted the advert to be and how it should look so going into filming I had an idea of what to do and how we should approach it.

Shooting the video/production

We shot the video in one day in one location which had both its advantages and disadvantages to us. Some of the cast could only be with us for a very short time so shooting in one location made it easier for them to get to and therefore meant they could get their shots done in time otherwise they may have not got done at all. Shooting in one location also meant there were going to be less continuity errors due incorrect scenery and transitions etc. To shoot the whole advert we used a Sony NXR and a tripod and did not use sound recording equipment as that would be done in post-production. Having no sound equipment helped as it meant we could focus entirely on setting up the shots and making them look as good as possible. We also used the tripod to help make our shots look professional and steady.

Post production

All of the sound was added in post-production by George, the editor, and this made shooting easier but presented problems when it came to editing. All of the sounds were royalty free and found off of the internet but due to this finding exactly the right sound was rather difficult. Some sounds, such as the bag opening, worked great but others, such as some of the munching, didn’t work so well due to the wrong noise levels and how in sync they were with what was happening on screen. To improve the sound effect quality, we should have recorded our own sound effects on the day or created some Foley sound effects in post. Another problem we faced while editing is that the lack of footage we shot made creating the piece and editing it more difficult than it should have been. In future projects we will need to film enough or more than enough footage so that when we come to editing it will make the whole process smoother and quicker, it will also help with continuity errors and make it look more professional. Even though we did encounter various problems and had no real experience with editing we still manged to overcome the issues and create a well-made and professional looking advert that is very true to my original idea and plans.

Finished product

Overall, I am very happy with the finished advert as it is well made and looks professional even if some of the sound effects could be improved slightly. I am also happy with how it mostly stays true to my original idea and plans, one change I did have to make was that it didn’t include people of different ages as we could only get teenagers to play the parts. Ideally, we would have had at least one adult in the advert to help diversify the cast even more and to further put across that anyone can eat a Kit Kat. I personally think the advert is effectively showing the product and it clearly puts across the message that you can eat Kit Kats anyway you want. Another improvement I would make is to show more people eating the chocolate in more ways and to spend more time watching them eat to more effectively put across the message.