Crappy Advert - An Evaluation

So, this was an advert for Imodium. No, they didn't pay us, and I doubt they know. However, if you want the idea, I'm all ears!

The idea behind the project was mine - an idea I came up with a couple of years ago - a guy who appears to have been shot keeps getting eye balled by people as he walks down the street. We as an audience are not sure what has happened, and we don't see any blood, but there is something wrong with the man and he is acting suspicious. He then runs into a public toilet and slams the door of a cubicle behind him. The pay off is text on the screen 'Why be paranoid?' and the Imodium logo appearing, letting the viewer know what is going on.

Part of the influence stylistically for this was an advert for sports shoes which I saw years ago. I can't remember who directed it, which company it was for, but after looking through lists and lists on Imdb.com I finally came across Blair Underwood as the guy who was in it by recognising him. ANYWAY the advert (which I can't find) was a man running around New York following clues to find something. It kept on repeating as each clue would lead back to the beginning. It was black and white, and thanks to the quality of the internet clip years ago, quite grainy. That was the look I wanted to go for, with a filmic quality giving it some credibility.

So when it came to editing, I used the desaturate and sharpening tools to make the piece black and white, and to make the edges of the shapes crisper, adding in a grainy effect. Added to the compression YouTube uses, I think it looks quite good, and fairly similar to the original piece.

As well as the look, the advert used city sounds as it was set in New York. Originally, Leo and I planned to use sound effects from the BBC effects library the university has access to. We were lacking in any memory sticks, so we thought we'd be clever and print the sound to tape, yet when it came to capture these sounds back onto the editing computer we were using, it didn't want to work, so thanks to the time constraints, I had to resort to finding free sound clips on the internet, which means they aren't of the best quality. The same goes for the breathing sound. In retrospect, I think it would have been better if I or someone in my group had decided to record the sound of the breathing ourselves to better match up the sound with the image track.

So, to conclude, I'm fairly happy with the piece considering the time we had given ourselves, but I will go back and sort out the audio issues if I'm given the chance.

Attached are links to the shot list, a storyboard which I started but didn't finish (I'm terrible at drawing) and the risk assessment sheet for the university (hi James!) :

- Risk assessment form
- Storyboard
- Shot list