Examples of corporate films

Examples of Corporate films:

• Betty White — Safety Old School Style By Air New Zealand – This video was made by Air New Zealand to promote areoplane safety, it has establishing shot to introduce the video, the establishing shot for this film was of a retiring home, the sense of the whole video was very ‘Golden Girls’ which explains why Betty White was in it. There are also a lot of mid shots, while the main characters in the film are speaking, this is so there are no distractions and the person watching the video gets all the information they need. There are also some cutaways of the people in the home reenacting some of the safety procedures, which are there for comedic effect. It does communicate the message that it is supposed too, as it informs passengers about what to do if an emergency happens, there is also reassurance at the end of the video that there is a sheet with all the information on just in case the passengers missed anything in the video. It was meant to convey information in a comedic way and it definitely achieved that.

• UserTesting Opens Testing Panel to Cats – UserTesting is a website which allows you to get feedback on the apps you create, this video is very simple, they have the special projects manager talking to the camera, it is a mid shot for the vast majority of the time that he is in the video, he announces that they are opening up the testing panel to cats. There are also a lot of stock images and videos of cats, which makes it look incredibly low budget, but it is still effective, the use of cat based memes, such as grumpy cats and multiple versions of ‘Lolcats’ makes the company seem down to earth. This video has been quite successful, not as much as the Air New Zealand video, but thats because it is a smaller company compared. This video is them promoting their company in a fun, lighthearted way and it worked, but the use of memes though could be considered a bit excessive.

• Water Changes Everything by Charity Water – this video is different from the others, as it is animated, there is a narrative in the film and the animation works around that, it is talking about how not having clean water can affect other things besides health. It then goes on to promote the work they do to help places get clean water. This video is aimed at women and children though, taken into consideration that all gender should be represented equally, I find it extremely stereotypical how it is the women and children getting the water and getting attacked and not going to school, although that might be the case, there is no real statistic in the video that states that, which makes me doubt the validity of all the statements that they are making. With over one million views, this video has been successful to some extent, but there are facts missing in this video which make it subjective to their cause and questionable to people watching it.

Legal and Ethical

No Joke, this is copied and pasted from the viral video report as that was also based on making a corporate video. 

Legal and Ethical issues to be considered

The legal side of making a corporate video can be a bit confusing, they need to abide by certain things like:

• Privacy – This could be anything from covering someones face or something to completely not filming them or it at all. Privacy is also considered a human right (although, in this day and age it is questionable) so it should be taken seriously at all times. Privacy issues can be avoided by using things like release forms and talking to the people/company beforehand.
• Libel / slander – this means you can’t use false information to show anyone in a bad light, or do anything that would effect a person’s reputation and effect others respect for said person. This is good because if you abide by this, you usually end up with a video that is subjective to what you need it to be, but everything else in it is completely unbiased.
• Copyright – Anything that appears to have third party content in it can be affected by copyright. Music or products that are in a particular video need to be unbranded (unless it is the product you are making the video for) and the music has to be copyright free, unless you have written permission from the record company/Management, or from the artist themselves if they are unsigned. To avoid any copyright issues, it would be best you use un copyrighted, loyalty free music.

Ethical issues to be considered:

• Race – People with different race should not be discriminated or represented in any different way from the rest, it should all be fair and wholly unbiased.

• Gender – Should be represented equally, although, In Benjamin Cook’s docu-series ‘Becoming Youtube’ he represents male and female youtubers by the percentage. There are considerably less prominent female youtubers, so he interviews less of them. In his words ‘of the nineteen youtubers interviewed so far in Becoming Youtube, only five have been female… In choosing who to interview for this series, I had to make a judgment call. Do I reflect the youtube community as it is in 2013 as a glaringly obvious and rather sad imbalance between men and women, or do I aim for more of a 50/50 split,but then only showing some youtubers primarily because their female?’ Gender is a funny thing, and should be represented as equal at best, but some situations cannot be avoided.

• Religion – The same as race really, they should not be discriminated in any way shape or form that could be implied as demeaning and de humanising. They should be respected as humans and not by which book they preach.

 

I wondered why I was getting deja vu, I have covered this before! 

 

Codes, Conventions and Common Practice – Corporate videos

I found a document on Slideshare which was very helpful to me and I am basing this bit off of that document, so I will leave it here for your enlightenment 🙂 

Understanding codes, conventions and current practice in corporate and promotional programming from William Sargent

(this also covers some of the ethical issues that need to be addressed when making a promotional video) 

side-note: I am getting real bad deja vu from this and I don’t know why, I may have written stuff like it before >_<

Codes and Conventions include:

• sound/music – on the document this is 2 different points, but as they are both audio I feel like it should be considered as one. The soundtrack/score has to be relevant, you can’t promote a logistics company if the CEO is talking about cake and death metal is playing in the background. Playing safe with the sound usually works out best – ambient music and clear voices, so make sure that microphone is working! 
• Camera angles and motion – The video needs to look professional, so shakey camera work is out of the question, I mean, you can’t help a little bit of movement if the camera isn’t on a tripod, but moving the camera like it’s on a boat… just no. But in all fairness it is up to the company you’re filming for, a paint balling company would want a different video to a nursing home. Camera movement should be smooth regardless on whether the camera is moving fast or slow. just make sure it fits to the type of film you’re making. Camera angles work on the same idea, set up the camera specifically for the company you are filming for, and TALK TO THEM! if they want something in shot, and it involves moving the camera for it, change the camera, unless it really doesn’t work, then suggest other ideas. especially with interviews, the camera angle needs to be appropriate. so no, the camera shouldn’t be focused on the painting behind them if they’re talking, that’s just stupid.
• Company Logos – most companies like having their logo either at the end of the video or at the beginning, or both. you can also put their logo in one of the corners of a film like a watermark. I personally like using the watermark as it makes it look so much more professional.
• Text and titles – usually for credits but can be used for prices and products, instructions ect. make it look smart ( no comic sans)
• Research – long story short, (this is also a quote from a Channel 4 event I went to recently) if you haven’t done any research, don’t even bother, you are going to embarrass yourself.

Common Practice for corporate films is similar to common practice for filming other things:

Pre production – storyboards, research folders, equipment lists ( cameras, boom mic, tripod), script, call sheets Ect. 

Production (self explanatory)

Post Production – editing out the wobbly camera shots, cleaning the sound up,colour correction, rough edits, edits going back and forth between the company before you get an edit they’re happy with. ( to put it in perspective, it took 7 edits to get a video I made for a lorry company right… and thats considered not many)

 

 

 

 

Corporate Videos

A Corporate video is something that is used to promote and/or introduce a business or company in a positive light.

In the most stereotypical way, the video would be promoting something like: their award winning customer service and their 10+years in business and the turnover they had the previous year.

 

There are a few types of corporate videos as the term ‘corporate video’ is quite broad, it just means a video that is going to be used by a corporation in order to do something, so there are a lot of ‘sub-genres’ under it.

• Promotional – this is the standard ‘THIS IS MY BUSINESS’ video, but it can also be specifically promoting a certain part of the business. for example:

http://vimeo.com/66253150 this video is made by Digital Life Media – a company that specialises in making corporate videos, and it is basically telling you that they make corporate videos. (self explanatory, right?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2giGNDXGko This video promotes Mulberry’s Pre employment programme, but this video is a little more special, it also promotes Bridgwater college as being a college with a lot of contacts. clever really, but the idea of it is a lot more specific than the other one. If you were just watching it, and not analysing it, you would just see the pre employment training, and how helpful it is to get a job with Mulberry. (I totally did not choose this video because I helped film it… thats not my style)

• Event/ Performance – Although filming an event may not seem corporate, some events that get filmed can be considered an asset to a particular company for example: You own a business that was nominated for an award, the award show itself was being filmed to put on the award shows website and multiple local news sites. even if your company didn’t win, it has still been promoted. Everything links back to the promoting side of things, which isn’t a bad thing.
• testimonials/ interviews – These are used in corporate films all the time as it is good to have people’s view points and opinions on things, it is almost like looking at a product and reading the reviews before you buy it, everyone does it, and is there are no opinions on a company, believing the facts becomes a lot more difficult.

 

Sources used:

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/video/corporate-video.html

http://www.digitallifemedia.ca/news/corporate-video-types-styles/

Sexism is Alive and well

i thought that this was interesting, so yeah, enjoy?

Violence Effects

There is a relationship between violence on screen and violence in the real world

 

There is often a correlation between things, for example violence on screen and violence in real life, but most of the time there are other factors contributing towards this; like the environment that they have been exposed to and their upbringing. In some ways the public has been desensitised towards it as it is almost everywhere nowadays for example in video games like Grand Theft Auto.

An article On livestrong.com states

the American media shows heroes justifiably using violence as a means to resolve conflict. The American Academy of Pediatrics website suggests that prolonged exposure to this type of violence increases acceptance of violence as a means of solving problems. The 1995 to 1997 AAP National Television Study showed that 61 percent of programming “portrayed interpersonal violence, much of it in an entertaining or glamorised manner.” Children are drawn to such programming when the violent act seems surreal and the lack of consequence attractive.

Desensitisation is also very common with violence. As things are getting more violent, the public are getting used to what they are seeing, so what once was very violent, is not that violent anymore, so things get more violent and it goes on and on and on.

The media loves singling out crimes that can be blamed on video games, one of the most recent being 2 girls stabbing their friend as they say they were influenced by Slender (a jumpscare video game based on an urban myth) and there are multiple articles listing the amount of crimes that have been blamed and or influenced by violent video games.

My opinion, is that everything is correlated, so the video games could possibly be a trigger for a particular persons behaviour, but not the only cause. A contributing factor would be that parents usually dismiss the age rating on games and give them to their children regardless and almost blindly. An example of this is  that I was round my cousins house the other day and her 8 year old child has a copy of grand Theft Auto 5 (no joke) which is certified as an 18. I do believe that video games have age ratings for a reason and that reason is to protect and not corrupt the minds of the young or people who aren’t old enough to play the game.

 

 

The ASA and making an advertising campaign

ASA:

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. We apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Our work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.

The advertising standards authority are the independent regulator of advertising in the UK. they work on all types of media.

The have standards and guidelines in place that make sure that the public are not offended by the content they see on the TV. They are like OFCOM for adverts.

 

so onto making a marketing scheme.

As of writing this, i have very little imagination so I going to brand cheese.

cheese is a all round product with a pretty mass audience, so the target audience would be somewhere around 5-80 years old. but at the same time, the target audience of people that buy cheese is more like 18-65 years old.

I would make the advertising campaign really simple, so white background with the product right in the middle with the logo in the bottom right hand corner.  this way, We won’t be breaking asa guidelines, as there really isn’t really anything to offend people (unless people hate cheese)

so like this really:

 

yeah….

sexualisation video

i found this video, it seems pretty legit, although the american spelling annoys me

Advert analysis

 

Advert analysis

 

The poster is being used to advertise the second season of Hannibal in the US. it is meant to target original fans of the show and of the hannibal films and books, but also intrigue people that have never watched the show before. knowing the nature of the hannibal films i would say their audience is ranged from the ages of 17 to 30.

 

The poster shows a man in a padded room with a straight jacket and a face mask with the man looking straight down the camera.  There is then red writing with the slogan, name of the show and the details of when to see it.

 

it has a very unsettling mood towards it, the look the character has gives a sense that you can’t get away from him, but at the same time, the whiteness of the the padded cell suggests the innocence behind the look, the way the ‘muzzle’ is clear, suggests that the way the character speaks in the show is somewhat transparent.

 

As far as promoting a lifestyle is concerned, this promotes the lifestyle of a potential murderous cannibal, but, if it were promoting that it would be extremely glamorised, as, no one would really want to be locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane.

Task 2

 

Denotative – there is a man (Hugh Dancy) staring right down the camera in a white, padded room, in a muzzle with red writing that has the name of the show, slogan, what episode it is and the time and date and what channel it is on.

Having the main character staring in the centre of camera suggests that there is no getting away from it, and the colour scheme of the red on white shows a simplistic sinisterness about the poster. The white also isnt used in its connotative form of innocence, which, personally, makes me uncomfortable, but at the same time could be used to suggest the innocence of the character that is shown on the poster.

as far as the language is concerned, there isn’t much of it and it is pretty concise and the font is very plain to go with the poster, but to stand out from it at the same time; I’m guessing that the actors names are in grey because they want potential viewers to not look at it straight away, as it blends into the background picture more.

Looking from this poster, and the title of the show, I would say that the genre would be either murder investigation, horror, or thriller, but by actually knowing of the show, I can say that it is more of a psychological thriller than anything else. The poster is very effective at giving across the ‘murderous’ vibe that is very prominent in the show.

i feel like this poster is aimed at the 18-30 year old audience, but is simple enough to intrigue people from about 15 onwards. you would have to have a brief history of Hannibal Lectre to really see through the poster though… as… that is not Hannibal Lectre in the poster.

 

 

Oh Game  of Thrones!

well, the poster has a picture of a three eyed raven on it with the words ‘all men must die’ written above it and the name and the date of the the show, it also has the time and the channel it is on.

The poster is very cold, colour wise, and it keeps with the whole ‘ Winter is Coming’ theme of the show, I like how the raven looks like it is made out of ice, and the ice is almost shattering, but not just there yet, the three eyed raven is also one of the main sub stories in the show, and hasn’t been fully explained much, so this poster could be suggesting that they’re going to go into more detail with some of the side stories that weren’t that covered in the last series, as for the phrase ‘ All men must die’ it makes the poster very intriguing as it could be something to do with the raven, but because no one knows much about the raven, they might think its the general phrase of the whole tv show, as a lot of people die, especially in the red wedding episode (spoilers, sorry)

Looking at the imagery of the poster, it is safe to say that it is a fantasy show of sorts, but putting the phrase into consideration, i would say that is a fantasy, with a lot of gore, that is aiming for an audience of 15+ considering the time that the show is broadcast.