Booth Centre Viral Advert

Pre-production

At the beginning of the unit we were working individually and had to research information to give us an idea for our adverts and possibly include in them.

My research consisted of going on the Booth Centre website and finding out information about them specifically rather than the homeless in the entire UK. This eventually spread to researching homelessness in Manchester.

I believe that my research was sufficient as I was able to formulate an idea and reference the information during my pitch.

After the research we had to develop 3 ideas for adverts. I had an idea I was confident straight away and focused on this one from the start. While this normally isn't recommended I was fortunate the idea was good as it was picked by the client after the pitches. The reason it isn't normally done is that by focusing on one idea, whether it be good or bad, usually means you develop something akin to tunnel vision in that you ignore all other possibilities.

I will be the first to admit it was mostly luck that I did so on a good idea.

It was after this we had to pitch our ideas to the client. While I was nervous before hand I am confident that I presented my idea well. This was proven as my idea was one of those selected.

When the selctions were announced we were sorted into groups to produce the seperate adverts. I was paired wth Curtiss who I have worked well with in the past. We quickly began our work on pre production. Having worked together in the past we were already aware of eachothers strenghts and weaknesses in this area and sorted the work accordingly. It also helped that we were working in the same room as most of the previous shoots. This meant we could use our earlier pre-production wrk as a starting point.

We were able to complete the majority of the pre-production work quickly and were simply waiting for our filming date. There was a half term break aswell so we had to wait on making the set for the shoot till after they had finished.

Making the set was easily the most difficult part of the entire production process due to our own laziness and no small amount of bad luck. Our first 'attempt' consisted of sticking a few lines of tape on a board three people wide and leaving it at that. Needless to say when Richard called the next day we went in to fix it. While the end product was in fact near professional in appearence it was difficult. We ran out of tape and had to get more, the tape we already put up fell down not once but twice ad the numbers at side fell down more ties than I care to count.

Eventually we got it done and went home. Upon the next day, when we had to shoot, we found that the set had fallen down again. Luckily we had enough time to fix it and the st stayed up for the entire day and is in fact still standing.

     Production

The actual shoot went well. Depite there being a few issues in the form of confusion of how the ending part of the advert would work and a particularly restless actor we were able to get all the needed shots within the time limit. We also had plenty of extra ones and were both able to produce a decent edit whitout using the same shots unlike on previous units. 

We had split the roles beforehand. I would direct and be on lighting while Curtiss would film. I believe we both carried out our roles well as the shots filmed were of a good quality and I only had to explain what the actors needed to do once rather than multiple times. Though I did repeat it before each take.

We were able to get to filming shortly after everyone had arrived and, with help from Richard where it was needed, able to film quickly even with breaks in between.

Me and Curtiss were consulting each other throughout on whether or not what we were doing was okay in the others point of view. This was as i was viewing it as a director and Curtiss as a cameraman. If it looks good on both ends it is likely the end product will be good as well. 

      Post-production

After we had finished filming we each had to do an individual edit. Despite this bth me and Curtiss helped one another. Curtiss is the better editor than me so I needed the help in understanding parts I had difficulty with. I helped him with ideas while keeping the same message the advert was meant to convey and also mixed a few sounds to get a certain effect for our adverts. I believe that I produced a good quality advert which will impress the client and most deffinatley get the message across.

The end product was very similar to how I originally viewed it the only differences being sound files we added to make it seem more realistic. 

I believe that the advert itself acheives the goal it sets out to do. Challenge the negative stereotypes surrounding the homeless and surprise the audience. We have had a member of staff view the video and this was their reaction as well as members of my family and friends.

   Changes I would make

Upon getting  the footage from the shoot on our seperate computers me and Curtiss began our individual edits. Despite us having to produce an edit each we worked with each other during this to discuss any ideas we had.

Our edits each looked similar due to the fact that there is very little different between the different shots we had. Despite this we did not use the same ones so there are (tiny) differences between our edits.

We also added different sounds to certain parts further making them different.

We finished the edit quickly and after talking with Richard decided to put them on Youtube earlier than others to show the client how the interactive element would work. This presented some problems as due to Youtube removing the pause annotation, which would pause the video when an annotation came up which would have been a central part of our advert. Instead we had take down the video from Youtube and edit it so that it was longer and once it was uploaded again extend the duration of the annotations  as well.

After we had uploaded to Youtube we had to edit the audio. While it sounded good with headphones on without it was barely heard at all. This took little time but was essential for the advert to work at all.

The day of the shoot was an overall success. Despite a few set backs in the form of actors being late, the set needing to be put back together and confusion among the cast the shoot went well. On the start of the day when I arrived Richard and Curtiss were in the middle of rebuilding the set as it had partially fallen down during the night. I helped as well and it was not long before it was back to normal.

After this we had to wait for the actors to show up. One of them was late a he was told to meet somewhere else than the others and nobody had corrected him. Once he arrived we move everyone o the studio were we explained what they would be doing to the actors.

At first there were no problems over than them not being in sync at first but tat was to be expected. However there was one of the actors who would make faces every now and then or star talking while we were filming. She eventually stopped and we were able to film properly.

There was some confusion with another of the actors as he believed we were going to be shooting an additional scene. While that was discussed at one point it wasn't doable with the time we had to film. This took a while to explain as there was a language barrier to get across.

Before we could begin filming me and Curtiss had to build our set from scratch. This involved using black tape to create a police line-up. We decided to create it our selves over using a green screen as we wished to have real shadows on out end product.

We had originally planned to do this during the Monday before the shoot. We did not put nearly enough effort into it and simply left after a couple of hours with the set not being big enough, facing the wrong way and not looking anything like a real police line up.

The next day we both were called by Richard to come back in and complete the set properly. This took the majority of the day as we had to take down our previous 'attempt' which had fallen down during the night. We then had to move boards around so it would face the correct way, set the tape correctly and make the numbers to show different heights and then stick them on the background.

Me and Curtiss began our tasks quickly and while we worked on different tasks we did collaborate with one another as needed. I was able to finish the Risk Assessment and Recce quickly as I had past copies of them on my hard drive for the same room. Admittedly changes were made to the Risk Assessment as  there were many different requirements as opposed to the previous shoots in that room. The same applied to the Recce as well.

The resources list was brief as there is very little needed beyond the standard filming equipment. What it does have is the background and anything needed to make it. Also as we have not met any of our actors yet we are unsure on outfits. We have spoken to the centre about this and they have assured us it will be fine.

Curtiss provided drafts of both the shot list and the storyboard and we then did the photographic versions using people from the class.

We also need to set up the background which is the main part of the set. This will take a few hours to do but is easily do-able with the both of us. We also have yet to meet our actors and find out what we need to do for outfits. We hope that they already have the clothes on hand but if not we have been told we may find some clothes in a department in the college.

Shortly after being assigned groups me and Curtiss Began talking about what roles we would take on. As I came up with the idea I became the Director. I also took on the job of writing the Risk Assessment and Recce as well as the resources list. These are needed as they are essential documents for filming which allows you to safely film at a location.

Curtiss took on the jobs of creating the storyboard and shot list as well as opting to be the camera man during shooting. This is needed for giving others, like the actors, a visual aid in what they have to do and what the final product will look like.

The day after everyone had pitched their ideas Richard announced to the class which ones had been chosen to be filmed. 4 ideas had been chosen and these ideas belonged to, Harry, Erin, Louise and Myself.

It was not long after we chose our came up with our ideas that we had to present them in a professional pitch to the clients representative. In my case I was presenting to, Richard (tutor), Amanda (works at the Centre) and Olly (homeless person).

I was not as nervous as I thought I would be. This may be because I had presented my idea in pitch form the day before to my class. I received good feedback then and it did boost my confidence.

During the pitch I talked confidently while making eye contact with all of the people observing. I referenced the interviews and my research while making my points. Although there was one moment where my mind went completely blank and I was silent for several seconds.

My idea for the advert is playing on peoples stereotypes towards the homeless.

The idea comes from what one of the people said during the interviews. 'It can happen to anybody'. With that in mind I thought it would be a good idea to make that the point of my advert.  

The advert itself is an interactive one where the viewer has to vote on a question. The advert features 5 people from the Booth Centre in a line up and the question is 'Which one is homeless?'. This is a trick question as all of them will be homeless. Most viewers will play to stereotypes in order to answer this. By making an option the advert will then work like most viral ads and take them to the website. The page will tell them that all of the people in the advert where homeless. 

It will also feature bios from those in the video detailing the reasons they are homeless and how the Booth Centre helped. 

My thinking was that during the interview they mentioned a lot about people making assumptions about the homeless. Another thing mentioned during the interview was one case where a person who was homeless went to a job interview in a suit and the interviewer didn't believe they were homeless. This made me think of using that as an angle which is where the initial idea came from.

The line up idea is from 'The Usual Suspects'.

During the interview we asked many questions, some where aimed at what the centre does others at how those that wee homeless dealt with it. Throughout one thing was repeatedly mentioned. This being that it can happen to anyone.

We were told that the Booth Centre did not want a typical charity advert in which the aim is to tug on the heart strings of the viewer and essentially guilt trip them into donating. Admittedly that probably ruined most peoples ideas then and there as most of us found it difficult to make a decent idea without unintentionally doing that.                                 We also carried out secondary research in class. Mostly concerning homelessness in Manchester as apposed to the UK as a whole. The research also covered the statistics of the Booth Centre itself. Theses statistics included funding and expenses along side percentages concerning those who used the centre. Some of the secondary research was confirmed during the interview making it much more reliable.

The statistics showed that, contrary to what most of the class assumed, the majority of the funding for the booth centre was not from donations but government grants. It also showed that most of the homeless were middle aged males. It also showed that alcoholism and drug addiction, while causes for homelessness, were not as high a percentage as most people assumed.

All of the research together showed that a lot of my initial opinions concerning the homeless were in fact wrong. It was from this that my idea the advert came from as I wish to dispel the stereotypes people have on this matter.