Reviewing The Christmas Advert

Reviewing The Christmas Advert

When I started to work on the Christmas advert, I didn't think I would have as much fun as I did. it started out as any other shoot, but with the added difference of a child actor, a new thing for me and the group. At first I was worried about how this would work, but after we started to work with Stephen, it became apparent that he was just a little bundle of joy, as the cliché suggests. It took a bit of getting used to having to record how often and how long he was on camera, but once we got past that it was just like filming any other scene. You can refer to my previous blog post if you want to know how the filming of the ad went. Once we had finished filming the shots and editing the ad, we showed it off to the second years and the acting students to see what they thought and get some feedback. The feedback was almost entirely positive. Every single person who gave feedback said it was emotional, which is exactly what we were going for, however a lot of the female audience didn't say it was entertaining, so perhaps in the future we can try and steer the aim in a more female direction to appeal to them more. Upon reflection of the ad, I decided to put together my own edit, which can be found below. I personally think that my individual edit of the advert is the best, obviously, because of how the shots are cut together and the way it is in time with the beat of the music. There are also no pointless shots cut in just to lengthen the adverts time as it is already long enough. I believe that my advert is very well put together but could have been improved with better editing skills, such as better use of the different transitions and special features of the software we used. this can only be improved over time and I hope to work on this as the course progresses, but right now I believe it held back my final edit of the advert.

After carefully examining the video and the results we got from showing it others, it was clear that we had hit the nail on the head almost perfectly with this production, with only a few things getting in the way and stopping it from being completely perfect. The next time we work with children we know what to do to keep them entertained and interested in working, as Stephen was getting bored near the end of each day. It would also be a good idea to maybe plan the edit the same way we planned the shots we would be getting. But other than that it went really well, in my opinion.