Updated Vaseline Advert

Editing Analysis Post

Editing Techniques

What is editing? The history and development:

Editing is how audio and visual material is combined to create a production of TV shows, adverts or films. The original way of editing with the basic edit was with a ‘cut’ this is where editors used to physically cut with scissors the film in order to incorporate it how they wanted it to be shown and any film left over was disposed of. By combining shots into sequences it creates a storyline, not all media texts possess a narrative however editing aids to create this. There are two main video editing technologies, the first one is in-camera editing which requires you to shoot the footage in order of the sequences as it involves creating the videos without uploading the actual footage. The secondary video editing technology is linear and non-linear editing. Before the 1990’s linear editing was the only method of editing, it involves a tape-to-tape without the need for editing software, the finished videotape is called a master and this was the way of editing before the digital ages began. Non-linear editing is the digital age of editing, it is the process of uploading footage while being able to access individual shots/frames of the footage by selecting them on a computer ready to place into an editing engine like ‘Premiere Pro’. Transitions is a term for the joining together of two different pieces of footage, the most popular transition is a ‘cut’ that cuts from one piece of footage to another. A dissolve is transition frequently used to show a characters dreams and thoughts, also to go back or forward in times. A fade is another transition there are fade-in’s and fade-out’s these allow a change of time or a location also to define a beginning and an end and finally a wipe is another transition and this uses one piece of footage to ‘wipe’ another piece of footage off the screen.

Visual Analysis: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b051wtd4/eastenders-03022015 This is an EastEnders episode 03/02/2015 - description : 'Desperate to help her father but torn about what she should do, Tina looks to her family for support. Lauren makes a big decision but will she get the answer she is hoping for?'

At 00:39 this is where the 180 degree rule takes place during a conversation between two people, we see the female always on the left hand side of the screen and the male on the right side of the screen. This ensure a character is placed in a consistent area in the frame, it helps the audience to understand the layout of the scene, additionally reduces the continuity errors which decrease the authenticity. at 00:49 there is a type of motivated edit which is an eye line match, this scene includes a male character looking out of the frame and then it cuts so the audience can see what the character was looking at, and in this particular scene it was show in point-of-view (POV) however eye line matches do not always have to be in POV but usually are. A motivated edit is when a character is looking out of the frame in one shot and then it cuts and we see what they can see. It is effective because the audience can connect with the character by putting themselves in their shoes and seeing exactly what and how the character see’s and potentially feels as if they are in the scene. This is composed by the continuity system as the actor is always looking a certain way out of the frame if the actor was to change sides it would manipulate the footage and in-turn confuses the audience resulting in their loss of interest.

Examples to provide evidence of the eye line match and 180 degree rule.

 At 1:11 there is a shot reverse shot, which is also part of the continuity system. In a conversation between a female and male characters they are having this conversation over a dinner table and at this moment it converts from a medium shot to shot reverse shots which are over the shoulder shots to show one character talking in one direction and the other character talking in another, the 180 degree rule takes place here too. Shot reverse shot makes the audience feel more in touch with the conversation and also makes it seem realistic. At 12:18 there is a match-cut-on-action this is when an action begins in one shot and ends in another, in this scene the male character who is running stops for a drink, picks up the drink then it cuts to another shot and he drinks it, then it cuts back and he picks up another drink, then it cuts to another shot and he splashes the drink on his face. This form of a cut is effective because it brings the audience in the action with the characters and the audience begin to feel more engaged with what is happening in the scene. By using this type of cut it makes the scene seem to incorporate more cuts which creates an action feel and in this point in the scene the actor seems to be distressed and in action, the cuts just reinforce this feel. At 10:01 there is a conversation happening however there has been a close-up used, in the scene two characters are peeping through a window to watch a marathon this could suggest the reason why the close-up is used is because they are close up to the window which using this shot would engage the audience and make them feel that they are there with them, this is effective because it involves the audience into what’s happening and gives them a clear understanding of the feel of the scene.

example of shot reverse shot

Example of a shot reverse shot

Image 1 - match-cut-on-action

Image 2 - image 1 and 2 show a match-cut-on-action one action
happening in one type of shot and finishing in another
different type of shot.





Final written section and Conclusion:

The construction of time and space in my media extract is effective because it is a serial TV programme that has the genre of a drama which in theory should not be filled with continuous amounts of varied transitions because it should be more realistic and therefore have longer takes and consistent transition. In my media extract there are consistent cuts in between scenes, however when a conversation becomes heated the cuts tend to become more active to suggest warning and distress, this builds tension and manipulates the audiences view of the situation, also engages them because it creates excitement that something is going to happen.

In the scene that begins at 3:39 to 4:38 there are jump cuts, a jump cut is a transition between two shots it gives an effect of disorientation and also can create tension. How it is used in my media text is a conversation within a family of 3 people, even though they are all in the same room and close together there are many cuts included in the scene, this adds texture to the conversation. The conversation about one of the characters is getting ready for his race which is why I believe the jump cut was effective to build tension on that characters excitement, however also includes a disagreement with his children, the amount of jump cuts could be representing the two contrasting emotions of excitement an anger.

First jump cut in a heated conversation shows first reaction of one of the characters

Shot showing the whole situation building tension for the audience to see and develop an opinion on it. It shows the runner getting ready for his race which creates excitement, however jump cuts back to his children and the heated discussion. 

Another jump cut to how the children are reacting to their parents this shot suggest they are together because the father is out of shot and they are close together both in the same position as the father is standing. This gives an overview of the heated discussion to present to the audience. 

At 11:47 the narrative is restricting us by providing and withholding information, this is where the narrative only creates parts of the scene that it wants you to see. The restricted narrative does this to build tension and make the story line flow successfully. In my media extract this is scene during the marathon when two head to head characters stop for a drink and it keeps cutting from the characters drinking to the other marathon runners this suggests there is something coming up that the narrative wants us to see and that happens. This is effective because it creates the story in more depth and drops hints to the audience which keeps them wondering and therefore keeps them engaged with what’s happening in the scene. 

Character 1 stopping for a drink

Character 2 joins him at the drinks

Medium shot of the runners possible withholding information from the audience suggesting something is brewing and about to come up in the marathon that will effect character 1 and 2.

The shot of the revelation, character 3 overtaking character 1 and 2, this is how the narrative builds tension and provides information of what they want the audience to see and think a certain way about the characters. 

Even though the majority of the content in my media text consists of parallel editing/cross cutting at 10:48 to 14:45 is where this is most visible, there is a marathon happening and it begins at 10:48 then it cuts to several different scenes that are happening while the marathon is going on and then back at 14:45 it cuts back to the marathon nearly ending. This is effective because it gives a construction to the story line and generates a feeling for the audience towards characters and the scene, also makes it seem more realistic which engages the audience further. At 7:32 there is also montage editing, it cuts from the marathon begging to at 8:00 where an old man is now being taken to hospital by his daughter, this suggests montage editing because it is placing two pieces of footage next to each other in order to compare/contrast them to establish a relationship. This scene does this by having a marathon with healthy happy people and then it cuts to the juxtaposition of an older man who can’t walk very well and isn't very healthy. This creates an impact which increases the scenes authenticity by following different characters lives that are all happening at the same time, additionally engages the audience to think about why these two pieces of footage are next to each other and how it makes them feel. In the media extract I believe there are continuous cutaways because a cutaway involves cutting to a separate image in a continuous flow of action, increasing the authenticity of the media text and could be used more because cutaways are cleaner than jump-cuts. 

Here is the image of the ill man showing weakness and ill health.

Juxtapose to the marathon starting and showing strength and good health.

The Screen Time is different to analyse in my media extract from others as it is a soap drama and therefore does not have specific main characters as every actor gets equal screen time for their stories, however if there is a specific big event it will focus more on one particular group of characters more than others. For example in my media extract the big event is the marathon and some how each different character will connect to that big event in some way. Here are a few examples of different characters on at different times.

Example 1 

Example 2 

Example 3

Example 4

Example 5

The editing rhythm in my media text extract consists completely of cuts there are not any transitions which suggests that the reason there are so many cuts is to make it flow more and therefore be seen as more realistic, if transitions were included it would suggest events in the scenes where happening at different times instead of cutting to a different piece of footage which suggests events are happening at the same time. Also would be busier on the frame and suggest more action was occurring therefore making it less realistic. 

Cutting to sound track – (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YCGtT_FRYg) in this video it is edited to fit the soundtrack it has been given, at the start it begins with a calming part of the soundtrack which fits with the video because it is in slow motion of people walking. Then at 00:25 two of the people catch eyes in the video and the music begins to incorporate a beat and as a result it become higher paced, this manipulates the audience to think something is about to happen. Then more cuts start to happen which suggests action shots and suspense is building, the main male character then begins to run and the music picks up an even faster beat. At 1:33 it drops the beat and begins to become slow motion again still keeping an instrumental pace about it without the beat, and back to main man running again the beat comes back in for a while, while he is consistently running with many more cuts. Near the end an explosion on the man takes place and sends him shooting up to the sky and the beat drops again leaving the instrumental on however longer takes and barely any cuts. Overall when there is calming parts of the soundtrack there are fewer cuts and longer takes this is to increase the depth and emotion into this particular scene and connect the audience with a calming feel, whereas when the beat comes in there are many more cuts and rarely long takes, these cuts follow the action and build tension in the scene, making the audience feel like they have to keep their eyes on the screen in case they miss anything.

The calming music there are people walking in slow motion
backwards, reinforces this idea of peacefulness.

Here the beat has dropped and the footage begins to
move at a faster pace and the actors are now running backwards.
The music and the footage reinforces this aggressive/panicking feel

There is not much shot variation in my media extract and this is because I chose a TV drama, a TV drama will consist of mainly medium or close up shots, this is so it can seem more realistic and more relatable to the audience, it will be similar shots used throughout. In comparison to an action movie which will contain a variation of different shots to build tension and follow the action in a more flexible way. An example of an action film that uses a variation of shots and transitions is Wanted (2008) by Timur Bekmambetov, in the first scene of this film there is action, using bird’s eye view shots, dissolves, long shots, close ups all in one with very high speed. Using a variation of shots in action films is effective because it builds the tension and carries the audience to make them follow the action and become engaged, it can also disorientate while creating the storyline to be more fluid, using transitions to slow down or fasten time. Here is the link for the evidence - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf3MqrE07I4&list=PL86E07BC3A4B44032

Prezi Vaseline Advert Analysis

TV Advertisement Evaluation.

TV Advertisement Evaluation.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Questions in my survey:
1: Age, name and gender?
2:What do you like about the advert?
3:Who is the advert aimed at?
4:What age is advert aimed for?
5:What is it selling?
6:How effective is the advert?
7:Would you purchase this product?
8:What time of day would you like to see this advert?
9:What should be improved?
10:What TV channel would you place this on?

The original brief was to re-brand a Unilever product in order to appeal to a new audience and achieve this through creating a new TV advert. The brief of our advertisement production was ‘We are currently conducting research into the relationship viewers have with television advertisements. We are trying to determine which advertise effective and which are failing to capture the intended audience. In order to complete our research and improve the quality of advertising on UK television, we are asking that you provide us with information regarding your own viewing experiences and habits.’we had to create and develop an idea for a TV advertisement and produce a TV advertisement that reflects near profession standards. Our chosen product was ‘Vaseline’ aiming to create a re-branded product that is now aimed at ‘Men’s toiletries’. Our group decided that we would take a piece from each person’s different ideas, we all agreed we liked the idea of a situation where a male was trying to impress a female because we believed we could make the advert humorous. We had an idea to produce a recce on our local pub as we wanted a realistic setting and one that could relate to our target audience and places that they socialise. We.We had a local pub near our college and decided to take a look at the setting and see if it fit the idea. As a group we wanted to re-brand the lip balm of Vaseline in order for it to suite the male target market, as currently it is promoted as a female product and we wanted to expand the target market to a broader range of people. 

To receive feedback of the advert we created a survey with questions that included who the product was aimed at, how effective the advert was and what we could improve on. The audience gave good feedback on the acting and this was the most popular option for what worked well, followed by the camera work, this was effective because we had doubts about the camera work and this reassured us. The response we received on who the advert was aimed at came back as males which was the exact target market that we wanted to attract to the product. The age that the audience said the advert was aimed at was 19-30 at 95% of people who took the survey, however we were aiming more to the teenage generation in the 0-18 category which only 5% of the people who took the survey responded to that age group. Even though it wasn’t the response we hoped for it was still an effective response that made us think about what part of the advert made the audience think this. In the response we received about what the advert was selling, 95% of the response said Vaseline and 5% said how to get a person’s attention; this is effective because we did not want to advert to come across as selling anything but the product however the majority of responses said the product. In the last question of what should be improved there was a mixed response however the 50% of people that responded said lighting and the dialogue audio was where improvement could take place. As a group we understood as we had a few technical difficulties with making the audio sound more clear and also making the light more visible. Overall we were happy with the feedback we received and it gave us a different perspective on our advert and also gave us pointers on how to we could improve next time.

This print-screen from the end of the advert reinforces what we
were selling to the audience with a picture of the product to make
it recognisable by the audience.

Using the feedback we received on the target audience question I believe we targeted the male audience successfully with the actors we used to relate with an audience member of similar age. Also with the pub setting we made it a realistic situation and also a situation that teenagers go through with trying to impress another person that they have an interest in. However we didn’t want to send a message across of how to get someone’s attention or encourage drinking as a ‘cool’ activity to do, with the feedback we received about what the product was selling and 95% said ‘Vaseline’ the actual product we believe that this gave an appropriate impact towards our target market.

The Idea for characters we wanted to have in our advert was two males trying to impress two females, we started off with this idea of one of the males playing really bad at pool and not being able to get a drink and not being able to get the girls attention, then his male friend hands him the product of Vaseline lip balm and he applies it, after he applies it he starts to play well at pool and successfully buys a drink and as a result impresses the girls. To put the idea together we had to do the paperwork and knowing exactly what we wanted the setting and advert to look like. For the lighting we wanted a dull tone that really gave a pub setting feel and also that made the advert seem more realistic. However when we took the footage back and uploaded it ready to edit it was darker than we thought it would be, therefore we had to edit the saturation and contrast to brighten certain parts of the footage. Camera work came with a few difficulties as in one scene an actor approaches the bar to purchase a drink and there was a mirror behind the bar which meant that we had to be cautious that you couldn't see the reflection of the camera. To overcome this we made sure Jack, who was our camera man, stood diagonal to the bar so that he was in no view of the mirror and the shot was still successful.

 The editing side of the production was the most difficult for me personally because I did not have much confidence or experience with editing however my group pointed me in the right direct and helped me with certain parts I got stuck on. A majority of our editing was based around our audio sound because we had music and we had dialogue occasionally the music would sink out the dialogue, to fix this we had to turn the music audio down and turn the dialogue up. However the dialogue still sounded muffled as it had the pub background music and other people who were in the pub, also  because we had the video camera that picked up the audio for us, we tried to slow it down and cutting out the music in the dialogue parts, although this was unsuccessful. It was suggested that we should re-dub the dialogue parts to make it sound clear, we rented out a mic and went to a quite office and re-recorded the exact words in the footage, once we got back to college we uploaded the audio and dragged it to the audio 3 bar because other audio bars had the music and original audio for other dialogue parts. It was crisp and had no background noise which made it sound obvious that we had re-dubbed it, so we added the music audio in the background to balance the sound. Overall that was the hardest part of the editing because we had to try everything possible to make it so the audience could understand. Last part of the editing included Adobe After-Effects software this was the part I really felt I could grasp quickly, we needed to create a part at the end where text comes onto the screen to tell the audience what the product it. How I did this was to download an image of the Vaseline lip balm we used and upload it onto the soft wear, then include text ‘Vaseline’ with a catchy slogan, our group spent a while coming up with slogans until we picked the best one which could best advertise the product, ‘Anything is possible’ this not only fit with the advert however presents the audience with a feel of confidence. When exporting Adobe After-Effects ready to import it to our footage we were confused on what bar on the timeline in premiere pro to put it on, eventually it worked out that an available video line is where we put it on underneath the last piece of footage, so it appears at the end of our advert. Overall the editing section was where we had the most problems however we overcame these by helping each other and also asking for any assistance if we got really stuck on something we had not come across before.

This is a print-screen to show where we struggled with the audio
and how we had to get the right balance between the music audio
and the voice over audio. Additionally shows the mirror behind
the bar where we had to stand the camera man diagonal so that he
could not be seen.

The content of our advert hit our aims well, we received great feedback on who the product was aimed at with 95% of people saying males was what the advert was attracting.  However after the actor is rejected the first time of buying an alcoholic drink and then applies the Vaseline and purchases the drink we did not want it to put across this idea that drinking was ‘cool’ or that we were encouraging drinking in order to impress someone, we simply thought it would give the advert humor and a realistic perspective. The feedback we received on the age it was aimed at was mostly people thought 19-30 which we thought more 0-18 even though it includes drinking we believe that the 0-18 age gap aimed more towards behavior of trying to impress someone and get their attention. One of the other questions asked was how effective do you think the advert is? The feedback from this was 55% of people said it was slightly effective and 45% of people said it was very effective and nobody said it was ineffective which was successful for us to know that our advert had an effect on our audiences we were trying to appeal to. This links with the 65% of people that said they would purchase this product, overall I believe our story line presented the product in an effective way using the feedback as our evidence of this. 

The message we were trying to present is that you don’t have to be a female to enjoy products like Vaseline because they affect each individual in the same way, we also wanted to broaden the target range this way Vaseline receives more exposure and effective feedback which equals more money to the company. As mentioned before we did not want to encourage drinking in any way or form and looking at our feedback of people who took the survey nobody selected that it encouraged drinking, this is why the feedback was successful to us and reassured us of that one possible downside that could have been. Overall I believe the advert served its purpose to present Vaseline in a different light and also to attract a different target audience. The B-CAP code that we must abide by especially in our advert was the code on alcohol’ Advertisements for alcoholic drinks should not be targeted at people under 18 years of age and should not imply, condone or encourage immoderate, irresponsible or anti-social drinking.’ Looking at our advert  and the feedback we received anyone who watched the advert believes alcohol is not the main focus, the actor we used who purchased the drink from the bar was 18 which means we were not condoning any underage drinking at all in our TV advert. Another part of the B-CAP code that we must comply with the advertising regulations is code 4.2 – ‘Advertisements must not cause serious or widespread offence against generally accepted moral, social or cultural standards.’ In this advert we did not aim in any way to put females in a degrading situation where they were seen in an inhumane way, judging by the feedback we received there was no complaints about this and after showing it to the class the oral feedback did not include anything in the way the females were presented or for that fact the males. We simply used this situation and idea because that is how a realistic situation that a majority of people go through, also wanted a vision where the audience could find it humorous and relate to it and I believed we achieved that.

As you can see in the print-screen we used an actor that was of
the age of 18 so that our advert was not promoting underage drinking.

Our finished version did not differ too much from our original idea and aims; our original idea was to have 3 ‘lads’ however we converted this to 2 males because we could only get hold of two females, it also seemed more realistic. Instead of one of the males buying a drink for just himself our original idea was the male to buy the females drinks however the budget of our production was £5 and one pint cost £3.50 so as a result we changed it to the male being able to by himself a drink showing confidence that attracts the females towards him. The shots from our storyboard stayed very similar of the exchanged of the Vaseline and the shot of the male’s feet when approaching the bar to build tension in the scene that kept the audience engaged, additionally the over the shoulder shots when attempting to purchase drinks at the bar. Overall the feedback we received on the advert I found effective because we found out how the audience took the advert and what their experiences of watching it was, it also helped if we were to improve or develop another TV advert like this one because we know the main factors to improve on is lighting, and mainly the audio next time we could possible connect a microphone to expose the sound in higher quality. 

Overall I'm content with our final advert piece because it hits our aims and I believe we re-branded the product successfully, including the feedback that said it was mainly aimed at our target audience of males and also what the advert was selling is the Vaseline product. Beginning the project with barely any confidence in editing and leaving this project with the confidence in editing that I believe I could do parts of editing individually now. People in my group were not aware of where the pub was when we were planning to film so I lead the way when we took a trip to the pub to analyse if it was suitable. Within filming we agreed jack could be the camera man because he had experience with the camera and we believed it was appropriate for him to film if I and Lois were to be the females in the film. If I was to do it again I would possible rent out an attachable microphone in order to receive clearer sound because that was the main difficulty we came across, having to try every possible way of editing to make our sound clear, other than that there is nothing specific that I would change, I am very content with the piece we produced.

Editing quiz questions (The technical side of editing)

The Editing Process Guide

This is the old version of my Editing Guide before improvements (above)






This is the new and improved version of my Editing Guide (below)

Vaseline advert - Pre production paperwork

Rebranding a Unilever product