Blog post 1: Existing take away food delivery services/industry

We researched this in order to get an idea of USPs and conventions of the modern online food delivery industry. We did so by and looking in various places such as Youtube, Wikipedia, watching the ads themselves on TV or even using the apps or websites of these various companies

This was a video I found from YouTube which really helped in my research of the industry. It showed me a plethora of different delivery services as well as telling me what makes each one different thereby giving me plenty of ideas for food delivery USPs. The video also shows the variety of categories on which people judge food delivery services, from speed to quality to cost of delivery. This helped me decide what features I may want to advertise in my adverts. I also did other research on the food delivery industry itself as I learned how the industry generated £9.7 billion in 2017 in the UK as well as 41 thousand jobs. I also learned the importance of collaboration between brands as Uber Eats was able to acquire Mcdonalds delivery under its name. Both Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat were able to provide delivery for places which don't have it such as KFC or Mcdonalds, however the Uber Eats did get some negative press with how little money the jobs makes for those who are delivering it.

The Just Eat Website

I also specifically looked at the Just Eat website for a clearer picture on what these companies were branded like as well as what was their main priorities.

Something that stood out to me from this website was the addition of the advertisement for the app at the bottom of the page. As the page only contains a few features: a field to enter your address, recommendations (which only appear once you have already used the website once), a page footer and this advert. This page is very bare bones yet they clearly felt it was important enough to include the app advert; showing how important the mobile app is to the company. This is reflected also in the advert. The importance of speed can also be seen in the ad copy, the use of language such as “even faster” and “speedy” included in the few words there are, show that the speed of delivery is a very critical feature in the food delivery. As well as the importance of taste, with “flavour” also featuring in the tagline.

Uber eats app page

Overall it meant I showed my audience the good things about my service IE speed, quality of food; whilst also helping me design a food delivery company based on the companies I already know. I really liked the unique USP of Uber Eats, delivering food which isn't typically delivered to peoples homes as well (ie McDonalds). I was also a fan of their generally minimalist colour scheme used in their branding and decided to try and adopt that simple approach into my own branding.

Compare and contrast of Big Issue cover

The poster on the left is a real big issue poster featuring musician Will.i.am. In this advert, layout is used interestingly with the the focal image of Will in the middle and a variety of quotes around it. The other stories are in a small font at the bottom of the poster. This makes the focal image clear on an initial glance with the variety of interesting quotes around it used to get readers to read on. The coverline is also placed directly in the middle at the bottom of the page; the reader's eye going directly from the focal image to the coverline and then elsewhere. In this way the cover allows the reader to see exactly what's most to least important. In my poster I have also made sure the focal image is large and clear, however I have put it in the bottom right corner of the page to give it a more relaxed less in your face feel. The use of this placement has meant that I also placed the logo and tagline in top left to contrast. This was to make sure everything had its own place as well as to effectively fill up the page. The main coverline is written through the focal image, the text seemingly going below the arm of the main actor, creating a unique design as well as making it clear that they are the focus of the cover. The official cover uses a font  which coincides with the mosaic look of Will himself, it's a font which has a futuristic feel to it whilst staying relatively sleek and high quality. The coverline of "My Voice Will.I.Am" has the Will.I.Am as the largest font on the whole page making it especially clear both what the reader should look at first as well as showing who the person on the cover is. My cover uses font sizing in the same way however uses a different font for the main coverline than for the smaller one this is just as another way to clearly show what the order of importance of the coverlines. The font used on the pricing and selling line are the same as is used in the official covers, with the use of  bold, simple black or white writing. The focal images for both covers are similar, with a shot of an artist with the background keyed out, these images are the largest part of the cover in both. There are clear differences however, though they both stylise the photo, the official cover shows the face to be made up of a variety of different colored polygons which help with the futuristic, professional look they're going for. My cover uses a simple stroke around the focal image, with the arm also edited to go over the text, this is a lot more subtle and just helps with the more cartoony light hearted feel of the cover. The official cover only uses 4 main colours a red-orange gradient, white and black. The gradient creates a colourful background for the white/black text to stand out boldly on, whilst also catching the eyes of people who just catch a glimpse of the cover due to the stark colours used. The red/orange also give the cover a clear character; ideas of action and power are connoted through only the use of 2 colours.  My cover instead uses a more toned down blue gradient for the background as well as white and black text. The text being black and white again helping make it readable on top of the background whilst not distracting too heavily from the other elements of the page. The blue background also helps give it a more mellow, calm feel as is the general theme throughout the cover. The official cover lacks original writing, with most of it being presumably quotes from Will.I.Am himself, with the only original language being the main coverline as well.

Continuity Task 2 Evaluation

What was your role in the task and what did you actually do?: I was a main actor in my piece. I was also a script writer and producer alongside the rest of my group, as we all helped in writing the script, moving and dressing sets and getting props. The role of director was also split across the group with us all deciding collectively on how the shot should look and how the actors should deliver the lines. I also did half of the editing of my video alongside Ayo.

What factors did you have to take into account when planning, filming and editing?: The time it would take to film was a very important part of the planning phase, as we were given a fairly tight schedule in which we had to finish our filming. We wanted to make sure that each shot flowed into one another as this was primarily a continuity task and so that was at the heart of our planning, filming and editing. We also made sure to plan the task in such a way that the editing process would be fairly straightforward, so that no special effects or other advanced editing techniques would need to be done as this was not in our brief.

How successful was your sequence? Did you manage to demonstrate match-on action, shot-reverse shot and 180-degree rule? did you achieve continuity overall?: I would say we were successful in creating our sequence. We had many shot-reverse shots throughout the dialogue, the 180 rule was not broken at any point and we had a number of well timed match on action transitions. I would say we generally achieved continuity however there were a couple inconsistencies across shots. For example there was a dramatic shift in lighting across a few shots which happened despite us not adjusting the lighting. This was perhaps due to the lighting system itself or perhaps simply the angle at which we were filming. There was also an inconsistency in which my arms moved far too much across 2 shots. This was because we didn't plan and remember the exact positions of the actors when filming multiple shots of the same scene, resulting in this issue.

What have you learnt from completing this task? How might this impact future video work?: We have learnt the importance of making sure actors keep completely still across 2 shots, this will allow us to keep continuity across shots in future projects. I have also learnt that footage should be watched back and compared during the filming phase, this would have helped us pick up on lighting differences. The importance of a shot list has also been made clear to me through this project as previously shot lists have been mandatory and I never really appreciated how useful they really are. Had we made one our filming time would have been much more organised. We will also remember to use the clapperboard in all shots as in this task we only remembered to use it halfway through the filming process.

Analysis of film trailer

In this trailer the use of drums, traditional instruments and Hawaiian language in the music helps make clear that this film is very much a Hawaiian tradition based film. We only see 2 people all trailer, making it clear that they are our protagonists throughout the film, these are also the only named characters in the trailer. The ocean is also shown to play a key role in the story with most shots either having the sea visible or some kind of ocean motif ie a boat or paddle. This as well as the various action shots of characters sailing across the vast ocean as well as the ocean being shown to act like an actual character in the way it interacts with Moana makes it clear to us that the sea is one of the most important parts of the film. The trailer generally focuses on showing the landscapes and jokes of the film throughout the trailer making it clear to viewers that these are the main genres of the film.

Continuity task evaluation

1. Explain the story of your video: Our video was about a boy who attempts to do parkour but ends up failing a jump and falls over onto his back
2. How did you attempt to create 'narrative flow': By using the same character in the same scenery, whilst attempting to match positions of actors across shots so that a character didn't move too much or repeat their actions across shots
3. Did you achieve full continuity? If not why not: We didn't achieve full continuity as we incorrectly started and stopped filming across certain shots, in shot 3 we stopped filming too late and so the action was repeated in shot 4. In contrast we stopped shot 6 too early and so the actor moved too dramatically across the 2 shots
4. In hindsight, what would you do differently to improve the narrative flow of your video and tell your story more effectively?: We would have firstly had our opening shot include a little movement going into our next shot, with the second shot then starting during the action. We then would have made sure that shot 3 ended sooner so as to correctly flow into shot 4. We would have ended shot 4 slightly earlier as the actor runs past the same point in both shot 4 & 5. We would have lastly kept filming for longer in shot 5 to correctly match it with last shot.

Reflections on Practical: TV Drama Still

We were tasked with creating a variety of stills to reflect a certain TV drama subgenre. We thought about subgenres we would be able to simply recreate in our school grounds with the props we had; therefore discounting sub genres such as sci-fi. We then got to work on storyboarding our various shots; deciding on shot types, actors, locations and props.

My shot was a mid long shot of a criminal character half in and half out of a window, looking out whilst holding a pistol. I feel like i connoted the crime subgenre through use of the weapon, the urban setting and the casual, modern clothes worn by the character in shot.

I wanted to allow the audience to try and have to decode the still, by having her only half in the window I wanted to present the idea that she may be breaking into somewhere or running away from something. We also don't get a straight on angle which means we cannot see into the room, creating enigma, we wonder what is in the room and what kind of place she's going into with a gun. This would interest the audience and make us curious as to the character and the motives for the person in the shot, as well as also building on cultural assumption that someone with a gun in without a police uniform is typically a criminal.

Big Issue Coster Evaluation

I feel this poster went quite well, the use of the text and the cutout look both help create a more interesting fun design on the cover. I made sure to use the official logo and strap line in this poster to make sure the cover looked more real as well as the "inside" section containing relevant news headlines from the time.

I would have liked to maybe find another font for the main headline as although I like the light-hearted feel of the text I think I may have been able to find a more quality font if I had more time. The inside box also looks a little hard on the eyes, I maybe could have found a better way of adding the box whereby it blends in better with the rest of the cover.