Art direction wasn't something I'd ever considered as a career option before Uni, partly because I didn't know what it involved... yet on my course it's the one thing that I really love doing besides writing this blog.
As part of our fragrance project we had to do our own photoshoot to create a press & video advert all with an actual photographer. It was an amazing opportunity and nice to get the chance to work on set in a proper studio- something that I have always dreamed of doing. The photographer was lovely and really helped us out especially when our 'plan A' didn't work. We used two male models in our shoot because as you know we are producing a fragrance for a male audience. It was actually harder than you'd think trying to find a model with the 'right' look, it's not just about good looks- they have to be linkable to the campaign in some way. We needed guys who looked older preferably about 25, which is hard when the majority of lads you know are the same age.
THE SHOOT:
The basic principles of our shoot were fairly simple, we needed mainly head & shoulder shots that we'd hoped to be able to project cities on the models faces or white shirts. But as always life doesn't necessarily go as planned so we ended up just doing a range of head & shoulder shots at multiple angles which we edited onto in post production. As the projection plan didn't work out as we expected- we needed a stronger light source that was powerful enough to project the cityscapes onto the models.
As you can see we added a cityscape to the model's face, personally we all felt the model here was perfect for the look of the brand because he just had that messy, rustic look to him. The hair was an added bonus! Inserting the picture to his face rather than his body worked better here as we planned to put the fragrance bottle in the bottom right hand corner- together they just would have been too much.
Adding the bottle made it more of a fragrance advert. It showed what we were trying to sell, yet I think on reflection it might have been better to add more wording to the press ad so you guys (the consumers) would be able to tell what we're trying to sell. Obviously the name of the brand is a key thing to include on the ad but a tagline would work equally as well, our tagline is quite long which I'm not sure works as well because it needs to be sharper & snappy.
Out of all the shots taken this is one of my favourites I just think it works so well! The scene on the white shirts is stunning- we opted to keep the main photograph black & white and only added colour to the bottle. So both things separately would stand out but together they blend and combine as one.
THE VIDEO ADVERT:
Ever since my Art Foundation last year I have developed a real interest for film and making videos, I think because it's just something I can get lost for hours doing- it really relaxes me! Slightly off topic but I want to start YouTube so bad... maybe one day.
The concept came from videos we'd looked at where they started out in black & white but then quickly faded to to colour as the video went on. We wanted to keep the video really snappy & quick to hold the viewers attention- some videos are so long and boring. Adverts such as the Waitrose one are in my opinion quite dull, personally I don't know how they'd get any business if their videos are anything to go by. The music we used wasn't the one we'd originally intended as you couldn't use that one for free from YouTube, however I do feel this track keeps up the pace and builds the video up to a climax. Originally I was against having any writing on the ad because I wanted the visuals to speak for themselves but I think it definitely looks better with wording- it helps let the audience know who we are & what we're about.
I'd love to hear what you think of our press & videos ads in the comments below.
What style of advert is your favourite? Comment below.
Take care & I'll see you very soon
X
All imagery used is my own.
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