BleachLock - ID# 178

Riverside Brookfield

Division: A

Commercial

Entry Description

Humorous infomercial advertising a theft-preventing product.

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/20 9:42 am - I thought your commercial was a good, humorous take on late night infomercials. Your camera work and editing choices were consistent with this type of video. The only thing missing was a cheesy sound effect to go with the clock wipe! Watch your audio levels and background music choices. From 0.20 on it sounds like two different music tracks are playing and it is kind of distracting, even in a parody. I wish there was a true ending to the piece under the 1:00 mark.
• 3/8 5:40 pm - I will be honest with you, I had a hard time with this one, and I had to walk away and revisit it several times to come up with comments because as a parody you nailed it. You caught that genre of the cheesy late night commercial and did it well, but that is the problem with those late night commercials – they are cheesy and usually very 1 dimensional, all the things that when I judge your piece and hold it up against some of the other commercials it is hard to compare because this genre doesn’t allow you to go deeper and show your true talent. So keep that in mind as you read my comments – because I keep going back and forth on what I might even write. SOUND Music choices really helped the audience transition from sequence to sequence. And in case the audience didn’t see the obvious transitions you had the sound effects as you moved through the various phases of your commercial. STORY. The cheesy dramatizations were a good parody of the real thing. The script was also well written to make me feel like I had woken up in the middle of the night to find my tv left on and one of these types of commercials on, you did your homework and getting the text right. CAMERA/VISUALS. This style of commercial does not lend itself well for you to show your talents and skills because so much of it is shot with just that wide cover shot and as a result it has that very 1 dimensional look where the audience is on the outside looking in, and as a result really don’t get sucked into your video and connect with it. EDITING. Typical commercials are always going to be 30 to 60 seconds long, I would have loved to see your commercial end at the 60 second mark instead of keep going, you got so close but with a little more editing you could have gotten it all in. It was weird for it to end the way it did, and I am guessing your original ended the way you would have wanted, but for this submission I would have re edited it so it would fit as a stand alone piece. CLOSING COMMENTS As I said above don’t be discouraged by my review, as a parody you nailed it, but in this category some of the videos you go against have so much more depth to them and I didn’t feel like I was comparing apples with other apples and it made it tough.
• 3/8 9:58 am - I thought this was entertaining and reminded me of the infomercials back in the day. I think you could have edited this down a little more. I think you could have brought in some close ups along the way and sped up the pacing. Nice job with the black and white to color transition.

Judge 1

Positives: 1. Good VO storytelling 2. The montage of the lost phone was good, nice editing.

Improvements: 1. The video didn't end within :60s. For a commercial these are strict time limits, :15s, :30s, :60. They cannot go long or short. The website needs to be included in the video. 2. Would have liked Eugene to be mic'd up, his voice sounded distant.

Judge 2

Positives: This mimics the cheap TV style adverts fairly well (though I am not sure why one would really want to do that.) On camera talent is well spoken.

Improvements: The product itself is so silly, I'm not sure I understand the point of this. Nobody would be convinced to buy it - which is what advertising is supposed to do. This might work better as a comedy sketch, than as an actual commercial.

Judge 3

Positives: concept is funny-- audio voice over is captured well the black and white treatment at the beginning is great. You took cues from other infomercials you've seen and recreated them well. The clock transition is spot on! The fast zoom transition too! the harp sound at the turn was great

Improvements: you didn't budget your time and had to fade out at the end :-(( music at beginning transition to harp was rough and not timed well show me "how" it works after you've "locked your valuables"--put it out on the sidewalk or in public, show someone NOT taking your stuff. Needed a "testimonial" of a satisfied customer. More graphics on screen--"guaranteed for life"--"money back guarantee"...things like that Graphics were hard to read. Needed better contrast.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: