Self Reflection Essay

SELF REFLECTION ESSAY

The advertisement I chose was for the American company Converse, it is a company that produces accessories, apparel and most knowingly for their sneakers. They have been in the market for more than 100 years, started from1908 and in 2003 has been subsidiarized by Nike. My advertisement solely focuses on advertising its production of sneakers, showing that we have been producing it for so long, and by using basketball to show that we have contributed to basketball players in the past.

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? 

During the Converse's first release of shoes, they were initially used for basketball players, but ever since 1979, the shoes has changed their purpose. With other brands such as Nike or Adidas taking over the market for basketball shoes, Converse sneakers has shifted to being seen as a fashion item or casual footwear. Although this is the case, I have challenged this change by including basketball in my Converse advertisement, I showed to the audience that Converse has been used for basketball in the past by showing a fake converse ad in black and white, which indicates the past, once it cuts to the present seeing the converse shoe still being worn while the subject is playing basketball, it shows that the shoes are still relevant for basketball, and most importantly have stayed relevant for years.

Typical representations of my audience are skaters and potheads, usually when people think of this stereotype, they think of baggy clothes, long hair and Converse/Vans shoes. In my advertisement on the other hand, has challenged this link between Converse and this stereotype, by not including them in the advertisement at all, instead, focus on the past stereotype of Converse, which are basketball player.

2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

The audience for my advertisement are basketball fans and Converse fans. I targeted these fans by including what they love, for example, Basketball fans usually aren't attracted to Converse, usually they look for basketball shoes such as Nike or Adidas, but now, since I've included Basketball in the ad, the audience of the ad has widened, it may also introduce people to the past of Converse. Converse fans would also be targeted, 

My ad will be shown in social media or Converse stores, I believe that social media has the most potential in spreading the ad, as it is where almost everyone goes to, it can either be an ad for a Youtube video, or on a website where people would get a glimpse of the advertisement and make them interested.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

My production skills has more or less developed since I started making the first storyboard draft. A lot of changes were made since the beginning, at first I was struggling to think of an interesting idea for a shoe commercial, then I thought that I could take advantage of the age of the company, and its history for basketball shoes, these two aspects of the brand is really the main idea of the ad, it's an opportunity to show newer customers what we were and what we could be. My advert has definitely been changed for the better, I believe that my first ad idea, was pretty generic and boring, and although my final decision for my advert could have been better, I am satisfied with it and with a little bit of tweaking at the end, I made an advertisement I would enjoy watching.

During the making of the storyboard, I changed the advertisement a few times, first it was just cuts of people wearing the shoe, then it turned to basketball, where someone would do a free throw, then my final decision was for the person to dunk the basketball, I changed it because of the fact that you cannot see the shoe being worn when someone is doing a free throw and so I changed it to dunking.

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? 

The tools that I used for the advertisement were papers and pencils, I have wasted a bunch of papers for this project as I really wanted to make the best possible version of the storyboard, and although my drawing skills were not that good, I tried my best and ended up satisfied with the result, and when drawing the storyboards I changed the character design a few times, just so that I could have an easier time drawing the rest of them. 

I didn't include any complicated camera movement and angles in my advertisement because I think that it would be hard to implement, and so I did only used simple cuts and transitions. One cut that would gain attention would be the match cut, as it is the only different cut in the ad, the match cut shows the switch from professional to casual. The music I used for the black and white fake ad can be something similar to the blue danube waltz.