Critical Reflection Questions: Dasani Commercial

T    Through my research, I realized that the Dasani commercial would do a close-up of the water bottle. In my first scene, I did a close up of me placing down the jump rope and Dasani water bottle. I used a close-up so that the viewer would see the product closely. In water bottle commercials, the actors may do sports-related activities or something tiresome. In my commercial, I had each actor do a certain activity. For example, in the third scene, my brother is doing his schoolwork in his notebook. In the third scene, I am jumping rope outside in my apartment hallway and for the fourth scene, my sister is running up the stairs. All these tasks can make someone thirsty or want to drink a bottle of water. It is not a water bottle commercial without having the actors taking a sip or drink of water with a satisfied or refreshed expression. In my fifth scene, I had my actors and myself be recorded taking a refreshing drink from the Dasani water bottle. Another common convention is that they would have a voiceover of someone saying the product's slogan as the water bottle is being showcased. Towards the end of my commercial, I had a slide appear with the Dasani logo, image of the product, and slogan. I ended off with a voiceover of me saying, "Treat yourself every day with the pure fresh taste of Dasani!" 

      To keep my audience engaged I put background music into my commercial. My videos had background noise so I edit the noise out to keep it silent. I felt that I needed to put background music so that it does not bore out my viewers. My product also engage with my audiences with a call to action. At the end of my commercial, I had a voiceover of me saying the Dasani slogan. This slogan is calling for the viewers to buy the product so that they would treat themselves to the good quality of water provided by Dasani. In getting my commercial distributed, I posted it on my Youtube channel. Also, I posted the commercial on Blogger under the blog titled "Dasani Water Bottle Commercial". These would be the places the public would be able to see my commercial. 

    

      When filming this commercial I was able to take the concepts I learned at the beginning of the school year and use them while recording. For example, I had to consider the shots, angles, and mise en scene I would use in my commercial. In the first scene, I recorded by using a close-up of my brother and me placing the props down. In my second scene, I filmed my brother from the chest up. For my jumping rope scene, I used a full shot and for the stairs scene, I used a long shot and filmed from a high angle. With the scene that included the actors and myself drinking water, I filmed from a low angle. Compared to our Interview assignment, the commercial video helped me to apply these important concepts into the filming process or video. In the editing process, I felt that I was able to develop more skills. From editing, I learned to apply transitions in between my clips and silence background noise. If I wanted to add a new scene I would just hover over the tools bar and click "add new scene". When it came to adding background music it was unfamiliar to me because I never really knew how to add music in my videos. For this, I had to find a site where I could get free background music. The music was about two minutes long so I had to crop it to fit the duration of the commercial. For videos that would appear at the same time, I edited them end at the same time as the other overlapping videos. Also, I learned to use the feature that would either speeds up or slow down a video. I used this feature on the clip of me drinking water because I finished drinking water a little earlier than the other actors. I used the slow down tool because I felt that it was better than having to film that part over.  

      When researching, I looked at youtube videos of various water bottle companies to get an idea of what common conventions were being used. When I choose to do Dasani, I also had to use Google to search up the slogan of Dasani. I had to research this because I noticed that the Dasani commercials had different slogans so I wanted to be sure of the slogan they mainly used. To film all the scenes, I used my phone. In the last scene, I created a Google slide that included the Dasani logo, image of the water bottle, and slogan. I screen recorded that Google Slide screen so that it would include the transitions put in the slide and voiceover of myself saying the slogan. I used the screen recording app called, "Screen Recorder Pro". After filming I used the "VSDC" editing app to edit my videos. I ended up using a different app to edit because the VSDC app would have the overlapping scenes or clips lag. The new app I used for editing was "Clipchamp". Through the Clipchamp I was able to put all the clips together, edit, and create the commercial. To get free background music I used the website called "bensound".