A few weeks ago we were given the task of coming up with ideas for short comedy style videos that could be used in a social media campaign for Greggs. The idea that I came up with was for there to be two main young characters throughout the video and for them to be a couple. The idea was that the video would consist of clips of them going throughout their normal day sharing things that a normal couple would share, but then for there to be a twist. The boyfriend shares everything with his girlfriend throughout the day but doesn't want to share his Greggs with her.
Now around two weeks later, we have been put into groups to actually film the ideas and make them into a video that would be used in a social media campaign. One of the restrictions of the video being used in a social media campaign would be the duration of the video. This is done as people want quick snappy and to the point videos when watching them on social media, the video can't be too long and people will not want to watch an advertisement for a long period of time. We were given a maximum of 60 seconds for our videos to fit into. Luckily my AD was 28 seconds long so it easily fit into the limit.
My group for this project was made up of myself, Conrad Buckley & Anya Lillie.
My team were great to work with, they helped me with everything I needed, from shooting clips to carrying equipment to locations.
Each member of the group was asked to create their own AD, so as a group we all played different parts in each other's ad. In my ad, I was the director and also was an actor in it, Anya was also an actor in it and Conrad did the camera for me with help from Eden (a member from a different team).
This meant that all team members got to do a different job role for each ad. For example, Anya directed her own and then did acting in mine.
Anya's Greggs AD can be viewed below, -
Now around two weeks later, we have been put into groups to actually film the ideas and make them into a video that would be used in a social media campaign. One of the restrictions of the video being used in a social media campaign would be the duration of the video. This is done as people want quick snappy and to the point videos when watching them on social media, the video can't be too long and people will not want to watch an advertisement for a long period of time. We were given a maximum of 60 seconds for our videos to fit into. Luckily my AD was 28 seconds long so it easily fit into the limit.
My group for this project was made up of myself, Conrad Buckley & Anya Lillie.
My team were great to work with, they helped me with everything I needed, from shooting clips to carrying equipment to locations.
Each member of the group was asked to create their own AD, so as a group we all played different parts in each other's ad. In my ad, I was the director and also was an actor in it, Anya was also an actor in it and Conrad did the camera for me with help from Eden (a member from a different team).
This meant that all team members got to do a different job role for each ad. For example, Anya directed her own and then did acting in mine.
Anya's Greggs AD can be viewed below, -
I thought my idea would be a good idea and fit into the comedy category as the audience would think that he would share his Greggs with her as he has shared everything else with her in the day, but he actually doesn't share his Greggs with her as he likes it too much.
As you can see from the original plan I created before I filmed my Greggs AD, my ideas and the final product don't fully match up. Most shots that I planned I was actually able to film such as the shot of the couple walking and sharing a drink, and the shot of the couple going into the Greggs store. However, the planned shot of the couple walking through a town center and them sharing a jacket together was not able to be produced as we were not able to film in a town center due to bad weather conditions
This shot was replaced by the shot of the couple in a classroom sharing a pen to write with,
I chose to do this as I thought it was a good replacement for the intended shot as the couple were still sharing something and it meant we were able to shoot the scene inside away from the bad weather.
The only other change that was made to the original plan was a location change, this was in the final scene as it was not filmed at a Greggs store and was instead filmed in the green room at college, I did this as the Greggs store was very busy, we didn't have full permission to film in Greggs and it would have been difficult to bring filming equipment to the Greggs store.
After coming up with my idea of what to make for this project, I went ahead and made a script for my idea. I did this so I could use it on set when filming and make filming run smoother as I could know what was happening/who was in each shot and what shots needed to be filmed and what ones were done.
Again the script was different to what was filmed due to the previous factors, the script still helped me on set to know what needed filming and what locations I needed to go to.
According to the client brief, the budget for this type of social media video would be £4,000. I made this budget sheet to see how my shoot compared in terms of costs. As you can see the costs add up to very close to the budget of the shoot. This budget sheet was made using average wages of the production roles. This sheet doesn't include the cost of actors, which would be an additional cost on top of everything else.
After planning our ideas for what to film, we were given 2 days to go out and film and then edit our final Greggs AD's. Me, Anya, Conrad, and Eden from another team headed out to film my AD.
We started by filming the shot of the couple walking down the street sharing a drink, we went outside the college to a close by bridge to film this shot. My plan for this shot was to use a slider and a tripod with the camera on it and have the camera operator slowly pull it backwards to get a shot where the characters walk towards the camera while it slowly moves back. This, however, had to change as the surface of the bridge was too bumpy and it made the footage very blurry and shook as the wheels of the slider were vibrating off the pavement of the bridge. I instead got the camera operator to slowly walk backwards with the camera in their hands while me and Anya walked towards it. This meant the shot wasn't as smooth as I hoped but it still worked out really well.
We then went to our local greggs to get the shot of the couple walking into the store together,
After editing the clips I shot together, I ended up with the following video which I am happy and proud of. It can be watched below.
View below my final & finished Greggs social media advertisement -
