Coursework Evaluation pt1

I have chosen to make a charity advert on a fictional charity called LivePlant. This charity organisation is for the development, research and awareness of organ donation. In order to create a storyboard that provided a narrative to fit the conventions of a charity advertisement I researched different charities with different backgrounds and narratives.

Firstly, a commonly used convention is the idea of family and belonging as well as friendship. This pertains to a common feature of families such as children. Children are shown as aspiring but vulnerable, strong willed but weak physically. This occurs in the Greenpeace advertisement for green spaces. The children in this advert are shown on an idealistic earth with the use of a medium shot showing the massive amount of area around them to show them as free, unbinded and with lots of breathing room. The use of children in this way caters to the audiences need to nurture, with their maternal or paternal instincts allowing for reference and relatibility. When considering to use this in my storyboard, I opted to disregard this. This is because when considering organ donation, it is most commonly referred to with older age being the common transplant recipient and therefore it would lack the ability to draw empathy from the target audience. However, as I personally believe that the whole convention of family and belonging is effective as shown by these adverts, I have featured a son's love for his mother.

Secondly, the convention of comedic value and humour is quite potent in its effectiveness in charity adverts. This is effective in both FRANK's drug abuse charity adverts featuring the quote 'how long is a line of coke' and in The Heart Foundation's heart attack advert featuring Vinny Jones. In the FRANK advert, they use a comedic sentence that is quite juxtaposed in its nature. This is because the original variation of the sentence (how long is a piece of string) is a symbol of ambiguity and used more casually. However, in this advert, the sentence is used in connection to drugs which gives connotations that drug abusers have control over how long that 'line' is. However, in The Heart Foundation's advertisement, the use of Vinny Jones (an elite person) combined with the upbeat nature makes the advert seem like a joke and completely comedic. This advert challenges the convention that typical London gangsters take lives as in this situation Vinny Jones is teaching the viewer how to save a life, which in turn creates a comedic aspect. Furthermore, the advert is mostly shot in a medium close up giving the impression of tension with the subjects of the advert having very little breathing room which also allows for the advert to have little distraction. However, when the music begins, this tension is broken which allows for comedy to be drawn from the situation. Also, the use of dancing henchmen defies the expectation of the audience which is that gangsters are completely stern faced and serious however in the advertisement we see them smiling and dancing. When considering using this in my advertisements, I opted out of using this, due to the seriousness of the nature of the charity and the lack of ability to embed comedy into an advert like this. However, I believe that there may be an aspect of comedy drawn from the line on shot 13 which states that 'getting a gift for mum this christmas is easy.' This comedic aspect could be drawn from the line being quite the opposite but this is dependant on the viewers personal experiences. This line is meant to act as a reference, as if to say, if you think shopping for mum at christmas is hard, try finding live sustaining organs, which I believe would be the preferred reading of my text. On the overall, shot 13 is supposed to be comedic in isolation but after viewing shot 14 and 15 this emotion would be one of realisation and possibly shock.