Are we persuaders?

When I watched the video on persuaders, I had this thought that stuck with me the most, are we the REAL persuaders? Not the people that sell us our vehicles, clothing, food, and so on. I mean the average person that buy products on a daily basis.

Ads in everyday

The more I watch the video, the more this question came back to my thoughts. We get bombarded with advertisement everyday, while at work, school, social life, or whatever you’re doing in a daily basis. The real question comes in and it is, do we persuade ourselves into buying products we own? How many times have we gone out shopping for a new pair of shoes and say, “well, I don’t need it but I want it.” The end process of that is to buy the pair of shoes and wear it maybe fives times in a month. This is just an example but think to your own lives and think of something you bought, that you really didn’t need. I feel that our society is more materialized then it needs to be. We want the best car, house, pet, job, and whatever else there is. We persuade ourselves into those things, even though we don’t need all the things we buy.

Advertisements have influence in our lives since there is so much of it. Though there is one person who does the majority of the persuading, and that is our self….   

Writing Center Shoot

If I were doing the shoot, I would use the idea we have now but tweak it. The advertisement would consist of two people talking about the writing center. Both of them would be college age kids, one playing the role that has been to the writing center and other one that is new to this school.

The camera shots I would use would be the upper portion of the body, meaning the arms, chest, and head will be seen. The easiest way to do it is for the talent to memorize the lines, if not we can take two different shots for each person. Both cameras would be used; each one would be focused on one person. The scene would look like one person would be talking to the right and then the other person would be facing the left. I want to show the body emotion for each person to get the fullness of how the writing center feels for him or her. The ideal finish project would be a conversation between the two people back and forth. Other things I would want to include is live footage of the writing center, where it is and tutors at work with students. I feel if people see students working with their tutors, they will feel a connection. The biggest thing is to show that the writing center is a great place to be and a fun environment to learn.

This is my basic idea for the writing shoot and maybe we can adapt it to the one we will do. Let’s see what happens…

Studio roles

While experiencing the studio life for the first time is a great experience. We had the opportunity to try different roles such as: director, camera, audio, talent and the list continues. The one role that I personally enjoyed the most was working with the camera.

 Sweet Camera action

While working as the cameraman, my role was to create shots for the director to choose and use for the program. Some of the things I had to do before the show started was to do white balance on the camera and focal length as well. With white balance, we have to set the camera to let it know what the color white is in the room. After the lights are set up, we would use a white sheet of paper for the camera to zoom in on and go to our menu screen on the camera to find the white balance function. Set the white balance and then move onto the focal length, which we pick an individual and zoom in all the way. Then adjust the focus with the knob near the front of the camera till the picture is clear.

While we were shooting the show, the director will tell us what shot they would like to see. Some examples would be shots of two people, a three shot of everybody and a one shot of the host. I really enjoyed the ability to create shots and watch everything progress well and then watch in postproduction the finished project. That to me is an awesome feeling of accomplishment. I notice some things I can learn from too, one is the position of the camera. I felt the camera was too close to the talent and kept me restricted from all the shots I was capable of doing. Now I know for next time to bring back the camera to make the shots look better. Another thing I can do better is practice some shots before we start recording, so I can get a sense of what shots I can provide for the director. These are a few things I can work on next we do some recording.

The more I’m in the studio; I enjoy it more every time I’m in there. Other roles were also good experiences but I enjoyed the camera role the most. I don’t know what’s about it, but I love the freedom to create shots and produce great material.

Favorite Super Bowl XLVI Commercial

One of my favorite commercials from this past Super Bowl has to be the Doritos ad of the cat-killing dog. It used different styles to catch your attention. The ad used humor, animals, and music.  

A man is seen working outside in his yard and notices a dog burying something. He notices a tag that belonged to his cat, but the dog is right there to bribe him with the note saying, “you didn’t see nuthin.” I found it funny that the guy goes along with it, even when the wife asks if he’s seen the cat he still denies it. The music for me sets the mood of something devious that is happening. The cover up of the cat’s body by the dog and the guy denying what he saw.   I felt the ad is memorable and kept the Doritos product visible in most of the commercial.

This commercial I will remember for a while, will I buy Doritos though. Probably not, but they still get their name out to the public. 

The Theater Life

When reading a short article about The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman, I felt there was some similarity towards the Codes on Gender video we watched. One piece that stood out was the roles for characters vs people in the everyday life.

Theater Life

One example is the military man; he is supposed to be the strong and show no weakness towards others. Then in another case a veteran can be diagnosed with chronic disease and shows emotions and a sense of hopelessness. The first example is something we expect that the young man is strong and independent but the veteran is a different manner with more emotions. What if we switched the situation and made the young man weak and veteran strong. Would we put them in different groups and be harsh on them saying they are not living the role they should be. In the theaters, the actors portray what everyday life is, our roles for different people either male or female or age. I get a sense that sometimes we can relate to actors or actresses, thinking that could be us in that situation. I wonder if we try to push these roles on society too much or we just accept them.

This article does show resemblance to the Codes of Gender, but I feel that the times are changing. The old phrase of  “sex sells” is still working, but I feel that we trying to move away slowly from it. Even this past weekend in the Super Bowl, I watched the commercials and a majority of them had more humor. There were a few sex appeals commercials but not many. I feel that a change is coming and coming soon….  

Experience in studio

Watching Hamilton Hamish working on multi-camera events and actually working on a show are different. Watching Hamish you can see the passion he has for his work and enjoys doing it. In reality, you never know what something feels like until you experience it. When we started to produce shows in the studio, I enjoyed the environment I was in. Everybody wanted to be part of it, even though we are still in the testing stages of the show. Every time we have more practice it becomes a little more easy, though I still want to do more in the studio, so hopefully I can. Hamish made it look easy but I feel it can be the same with us, once we have more practice with the studio. I hope we can produce some great shows and I can learn as much as possible while we are working on our shows. Now all there is left to do is start working hard, let's go.