Understand the Codes, Conventions and current practice in Corporate and Promotional Film

Joseph Dootson

Understand the Codes, Conventions and current practice in Corporate and Promotional Film

Within this Essay I will be analysing one corporate and one promotional film and I will be writing about the Codes and Conventions for both of them. I will also be talking about the Current Practices used when making a corporate film and I will be researching and writing about the legal issues that need to be taken in consideration when making your corporate film and deciding what music you would want to add to the corporate film. Finally I will be discussing the Ethical issues surrounding making a corporate film such as Race, Gender and Religion.

Tameside Hair Dressing and Beauty Corporate FIlm

The promotional Advert that I have analysed is the Tameside Hair Dressing and Beauty Therapy at Tameside College. The Mission of Tameside College is the hair and beauty industry offers a exciting range of careers, You can become a hairdresser, salon manager, beauty salon supervisor, theoretical make-up artist or beauty therapist. All of these exciting careers are used in the mission statement to try and attract students to Tameside college and learn and study on how to become a salon manager or a hair dresser. In the promotional advertisement they are Enhancing people walking to college and showing them all walking into college with smiles on there faces and this is demonstrating that Tameside college is the place to come and enjoy yourself and meet some new people and above all these things is to enjoy the course you are studying. The target audience of this promo advertisement is students who have the ambition to become a hair dresser or a salon manager and also the parents of these students because the parents will want to know if there son or daughter will succeed in the course choice they make. This promotional advertisement also helps students build there confidence during the course that they are studying and what this does is it helps students go onto university and helps them understand that they need to be independent and not rely on anyone else and that everything they do at college is there responsibility. In this film they explain that they have a 100 percent pass rates for students that need to study English or Math’s or both because they may have failed these subjects in school and what this does is it attracts students to come to Tameside college should they fail English or Math’s knowing that the teachers will try to get the best out of them when it comes to English or Math’s and help them along the journey to passing there subjects. The age group that this Promotional Advert is aimed at is 18-30 year olds and the Social class for this promotional advert is ABC1C2DE.

Marks and Spencer Promotional Advertisement

The promotional advertisement that I have analysed is the latest Marks and Spencer's advertisement, the mission of this advertisement is to show the latest range of food ready for winter and also show to its audience that you can have Restaurant cooked food in your own home. The target audience of this advertisement is middle class people and the social class of this promotional advertisement is  ABC1C2 because of M&S want there target audience to come to Marks and Spencer's and buy there restaurant quality food instead of going out to a restaurant and buy food this is why they show close ups of the burgers being cooked on the grills to portray food and make you hungry and want to go and shop at Marks and Spencer's and thats why they would like to see this advert published on television around tea time 5-8 so there audience will go to Marks and Spencer's and buy there tea for that night. Marks and Spencer's are trying to put emphasis on the food on the promotional advert by showing food and desserts being cooked and ready to be eaten for example with the close ups of the burgers being cooked and flipped on the grill this is also a very innovative idea because by doing this they are making there target audience think that looks nice when they are showing this advertisement and this is why I think the company are clever by airing the advertisement at around tea time. Marks and Spencer also would like the quality of there food to be reflected back on the company for example if a customer buys there food and they think that its nice and looks like what it was on the television when cooked this is going to be reflected on the company and this is something else why Marks and Spencer's are above everyone else when it comes to be food because they want it to be reflected back on there company.

Current Practices 

The camera that I will be using to create my corporate film will be a Canon D600. The reason behind me using this camera because I want to have HD camera footage and make my film look as professional as I possibly can. This camera is steady and the camera allows me to get some fantastic shots and to get these shots I will need a tripod to get steady shots because if you don't use a tripod your shots will not be as good as you would hope them to be and using a tripod will allow me to get interviews, match-cuts, jump cuts, cutaways. I will also be using a H2 recorder for encase I would like to get some diegetic or non diegetic sounds. Another reason behind me using a H2 recorder is that so any sound that we collect from the schools is clear especially if i am trying to record a interview and the sound that we pickup from the H2 can be us as a diary entry. The format that I will be using in my Corporate film will be 1080p so that all the footage I will be collecting will all be in good quality such as my interviews, cutaways, jump cuts and match cuts.

When creating a corporate video film for an organisation or a company the formats that are needed for to be thought about are how you are going to be able to deliver your final piece to that company and you will use Quicktime Player. You can also used the DVD format so we are then able to hand the, over the DVD in a disk format. When using the an hardrive when saving a copy of the production to hand to your client you will be able to save your production depending on how big the GB is. Another format that you can use is YouTube, with this software you can use Final Cut Express to do all the editing on the film you upload it via youtube so the members of the public are able to access the corporate video and your client will also be able to access the video as well. 

What techniques that are used when making a corporate video are are that you need to make sure that the corporate video runs smoothly with cutaways match cuts jump cuts. For example after an interview you should use a cutaway so the corporate video runs smoothly and show the audience that the story is moving along for example if our team are interviewing someone who is telling us there life story on how there illness effects them maybe show them baking some cakes with a smile on there face showing that the child is dealing with his illness with a smile on his face showing that it doesn't effect him. This technique can be used to create some emotion within the audience. Another technique that can be used is digetic and non digetic sounds, these are used to create emotion as well and also emphasis the scene such as if the interviewee is crying then some non digetic sound would be added as an sound bed so that the audience are able to capture the full effect of the interviewee and how they are feeling at the moment of the film. Voice over is also another technique that is used in a corporate video such as if the corporate film is presenter lead and the voiceover is also a metaphor as the voice of god and when using this technique it also helps the audience understand the message that is being sent from the film in detail allowing them to acknowledge what is happening and how this could en up effecting them.

Legal issues

The legal issues are the questions concerning the protections that laws and regulations should provide and they are what we should be following whilst creating our corporate film. Laws and regulations are important because they need to be noticed when you are creating any form of film such as corporate or promotional. for instance when we are organising who we are going to interview for our corporate film we are going to have to ask them for permission to interview them first and if they say yes ask them to sign an Actor Release Form so we are able to interview them for our corporate film and if we don't follow these rules that have been put in place we are interviewing this child illegally because we haven't got a signed Actors release form from them. 

Privacy is a state in which that one is not observed or disturbed, this has to bee taken as a precaution for when we are filming for our Corporate film, for example if we was to film one of the children in the school without there or their parents permission or signature and the parents are un happy with us this could cause a major uproar or argument with the parents of this child and we could end up in court for this and that’s why we must take privacy as a precaution.

Copyright is massive in the media industry because of the exclusive and assignable legal right which is given to the originator for a fixed number of years to print, publish, perform and film and what this means is that any form of media which is copyrighted then the originator has the right to have that form of media taken down or shut away from the media as a result of breaching the copyright laws and all these laws go for us when we are making our corporate film for example if we was going to make our corporate film and we would like to make it look exactly like the Tameside College Hair and Beauty film and add all the music and did it if there college found out we could then be done for copyright thats why our goal is to make a better one then them and use different music and promote out course to other students.

Libel is a published false statement made by a company or person which is damaging to the person or the companies reputation around the world and this is a written defamation. An example of this is if a newspaper or magazine makes a false accusation about a company doing something or committing a fraud then the company accused of such a crime can be sued defamation. 

Ethical Issues 

Ethical issues fall under the legal issues category as well because this has to be made notice on a count to when using some actors in example you have to ensure that your film doesn't discriminate any Genders Religions or Races this can include racism being said on camera or not treating everyone as an equal and not discriminating anyone cause of there Race or Religion and if you breach any of this then the corporate film will not be able to be shown to the public.