Dear Diary - 'Campaign Project'

The last project we have been set to do for this academic year has easily been the most enjoyable. Reuniting with the 'De Montfort Spartans' for another project, we finished this piece even prouder than the last. This was a 'Campaign Project' which gave us complete creative freedom and direction to develop and idea for a video that will inform a large audience and raise awareness for a particular cause.

“Everybody seems to be rallying an audience with all this social media, so why not rally an audience, have that directed attention, but then tell stories that are actually going to make a difference in peoples lives.” - Amanda Koster, SalaamGarage: Imagine What You Could Do.

We were shown different ideas from previous classes, some of which were created by media and sociology scholar's and enthusiasts, all of which truly fascinating. Immediately the group began to think "How are we going to come up with an idea this good?" We really wanted to generate an idea that could make a difference, that could evoke emotion and that could stand out. This plan failed. Unfortunately, we failed and failed and failed to come up with a moving idea we were enthusiastic enough. So we confided in our tutor, who ensured us that the idea for a campaign didn't have to be realistic and didn't have to be serious for it to be appropriate and commendable. So we turned down a contrasting avenue - humour. Some farfetched idea's sprung out of each of us, however, we finalised with an idea that all four of us were happy with. An idea that we could really make entertaining. An idea in which I think we did justice.

Our Banner/Header on our webpage.

Although wacky and unrealistic, our idea was definitely one which we could have fun with and excite our audience with. We call it 'How To Survive a Zombie Invasion at your University Accommodation'. Despite being a rather long title, the creative process was pretty quick. Once we had our idea locked and loaded, ideas came shooting out of everyone. We decided what kind of video we wanted to make, and each watched previous zombie related movies together, such as Zombieland and Shaun Of The Dead, to get a feel of what stereotypical zombie should look like. From Zombieland, we especially enjoyed the 'rule making' scenes of the film and were sure it would fit in well into our short video. We also found an extremely attractive typography online which further motivated this idea.

I created the banner for our webpage on Adobe Photoshop CS5, beginning with a plain background and splattering darker stains of red onto it in order to create a blood splatter background. I then created alternating fonts, one set looking very neat, bright and fancy, the other looking the complete opposite; dark, rough and grim. This created the atmosphere of the website and embodied the humour and daftness of the theme, however also looking professional rather than amateur. 

We decided thereafter to create a completely fictional and absurd storyline within our University halls, and film as if we were students pleading for help, teaching others, and also sending warning. We created a website to aid the storyline and video, which you can visit by clicking here. We planned on making the website as eye-catching and gripping as possible, maintaining a colour theme and style. The next step in our project was to hire a student and turn them into a zombie. This person would go on to become our main subject and character for our fictional plot. A big thanks to Callum Bergin for his help with our project, he was extremely reliable and helped a great deal in terms of making our ideas come to light. 

Callum Bergin as our Zombie, along side our storyline.

Another Feature on our Website.

When we presented our work to the class, we were extremely proud of it's reception and our feedback. We put a lot of hard work into making our idea's come to light and really putting our all into our assignment. Especially due to the fact our idea wasn't serious and had many comical elements to it, we had to really spice it up and ensure the website looked convincing and appealing and the video was edited exactly how we wanted it, as the idea would not sell itself.

Furthermore, when it came to presentation day we were all extremely nervous. Unfortunately, our video which was extremely enjoyable to make, and actually very entertaining to watch would not upload to youtube. And when finally uploaded to Vimeo, still was extremely glitchy, and wouldn't let viewers experience it properly. The only way of exhibiting it properly was through a USB. Thus, on the day of presentation we made sure we had the file on a USB as a quicktime file and VLC file, just in case. We began our presentation with the site, talking through the process of making it and introducing our plot, trying to sound as convincing as possible. We continued onto the video which got a great round of applause and left us feeling very proud. At this moment, I'd like to thank my class for showing so much respect during the viewing, despite the technical glitches, and also a big thank you to Simon Mills for mentoring us.

Here is our final video...