We looked at the product - Epic Night Out - and then we walked through the approaches to answering the questions.
The first task is to examine camera work and how it creates excitement for the players.
Clearly, as this is an advert, the main intention is all about generating anticipation in the audience and so our approach of identifying the product to be clear on audience and thus of expectation and then of the effectiveness of the advert is crucial.
We understand that the audience will be male but this is changing. The Entertainment software Association states in its latest report:
The average age of someone who plays games is 31 years old. In fact, more gamers are over the age of 36 than between the ages of 18 to 35 or under the age of 18. They are also mostly men, but by a slimming margin. Men make up 52 percent. From 2012 to 2013, the number of women gamers over the age of 50 grew by 32 percent.
Gamers are still buying more action games and shooters than anything else. The ESA finds that action makes up 31.9 percent while the gun-heavy titles make up another 20 percent.
So, what might the expectations of such an audience of such a game be?
Well, we all decided it would be about action, excitement, thrills, intense action, humour/fun - and there is much evidence for this in the product. Your written answers to Q1 identified this as the main thrust of the product and attempted to show how the camera-work contributed to the product meeting such expectations.
Most of you identified the use of the close-up as a key element in creating involvement with the action and linked this to the deliberately 'shaky' handy-cam effect as vital in placing the audience inside the action.
However, long shots are also effective in this, they reveal the spectacle of the game - the location and scale of the gaming experience offered.
Slow motion enables focus on characters and their actions - creates a hero effect that audiences are encouraged to see themselves in.
There are fast-paced tracking and panning shots that emphasise the speed of events, combining with low angle shots of the four friends it also emphasizes the camaraderie of the game - something the on-line gaming offers [remember 1 billion on-line games in first year of release]
Shots that enable us to recognise the scale of the achievement and challenge - abseiling down buildings; space walks; the car chases; shooting down helicopters
The framing - the final sequence against the fountains; the opening sequence of arrival in Vegas; the plunges behind tables and exploding slots machines etc
For Q2 the response requires a little more detailed analysis and thought as it requires the application of understanding as to how modern media products use 'borrowed interest' by making links to other [established] media products and to already held and established audience perceptions of those products which may then be transferred to the new product.
The idea of brands here is quite a wide interpretation, hence the rider 'and other media products'. In this sense, Megan Fox is seen as a brand with her own audience that will be drawn to products that she endorses or is viewed as linked to. Similarly, her involvement with the game will attract audiences to her other media projects.
The key links here were to the music - the Frank Sinatra track - which would cross-promote the singer's other music and to Acti-Vision and Infinity the makers and distributors of the game and their other projects.
Additional links were to Ocean's Eleven, The Hangover [and other buddy films] and to Las Vegas as a resort destination. By hitting on three or four of these with evidence, links to the overall media theories of audience behaviours, and clear explanations the possibility of hitting the top marks is there for you.
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