Smoking P.S.A.
AAU MPT Demo Reel C: The Commercial Class - Final Project: The class is divided into several groups of 3 to 5 students each, and each group of students are responsible for shooting several commercials through the course of the semester. Each group consists of students majoring in Motion Pictures & Television, in addition to students majoring in Advertising & Design. Each student has a specific role in each group project, depending on their emphasis within their major: Writer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor, and Storyboard Artist. Finally as a team, all students within each group must go out and produce their commercial projects, from conception, to pitching, to storyboards, to pre-production, to shooting the project in production, and finally to editing in post-production. In addition to commercials, groups were also given the option to instead shoot short "mood pieces", which weren't technically commercials, but still emphasized a mood or theme. All commercials / mood pieces are due by end of semester.
________________________________________________________________________________
Synopsis:
An Public Safety Announcement Commercial, focusing on the danger of smoking.
I had actually conceived the idea for this project long before I had taken this class, long before I had even enrolled in college, back during my childhood. When I was in elementary school, every now and then, D.A.R.E. would come and visit us and show us videotapes of the harmful side effects of smoking. Even though I had no idea I would end up becoming a filmmaker at the time, I was still a very creative individual, and I came up with the idea for a short commercial focusing on the horror and evil that smoking can do to a human. This idea remained in the back of my head for the next 15 or so years, until finally, I had the skills and resources to actually make it happen, during my last semester of college. Though the end result was not anything near what my original vision was, due to simplifying and eliminating the more complicated parts of my vision for the project involving a (fake) skeleton and intense gore makeup, it still was very well received from the class, and was accepted into the Academy Of Art University's 2012 Spring Show event, which is a public display of the best student work. This would be the only time during my entire 4 years of college that a project I conceived and directed would be displayed publicly through the Academy of Art University.
I still hope to one day go back and re-shoot this project more faithfully to my original vision I've had all these years, when I have the money, time, and resources necessary to pull it off. I view the outcome of this current Smoking P.S.A. project to be more of a testing of my vision, seeing how it would translate from the depths of inside my head to the outside world, in a real commercial. I believe my full original vision of this project would be more powerful, and give off a much stronger message to the target audience.