Critical Self-Reflection

The storyboard I created will be an advert for the mineral water company, Aqua. There is no traditional theme or ideology I’m pushing for this advert. Instead, I will make an advert fit for comedic shock value and how the lack of a moral theme doesn’t make a story uninteresting. 

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

I have done research on different types of already existing Aqua ads over the past few years to see what patterns exist. Indonesia is a very big fan of stories with moral values. The majority--if not all-- of them have very prominent themes of family, togetherness, and kindness. I decided not to go that route because my advert would not stand out from the sea of Aqua adverts. After some research on adverts from the west, I nailed on the idea of making an advert solely based on shock appeal and randomness. My goal for this advert is to incorporate western style storytelling into an Indonesian brand and setting. Although I’ll be bringing a different method of storytelling to the table with this advert, I will keep familiarity by using a very well-known Aqua slogan. Which is “Aqua Dulu”, translated it means “Aqua First” 

In my advert, I will play on the stereotype of the dumb tourist/foreigner. Particularly in Bali, bule (slang for foreigner used mostly for white people) are typically characterized as dumb or lacking in self-awareness, leading to a lot of news of tourists getting injured or even dying from crazy stunts. Because I will be parodying the dumb bule and logical local stereotype, I’ll represent it mostly through clothing and cultural knowledge. Using codes like bules always being seen in Bintang singlets and drinking beer I can parody that stereotype within my fisherman character in shot one(1). 

In contrast, I’ll have my local character in shot twelve(12) remain on the shores drinking the Aqua, far from the sea, where it’s safe. How I’ll signal he’s a stereotypical Balinese man is by making him wear some sort of fake Nike or Adidas tank top. Many people in Indonesia, especially younger people, like to joke that Balinese men like to bleach the tips of their hair so I’ll have my local character be the same as a little jab at Balinese people as well. 

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? 

 I heavily use Barthe’s five codes theory in this advert. In terms of cultural reference, Indonesia has a lot of mythologies about the sea being dangerous and hosting many creatures to be wary of, like Nyi Roro Kidul. That’s what most Indonesians grew up hearing, so when they see a creature appear from the ocean they feel scared. Many young Indonesians also know of the story of The Little Mermaid, which I want to parody in this advert as well as Nyi Roro Kidul. Most Indonesians nowadays can understand both the references so the audience would feel both familiarity and suspense when they see my mermaid character in shot eight(8) look very similar to both the little mermaid and Nyi Roro Kidul. 

My target audience will be mostly people between the ages of 13-25. I chose this relatively young age range due to this demographic liking animation styles and shock appeal more than other ages. Since my advert will be animated to parody Disney’s The Little Mermaid I’m aiming for a demographic who will enjoy the style. I’ll be choosing to show this advert on sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram Reels. My reasoning for this is people in the age range of 13-25 rarely watch normal television and instead watch their entertainment on YouTube. So showing my advert on those sites will hit my target audience. 

My advert utilizes other theories such as binary opposites, where the difference between the local who knows to stay away from the sea versus the foreigner who doesn’t know better is on full display. In the end, the local is the dominant outcome between the two since he stays safe on the shore. The reading of my advert is very negotiated depending on who the viewer is as it focuses on shock and comedy. The comedy aspect can be seen as negotiable since the humor is a little bit dark. In reception theory, I want to encapsulate both entertainment and social relationships. I want the advert to be entertaining enough that people will come back and rewatch it. The more memorable and stand out it is the more people will talk about it and share it, which is the social relationships. 

Youngers Indonesians really love media that utilizes social relationships. When they see something that catches their attention they will talk about it for months. So I want to make the advert memorable and entertaining enough that it’ll do the same passing on through word of mouth. 

Utilizing homage and parody the advert will play with the audience’s expectations. First showing a mundane and boring fisherman in shot one(1) then revealing a murky shadow underneath the boat as an homage to Jaws in shot two(2), using enigma codes the audience feels suspense and curiosity, watching to see what happens next. Using an upward shot in shot two(2) and a POV shot of the mermaid in shot six(6) along with suspenseful music, is a simple homage to Jaws since we see the shark’s POV a lot right before it attacks. Since some parts of the advert are in reference to Jaws and The Little Mermaid it will lull the viewer into a false expectation. When that expectation is subverted, like the mermaid making the fisher her lunch instead of another Disney happily ever after, it becomes more memorable. 

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

My skills for this project stayed roughly the same as when I began. Since I’ve been storyboarding for years there wasn’t much I learned in terms of actually drawing them, but I have learned to convey more meaning within 40 seconds of frames. I also learned to simplify my boards as appose to my usual style of more complicated frames. Making them simpler enabled me to be more dynamic with my shots. 

I felt very excited to do this project because out of all aspects of film, storyboarding is what I’m the best at. It let me be confident in the project’s final execution when making the storyboard reliable and dynamic. My original idea for the storyboard changed a few times across the duration of this project. I was contemplating on making a normal advert but then inspiration struck after looking at the Heinz Ed Sheeran and Snickers Mr. Bean adverts. And my plan completely changed to make the advert as memorably goofy as possible. The less it made sense the better. 

How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? 

The project proved harder than initially thought. I wasn’t used to doing so much research on a project but after doing some advert analysis I nailed on an idea and a few themes very easily. What made things easier was the software I used. YouTube was wonderful for searching up adverts as inspiration or examples. Blogger also helped with organizing all my past research. Being able to go back to theories I already wrote about and using them to store all my progress made the creation process much easier. 

As for the storyboards, it helped that I was using programs I was already familiar with. Clip Studio Paint was great for drawing them out because I have all the tools needed in one program. It was very finicky to use it on mobile but I made it work. As for editing the clips together to see if the timing was correct, I used Da Vinci Resolve 16. Getting the timing correct for each frame was very tedious but the program made it easy. 

I’m quite used to using both as I’ve been using them for years however DaVinci was a bit challenging as I am still learning the hundreds of features. My skills using these programs and in storytelling, storyboarding, and identifying an audience have definitely grown from the start of the project.