For our recent brief based on Levi’s and the Generation Z consumer, we had to create a short (2 mins max) documentary/behind the scenes/voice of the people/vlog style video to be included in an ad agency style pitch. Now, first things first, the idea of creating a video really excited me, but also terrified me. I have no previous experience in creating videos and had no idea what software to use. Secondly, I still couldn’t get over the fact I’m actually part of Generation Z and not a Millennial. All my life, I’d thought I was a cute millennial baby being born in 2000, so assumed I was a Millennial. But oh no, I am actually part of the tech first, visual first, Generation Z. Has my whole life been a lie?
My group’s main focus was to ensure the video wasn’t boring. We were encouraged not to play it safe, and with the idea of interviewing the shop manager of Levi’s here in Nottingham, we wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a shaky hand recording two people speaking. Because, let’s be honest, no one really wants to see that.
Thinking about the qualities that make Gen Z tick, we grasped onto the fact it is a very visual generation. Playing onto this idea led us to thinking about making our video an animation or cartoon of some sort. But there was one problem, no one in our group actually knew how to do that.
Despite my lack of knowledge, I decided to volunteer to give the video a go, because, hey, who doesn’t like a challenge? Across the weekend I played around with different software and watched multiple YouTube videos, but I eventually fell upon ‘FlipaClip’, my little life saver. After playing around with drawing little figures on my Dad’s first edition iPad and having to pay £1.99 to use my own audio, I think I started to grasp onto how to complete the video.
my first little animation lol
I soon realised was that this wouldn’t be a quick job. One second was made up of 8 frames, meaning I had to draw 8 little pictures for one individual second. Long, but definitely worth it in the end. I soon got the hang of how to do things a little bit quicker, a big zoom in here, a crop of audio there, and I started to create a video that I think really answered the brief.
my two main characters
The shop manager really couldn’t have been more helpful in his answers to the questions we were asking him about the brand Levi’s, so big thank you to him.
Here’s the final video, which I’m actually quite proud of:
The video soon became the base of our pitch and helped us generate our idea to pitch to (imaginary) Levi’s. We came up with the idea to try and persuade Generation Z to stop buying cheap denim and to invest in a good quality pair of jeans; a pair of Levi’s. Our idea was a video campaign, following a woman around in her daily life, but facing the immense struggles she seems to be having with the jeans she’s wearing. Things we’d focus on would be the belt loops breaking as she’s pulling her jeans up, chafing on the denim causing holes, denim fading after only a couple of washes, and having multiple pairs of jeans in various sizes because shops don’t seem to be consistent with one another.
Overall, I did really enjoy creating the short animation and want to carry on making little videos to try and maintain the skill. Having something to prove the hours of work you’d put into it is always very pleasing, but this was extra satisfactory due to the fact I’ve never done anything like it before. As well as that, in our feedback to our pitch, our lecturers particularly liked the way we approached the video, which felt like a nice pat on the back. I’ve also gained a big appreciation to animators due to the amount of time that is needed to create a film like Toy Story, for example.
Big ups animators!
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