Background
Aloha 8th Graders,
Over the past few weeks, we've spent time talking about how our lives are influenced in both positive and negative way by digital technology. From the Xbox 360 sitting in our room, to the YouTube channels we follow every day, to the smart phones we carry around in our pockets... our lives are vastly different from the lives lived by teens 20 years, 10 years, even as short as 5 years ago. With all the potential good that can come from our digital interactions, there are just as many potential pitfalls as well. We've briefly covered just a few of them together, but there are many more negative behaviors, negative problems and issues out there.
How do we make a change? What can we do to have a positive impact on ourselves and others when it comes to using technology safely and appropriately? It begins with us. Our attitudes and behaviors help to shape the web as it is today. If we all started to become more aware and proactive users of the internet, chose integrity over selfishness, we would become more responsible digital citizens and the web would benefit from it.
As we go forward in this unit, we'll begin to learn of ways in which we could help improve the awareness of many of the issues and behaviors that get people into trouble online. Specifically, we'll learn how we can have a large scale affect on our community through awareness campaigns, otherwise known as Public Service Announcements.
Today, I want to give you some instruction into what public service announcements are, how people use them to change the attitudes and behaviors of the public, and what techniques they use to get their message to stick. Remember, this is a primer for what's to come, so use this opportunity to prepare yourself by picking up some important background information.... here we go!
Introduction to Public Service Announcements
The most popular type of Public Service Announcement, or PSA, is a 30 to 60 second video. The goal of a PSA is simple: To get someone to take a specific action. It’s not to talk about the sponsoring organization. It’s to motivate the targeted audience to act: To drop off the canned goods for the food drive. To make sure their children’s seat belts are buckled. To stay in school....To stop smoking....To avoid abusing drugs. PSA's are a free “commercial” for a non-profit organizations. They are aired voluntary by individual radio and/or TV stations.
To the audience, a PSA is just another commercial. To know how to write an effective PSA, you need to understand how to create an effective commercial. Whether you call it “commercial” or “PSA,” to the audience it’s all advertising.
The Message: A Call to Action
"This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"
"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
"Friends don't let friends drive drunk."
"You could learn a lot from a dummy."
"Only you can prevent forest fires."
"Meth. Not even once."
For some of you, these statements might ring a bell. You might also be a little young and not know any of them. What connects them all is the fact that they are the tag-lines of some of the most recognizable public service announcements over the past 20 years or so.
The Ad Council is a advocacy group that is responsible for creating some of the most successful awareness campaigns that have had a sizable impact on our collective psyche. Take a look at just a few of the PSA they've recently made:
Bully
Lockers
5 Seconds
On My Way
What did you notice in common with all of these videos. Was there a focused message? A call to action? Is there a particular target audience? What type of emotion did you feel watching each of these? What type of strategy did they use to hook you in? Could you see yourself in this scenario?
The Target Audience: Who's eyeballs are they renting?
A successful PSA needs to focus it's energy an direction into appealing to the audience it feels it will have the biggest impact on. Communicating their ideas might take different forms depending on who the audience is. For young children, cartoons might work well. For teens, showing teen actors, contemporary music or celebrities might help. For older generations, speaking clearly and showing people in situation they can understand and recognize makes good sense.Here are a few quick PSA's who do you think the Target Audience is for these? What did these PSA's have in common?
The Hook: Keeping you from turning the channel
Many different PSA's try to get you sucked in by showing you some very shocking, entertaining, or riveting footage we generally call the "hook." Identify a "hook". A hook is whatever you use to grab the listener or viewer's attention. How are you going to keep them from changing the channel or leaving the room or letting their attention drift when your PSA comes on? A hook can be something funny, it can be catchy music, it can be a shocking statistic, it can be an emotional appeal -- whatever makes the listener or viewer interested enough to watch or listen to the rest of your PSA. For example, if you're aiming for local listeners, your hook might be to have your PSA use Hawaiian background music.Here are a couple of videos that have a variety of hooks to reel you in and keep your attention. (Warning, they might not make you feel very happy.)
Introduction to Camera Framing, Angles and Movement
Once you know what the important elements of a successful public service announcement and have an idea in mind, it will be up to you to pull it off. There are some technical considerations to keep in mind when preparing and producing a PSA, most importantly, how to frame what your audience sees, hears, feels and understands. This brings us into the realm of cinematography.Every movie you ever watch will have some of the very same elements presented in it that have been developed over the past 60+ years by cinematographers wishing to better communicate their messages. Each shot and scene you view is composed of how the camera shot is framed (meaning how you line it up with the subject or what you're focus is) the camera angles (how the lens is angled in relationship to your subject) and camera movement (how the camera lens moves with the subject including zooming, moving up and down, side to side or rolling along.)
Please watch the following video to get a sense of how directors use these common tools to communicate there perspectives to the audience. Additionally, you can ignore the parts in the middle where he makes a pitch for some expensive stereo equipment.
Be sure to answer the questions below while you're watching the video!
Class Activity: Pulling it all together
As you watch the following video, I'd like you to use the space below to provide your thoughts and ideas on what you see and experience. Using your knowledge of what makes a successful PSA both ideologically (clear message, target audience, etc.) as well as technically (camera framing, angles, movement effects. etc.) what does this PSA have going for it?Homework:
Now it's your turn to go and find a couple of PSA's online that you feel are impactful and would persuade others to the creators way of thinking. Be sure to give us access to where you found the PSA's. Remember, videos of people doing the Harlem Shake would not be considered a PSA. Please fill out the form below with what you've found:Just for Fun!
Here's a great example of one of the first one's found online and turned in!Name: Dumb Ways to Die
Link to the Video: http://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw
Call to Action: Be Safe Around Trains (Although at first I thought it was simply... Don't Die like a Dummy.)
Target Audience: Anyone who uses or lives around trains... especially teens who listen to loud music, adults who are driving crazy because they're late for work and children who don't pay attention to their belongings that end up on the tracks.
Hook: The music for sure! The super cute animations that had me wanting to see what would be the next stupid move. The animations were so happy, yet they were all dead! It made me realize how close I've come to doing some of those things myself before.
Now I've got this song stuck in my head.
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