MP1 - Birkenstock Video

After compiling all my research on the brand Birkenstock, it was time to start being practical and making the film.

Birkenstock's most recent summer campaign 'Next Generation' was created to promote their brighter coloured shoe range. These colourful shoes are an expressive shoe and the brand wants to embed personality and authenticity into this new campaign to attract a newer younger target audience. They used a diverse group of younger people who speak about individuality and expression, the bright clips are playful and raw and are overplayed by written graphics to help boost the personal feel.

Watch 'BIRKENSTOCK | Sporty Next Gen – Intro' here:

Click Me

This fun campaign was what inspired me for my 30 second mini project, wanting to make something showcasing the fun side of Birkenstock outside of their 'practicality'. Although I didn't fully plan out the film beforehand, I had good background knowledge of the brand and the look and feel I wanted to create. I began by shooting just small clips of myself and others wearing my Birkenstocks. I have the classic black double strapped sandals and as I don't own any of the colourful shoes nor did I know anyone else that owned a pair of Birkenstocks, I had to just improvise with what I had. Shooting clips with my iPhone camera and collecting the footage overtime, I had a number of clips to chose from.

Some clips I included was of my housemate wearing the shoes but with different socks. As I didn't have more variations of the shoe I decided to change the socks with each clip. This way I was still able to express the idea of customisation and personality within wearing the shoes without having to actually source more Birkenstocks.

After I had all my clips ready I put them all into premier pro and began cutting down the clips, I found this hard without having any music. I began searching for something upbeat and playful, similar to what the brand used in their next gen ad. This took me a long time of looking on Adobe royalty free to find something I thought was a perfect fit. After an hour of scrolling through different sounds I discovered the sound 'Wasted Education' which is described as 'happy & mellow' with a vintage/ school playground vibe I knew this was perfect for the film.

Lining up all my clips with the audio was the next task. I wanted everything to be on beat and timed well to make the film more successful and aesthetically pleasing. I just did this by zooming in on the timeline and finding the peaks and troughs of the audio and lining and cropping the clips to match with this. Looking back I know now there is an easier and more accurate way of doing this:

Select both tracks > right click > 'Merge Clips' > set synchronised point as 'Audio' > check box that says 'Remove Audio From AV Clip' > add merged clip to sequence.

However, despite not doing this the proper way the outcome was still successful and it still looked how I wanted.

After having the audio and the clips sorted, I thought that was my film done. However, I knew it was missing something. I could've just left it as it was and handed it in, considering it was just a mini project. I wanted to add some sort of written graphic over the top of the clips, similar to the next generation campaign, to help emphasise this idea of personality within the shoe. As I'm still learning the ropes with Premier I had no idea where to begin, I began with some google searches and YouTube tutorials in which I found this helpful video:

https://youtu.be/gdhxVpplGaQ

Using my iPad and Apple pencil I was able to create some basic illustrations which I screen recorded and sent to the laptop. I screen recorded this as I didn't want the graphics to just appear on the screen, I wanted them to develop as if I was writing over the video. I felt this had a more authentic and 'diary' style therefore boosting my communication of the message. With this screen recording I cropped and trimmed it and then popped it into premier. When in premier I inverted the video in the effects panel to make the black ink white and the background black, this makes it visible when overlaying it onto clips. I was struggling to get this image to overlay onto my clips without the black background showing up, as shown in the screenshot. To solve this issue I used the ultra key and colour key feature to adjust colours in the clip. I selected the black and was able to remove the colour. Once added to the film I realised it looked really messy around the white graphics, still showing reminiscence of the black background. I adjusted this by using the clean-up sliders and was able to get rid of it.

Once I finally learnt how to pop these graphics onto the film I was happy with the outcome. Although not completely perfect, I gave this animation style a go and it took up a lot of my time learning it and I thought I could've just kept going back and changing small things until perfect. I had to draw a line before the deadline and call it a day, like I said I was happy with the outcome and proud of what I created.

Watch the film here:

YOUTUBE LINK (UNLISTED)

VIDEO

If I was to revisit the film in the future or if I didn't have some of the restrictions I had, this is what I would've changed about the outcome:

• Product - if I possibly had access to more Birkenstock shoes, especially the new colourful ones, I would've been able to showcase a wider range of product thus appealing to a wider audience. Having these colourful ones would've made relation to previous campaigns. Using one shoe restricted me to showing customisation and ability to make the shoes your own therefore lacking the communication of personality.

• Graphics - if I had more time before the deadline I would've liked to play around and perfect the use of graphics in the film. It would've been cool to add some different colour text like the brand did in the Next Gen campaign. This would've helped me to communicate and express the idea of playfulness and youth that comes from wearing the shoes.

• Location - I would've liked to shoot some product clips in some more adventurous areas to help relate to the message. I wish I shot some footwear at areas that are associated with youth, such as school/uni environment, beach or parks for a natural setting or even evening activities.

• Production value - as part of the brief, we did have to shoot this on our phones however, if I was to do this again I would've loved to do this with a proper camera and tripod.