Sieg's blog

Assignment 6# (Updated)

2007-11-26T09:43:00.001-08:00

This advertisement shows how the advertiser tried to fuse eastern and western culture together. In this presentation, I will speak about how each elements in this picture reflect a certain culture/meanings and how some of it actually reflect the insensitive sense of the advertiser.

In this advertisement there are chinese and western elements:

Western:

(1) Grim Reaper
(2) Toaster
(3) The dog ( jack russell is often deem as more western)

Eastern:

(1) The chinese lady
(2) The decoration of the house
(3) The text is in chinese

The advertisement is meant to target the young and modern Chinese market. The target group that are influenced by
the globalization and western culture. The advertisement display a mix of western and eastern culture to portray a modern
society in China. Therefore, only those who have seen/experience the western culture/media will understand what the advertisement is about. An example is the Che Guevara poster - only people who are expose to the culture of Che Guevara will understand the context of the poster.

Hence people who have exposure to the western media/culture, will then understand the meaning of the Grim Reaper. Grim Reaper is a culture symbol of the western media - a figure that was created by the western media. In the western media, the Grim Reaper is a representation of death - if he appear near a human, it represent that the Grim Reaper is trying to take away the human's soul. And it is the western media that always portray the Grim Reaper carrying a slayer. The slayer represent danger as it often show in western media that the Grim Reaper use the slayer as his weapon to take away people's souls/lives. Hence, as this advertisement is show in China, it can be said that the advertisement is targeted at the younger audiences in the country. People that are influence by the western media or globalization can understand the message behind the advertisement.

Another thing is the dog. In traditional chinese culture, families do not keep jack russell in their homes. Jack russell is a breed that is introduced by the western countries. Hence by putting jack russell in the advertisement, it bring about a certain sense of western culture influence.

Toaster is also another item that is brought by the western culture. In the traditional chinese, people use stove and charcoal to toast bread.

Therefore, by placing these western induced items into the advertisement, it "block out" certain group of people in the country - people who are not influence by the western culture. These people (e.g. farmers, older generation) will not understand what Grim Reaper and the slayer means. Although these people can know that jack russell is a kind of dog (because it signify a dog) but they might not feel relate to the advertisement as they never see jack russell before. Hence by introducing western/foreign elements into the advertisement, some groups will be "block out" from the initial message. Although it is targeted at the younger generation in China, it also shows a certain degree of insensitivity. For the chinese culture, people believe in chinese culture and religion more than western culture. Hence to the chinese society, people can associate the notion of death with chinese icon (e.g. vampires, chinese demon, king of Hades, etc) rather than Grim Reaper. Hence people in China will not "feel" for the advertisement because it is "too western" oriented. From these elements, it is an advertisement that is made by a western company who might not have research enough on chinese culture.

We made conclusion that the toaster on fire is dangerous because it is unusual for toaster to be on fire. We know from our everyday life that the toaster is meant to toast bread. If it is on fire, it means that the toast is spoilt. There the advertiser make use of our everyday knowledge to help us make reference to the advertisement. An example is the dog in the chopping board (picture below). The advertisement make use of our everyday’s knowledge of the kitchen and the layout of a normal cooking procedure. By making some “unusual” elements in both pictures, it will attract the viewers’ attention and make them relate to their prior experience. For example, the viewers know that the toaster is to toast bread and hence with fire, they can relate that something is wrong and it is dangerous. The chopping board in the cooking setting, with a dog shows that the dog might be meant to be killed and cooked.

During the tutorial, my classmates comment that it is common for toaster to be on fire. But however, the argument I wanted to make is no person will go to a store and buy a toaster with the intention to have it on fire! Hence the picture with toaster on fire is something unusual - not the normal function of a toaster. Another thing is the fire can be symbol for danger and other stuff. Example fire on the stove is something good - use of fire to cook. While in this case fire is a symbol of danger because it is in a context that depicts danger. Therefore an item can depict different meaning in different context.

Something interesting was brought out during tutorial. The Grim Reaper is made of bone and the dog is biting the hand which is made of bones. People, especially those who are not influence by the western culture, will see that dog is biting the hand because the dog want to eat the bone and not trying to save the woman. This goes to show that the company did not pay enough attention to the details and their meaning. Dog is known to eat bones and hence people will link this when they see this advertisement.

Another thing that the company fail to see is that they fail to notice that the danger and the Grim Reaper are at the opposite end of each other. This will give an impression that the dog is trying to prevent the Grim Reaper from attacking the woman and not trying to save the woman from fire.

People can only made out the meaning of this advertisement when they look at the chinese words below and the wildlife fund logo. The chinese text is "save it. and it will save you." meaning if you save the dog and not throw or kill it, it will one day save your life. It is only then people know that the dog biting the bones of Grim Reaper is to protect its owner. However as the Grim Reaper and the danger that it is representing is at opposite side, people might miss the connection that the Grim Reaper is trying to take away the life of the woman because she is sleeping and unaware of the toaster on fire beside her.

This advertisement is a classic example of how company who did not pay attention to the visual details/connotation of the items they place in the advertisement and the culture of their target market will cause people to misunderstood/ don't understand the meaning of the advertisement. This shows the importance of having understand the target market's culture (in this case is the chinese culture) and the different codes behind each items in the advertisement. Also the placement of the items and the logic of placing them is also very importance (in this advertisement, the danger and Grim Reaper is at opposite side, people might not able to relate that the Grim Reaper is a symbol for the danger of the toaster on fire.)

I will rate myself 90/100, sorry for not put this rating in the earlier post.

Assignment 5#--Creep

2007-10-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

Hi there!!

Is time for us to blog again, mmm yup, this time round we need to use the theme 'creep' to take three pictures each represents different idea: 'realism, formalism and expressionism'. I think most of the people like me having quite a hard time to do this time assignment because of the very special theme--creep, yup, is CREEP. My friend even thought that i will go to take some insect creeping..err

Ok, enough of crap, basically most of the people did it quite well this time round. I saw a lot of people using some idea like creepy, or some using nature plant to shows the idea how the nature fight against the manmade building to survive, etc. As for me, i depict 'creep' as a verb and i depict it in the way as 'how the loneliness actually creeping into urban city life'. Hence my subject for this theme is the Cavenah Bridge, because i want to show that there is actually some lonely people around Cavenah Bridge besides those crowded people we see most of the time.

Photo 1#--Realism

This photo shows the actual image of the bridge. Actually when i took this shot there is still don't have much people there, only a few runner or a few tourist lOl. Anyway, since it is realism shot, this is what exactly the Cavenah Bridge give the idea to the people.

Photo 2#--Formalism

This is the formalism shot, just try to show the aesthetic of the bridge, i'm using a more close up shot to show the texture and the detail of the bridge.

Photo 3#--Expressionism
This is the expressionism shot, which i took it 'accidentally' because at that time there appear to be one person stood along the bridge and he seems like very lonely and in his own world, which quite suits my theme so i quickly took this picture..and ya! This is the outcome! =D

Overall i like the evening kind of feel so i purposely make the picture a bit darker then usual. I hope this can create a kind of 'emo-ness' when people looking at the picture. For the self-assessment part, I rate myself 8/10 this time round and i rate Nikole the highest among the others because the idea of creepiness shows well with the idea of the killer.

Assignment 4#--The Day After

2007-10-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hello there!

This is my 4th assignment, title 'the day after', we were asked to do a photomontage and try to shoot up as many photos we can.

I choose the playground as my theme this time and use it to demonstrate my idea--the day after. I think i used playground because most to reflect children how they do after the whole day mostly when we are still young we will go to some playground but as the time changes the children seldom go to the playground anymore--except those just under their house.

This playground was shot at the West Coast Park there, is being renovate there hence no much people there, it brings out more the idea i wanted to show--deserted area where this playground was left behind as time goes by, yup.

I will rank myself 6/10 and i think this time i would choose HuiLing as the overall best photomontage, i find her idea of the 'prison' quite interesting and the way she portrait her photo also quite interesting, she didn't use out all the space but only shows those what she think is important and bring it out to the audience. Good job!

(P.S : actually there is some error in color arrangement when i upload the pic, it become very 'blueish', don't know this outcome is artistic or not? Hee)

Assignment 3#--Change

2007-09-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hi ppl!

This is my assignment three and we were asked to use picture to tell a story and the theme of the story is 'change', well, change can mean a lot of thing, i've chosen economy change in my this time assignment:

There are quite some amount of shots is taken at Haw Paw villa, a place where i went to when i was young and i was accidently passed by during the day when i went out for shooting and i unintentional discovered that Haw Paw Villa is actually still open for public--though it has been closed down for quite a some time already.

First Shot: The Notice Board of Haw Par Villa

This was some description about the villa, the purpose why building this villa--'to be remembered by people', feeling kinda sad cause it was once a very popular tourist place back then--it shows my theme: how economy change can bring the impact or effect to this place.

Second Shot: Another notice board showing the map of the villa

This shot is quite similar with the previous shot, i intentionally to shoot the bottom part of the sign board and to bring out the words 'the singapore oldest favourite tourist spot since 1937' kinda irony huh?

Third Shot: A closed cafe

I took this shot and make it become sepia feel because it was one of my nostalgia too, but i remember when i was young there was no cafe like this before. Anyway i took the sign board saying:'close down for temporary renovation'

Fourth Shot: Another angle of cafe

Another angle of this cafe, shows the emptiness of this cafe.

Fifth Shot: An arcade without people

This is an arcade besides the cafe, again shows the economy changes that caused the effect to this arcade as well.

Sixth Shot: Construction site contrast with a blooming flower

I took the construction site and contrast it with a blooming flower saying that 'changes is everywhere, is as obvious as the construction site and as subtle as the blooming flower'.

Seventh Shot: A dying tree

Again another nature changes that we can see easily in our everyday life.

Last Shot: A traditional tea cup

This is a conclusion shot, saying that although everything in our life will have change due to many reason but something will never change, just like the tea cup in this pic, it is still available in our everyday life although it is very old, but yeah, we still use it now and we must appreciate the thing that is surround us! Cheer! =D

Peer evaluation:
Overall i give myself 7/10, i try to use some images to bring out some subtle meaning of change behind instead of just showing some construction site, that will be too obvious and boring.

I will choose Mak Huiting for her great job this time round, she did a good job in showing the theme 'Childhood', i can easily tell even without her explaination. Good Job! =D

Assignments 2#

2007-09-04T08:40:00.001-07:00

Hi ppl!

Yupyup, this is my 2nd assignment and we have been asked to 'play around' with our DSLR and this time we need to shoot something that have 'depth of field', 'contrast' and 'must create those 3D kind of effect'..mmm

To be honest, i think this is reallie the 1st time i 'officially' shoot with DSLR--and is fun! I have the chance to experience with different kind of functions like exposure, aperture and even shutter speed..=D

I've choose some building as my subject and try to shoot it with different angle and aperture..

Some other interesting shots..

And finally i choose these other two to represents the requested criteria..

I choose this two as my final shots for my presentation is because i felt that these two pic reflect the most of the criteria. I felt that the left pic can best reflect the meaning of contrast and the right one could best reflect the idea of depth of field.

However, i've received the comment that these two pics lack of 'drama' in it, which means it is good in the sense of the pic itself but it lack of 'storytelling' function in it and people wouldn't stay for too long in looking at these two pics. =S

If u want me to choose the best shots overall in my tutorial group, guess what, i think most of you will choose that one too--Samantha's dolls shot!! =D Ya it is indeed stunning as the way the dolls was portrait in the pic and it was amazing too to see it actually looks like a CG animation and ya it really gives me a Final Fantasy feel oh! I will give Samantha 90% for this time round and i will grade myself 75% out of 90% because of lack of storytelling feature inside..

Yupyup, more shots will upload shortly..

Stay Tuned..

Assignments 1#

2007-09-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hey ppl!

yupyup..this is kinda late post since my first post, anyway here it is!

Ya..the 1st assignment we are require to try out with the scanner and to create some image/photos with it but unfortunately my house scanner spoilt and i can only use sch's scanner to play ard with it..

Anyway, initially i just simply scan something with it, here are some very plain result:

I scanned tissue paper and movie ticket, couldn't think out of much effect, and then i scanned my favourite thumbdrive:

Initially i was thinking that thumbdrive can somehow represents some of my thought becoz thumbdrive sometime is like a memory box, it can store a lot of memory inside. But is like we human, sometime we will forget things, we forget becoz we need to remember new things. Is like thumbdrive too, we delete things becoz we want to store new things. So that's the reason i choose thumbdrive to represents some of my thought..

I haven finished my finalize version yet becoz of i'm waiting to get my new scanner back, the one i showed on top is the one i presented during the tutorial. Ya..is a bit plain, just bare with it becoz i'm editing the new one.. =S

If u want me to choose the overall best design for the 1st Assignments i will choose Samantha, her design really have the mafia feel. And i will give her 89% overall. For me, i think i still need a lot of improvement so i graded myself 60% over 89%.

And yup, this is my temporary post, wil edit again once i've scanned my edited version..

Stay tuned..

First Post!

2007-08-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hi there!

Yeap, another blog another post(i was previously frm NM2208, lol) ya..hope u guys can visit this blog more often and give more comment on the pic k?

Last but not least, have fun in this module k? Let's work it up!

Cheer
BoonHock