Let me preface this: I know absolutely nothing about film. I can barely take a decent video on my iPhone’s camera. So this could either be a really great learning experience or a disaster. Fingers crossed it’s the first.
…That was unnecessary, as it turns out, because this chapter wasn’t about film. It was about PSAs, and film is the media we’ll be using, but the chapter mainly focused on getting the message across. I hadn’t realized before how every aspect of a public service message conveys meaning, even down to small details such as the size and font of the text.
In the Q&A with Tom Fauls, he advises focusing on the client’s objective, how the target audience (and only the target audience) will react, smart and original ideas that are relevant, and emotional motivators.
The chapter also talks about the “big concept”: the main message your PSA is trying to send, which is narrowed down to a specific message aimed at the target audience.
Persuasion path: attract attention and generate interest, appeal to hearts and minds, provide reasons, call to action
I’m trying to think of PSAs that have captured my attention in the past, and they seem to follow the formula this book gives. Each one has been interesting visually, had a catchy tagline, made me laugh, or was hard-hitting (like those brutal descriptions of deaths in drunk driving accidents).
I understand all of these concepts, like pathos, appealing to emotion, logos, using logic, and ethos. The difficulty will be in figuring out how to use them differently–in a way that’s not cliché or overdone.
Com 201 