Red Bull gives you wings Campaign

10thApril2014

(Red Bull advertisements)

The production of the short test film and initial photo shoots really inspired me to try and create something from scratch. I had already gained some inspiration from from the soundtrack used in my short film, focusing on the elegance of dancers, but researching deeper into this concept I decided to narrow the idea down to Ballet. Ballet  is a perfect contrast to Boxing, but the two opposing sports contrast mirroring stereotypes. Ballet is seen as gentle and feminine whereas boxing is often viewed and macho and brutal, but when delving deeper into the lifestyles the participants of each sport endure, the hidden side is revealed. Based on my proposal I started to look for clever advertising campaigns related to sport or more generally related to boxing. I came across loads of protein shake related campaigns, but one that really linked closely with my new idea of wings was the "Red Bull gives you wings" campaign. Producing something for Red Bull using my concept seems ideal.  Red Bulls international marketing campaign targets mostly young men partaking in extreme sports. The slogan "Red Bull gives you wings" is a metaphor of the fact that it gives you energy to tackle anything. Meaning that any task you attempt will be much easier since you feel like you have wings, increasing confidence. Alongside boxers much preferred strength product - protein shakes - I thought that creating my own Red Bull advertisement based on boxing would be perfect.

11thApril2014

(Authors Own, RedBull Illustration)

When looking at previous Red Bull advertisements I noticed that the majority of the imagery used were simple and cartoon-like with a hint of colour. I decided it would be appropriate to alter Red Bulls initial approach to illustration and create something a little more life-like to appeal to my target audience [Boxers / Athletes]. I started off by taking more photographs of male boxers in all the legitimate boxing gear, but with angel-like wings on. I then transferred these images into Adobe Illustrator, made a template and started to trace around the outline of the male model. In some cases the outline was really hard to make realistic due to the angle of the model, but with a bit of trial and error I came up with 3 final outlines for my final product. After I had finished with the imagery in Adobe Illustrator, I edited the wings in the original composition on Adobe Photoshop. I then brought the two images together to create a final illustration. I created a simple but  relevant logo and then started looking into finding an appropriate quote to go with it. After hours of locating the perfect words to suit my imagery, I came across 3 perfect boxing related quotes in the "Boxing News - Annual" magazine. Two of the quotes were by the legendary fighter Muhammad Ali and the other by famous novelist Joyce Carol Oats [who often wrote about boxing] 

I wanted the wings to maintain their light and feathery quality so I chose not to reproduce those in Adobe Illustrator. I did so in Adobe Photoshop, but finding the right filter proved extremely difficult. I had to carefully edit out the model and the white background -which was the trickiest part because of the identical colour of the wings and the background - and then really intensify the contrast of the remaining image, this helped to ensure all detail stood out. Following on from this, I had to continuously experiment with different filters and tones. Each set of wings for each of the three advertisements were actually produced in slightly differently, using the same filters and techniques but in a different order. The main filters used were the OIL COLOUR, STAMP and CRAQUELURE effects. I wanted the colouring to be just right, and to look natural and organic, so I've decided to print these samples out onto watercolour paper and experiment with painting onto them by hand rather than on a creative Adobe programme.

(Authors Own, RedBull Illustration)

Here are the examples of my ad-campaign "RedBull gives you wings" that have had watercolour incorporated into them. I am fairly happy with the finished product for this section, but cannot decide weather they look more sleek and stylish without the water colour. It took me a few attempts to get the water colour just how I had planned, due to my inexperience with watercolour paints. I wanted the colour to be sporadic and subtle. I decided to paint the gloves red - opposed to the white colour they demonstrate in the primary photography imagery - so that it stood out stronger as a boxing related advertisement rather than just another RedBull advert. Something that was really difficult during this process was getting the wings just right. I forgot to record how I achieved the final appearance of the first set of wings, and so the second and third set of wings did not match up. I had to start again and record how I got to the final outcome. Another difficulty was actually editing the wings. Because the images were taken on a white background it was hard to trace around the edges to cut them out because of the colour similarity. I had to be really careful to maintain the featherlike quality, something I'm not very happy with is the colour of the wings in the final prints. I wanted to print onto watercolour paper which is a creamier colour than ordinary photo paper, but the wings did not show up on this paper, so I had to make them slightly grey. Other than the slight issue with the wings I am happy with each individual image.

15thApril2014

(Authors Own, RedBull Illustration, worked into with watercolours)