![\"Image](\"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/files\/2022\/09\/blog-22F-02-Branch-scaled.jpg\")
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Props in Juniper Spring<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\nby Zoe Sohenick<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Product placement is almost inescapable in our world of media consumerism today. It\u2019s really about how it is done: creatively, or for profit. Is it possible that there could be no branding in a production at all? Kevin Sandler (2013) writes an interesting analysis of Modern Family\u2019s <\/em>episode \u201cGame Changer\u201d and its product integration of the iPad. With the line between entertainment and marketing becoming increasingly blurred, Sandler discusses how product integration in scripted broadcast media is now inevitable. Viewers now have the ability to watch media in any way they please whenever they want. Time-altering viewing (DVR, ad-skipping, On-Demand, streaming) has made it harder for advertisers to sell to consumers through commercial breaks on television, so companies have had to come up with a new way to market (Sandler, 2013). That\u2019s when they came up with the idea of product placement, the practice where manufacturing companies can pay for film or television programs to include their products in a production for exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSadler references Havens and Lotz\u2019s three categories of influence when it comes to creating media: mandates, conditions, and practices. This idea is known as the \u201cIndustrialization of Culture\u201d (Sandler, 2013). To me, this says that there are too many influences from corporate funding, industry growth, and employee needs. Even though the iPad wasn\u2019t sponsored in this episode of\u00a0Modern Family,\u00a0<\/em>it does however prove the point that branding is almost inescapable in our culture. This particular episode of\u00a0Modern Family\u00a0<\/em>was simply reflecting our reality of what was popular at the time of its airing in 2010.\u00a0Sadler defends creators saying that product placement can be done creatively when baked into a character\u2019s wants or needs, or when it is baked into a storyline. When product placement is baked into the storyline of production, audiences assume that there is some form of advertising being done, especially when there is no other competition for the brand or product (Sandler, 2013). <\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen it comes to our production of\u00a0Juniper Spring,\u00a0<\/em>we didn\u2019t need to abide by financial constraints since we aren\u2019t creating this project for profit, but that doesn\u2019t mean that our props aren\u2019t important.\u00a0Juniper Spring\u00a0<\/em>is about a young woman trying to terminate her pregnancy in a world where that is completely illegal. Throughout our film, we did our best to hide any type of branding because it is distracting to the storyline of a film. We even left out any sort of branding for the pregnancy test, the most important prop. When it is seen in the opening scene, it is shown without a logo or its packaging. As producers, we told all of our actors to make sure they weren\u2019t wearing any clothing with logos or brands during filming days. There is also a small mention of a \u201cperiod tracking app\u201d towards the middle of the film. We alluded to an \u201capp\u201d rather than a named app so there wouldn\u2019t be any distraction as to what app she uses or why. As producers of a student film, we were able to leave out branding and focus on our story creatively because our film is not for profit and we had no budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
References:
Sandler, K. (2013). Modern Family: Product Placement. In E. Thompson and J. Mittell,\u00a0How to Watch Television (253-261). NYU Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image credit:
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko, courtesy of Pexels<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Props without brand labels Filming with low\/no budget can be challenging, but it’s is what we do in Producing and Directing. Still, sometimes scenes seem to look like paid product placements simply because producers forget to frame out logo designs and visible brands. In this blog, author Zoe Sohenick talks about product placement – and… Continue Reading Week 12: Props<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2022-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sadler references Havens and Lotz\u2019s three categories of influence when it comes to creating media: mandates, conditions, and practices. This idea is known as the \u201cIndustrialization of Culture\u201d (Sandler, 2013). To me, this says that there are too many influences from corporate funding, industry growth, and employee needs. Even though the iPad wasn\u2019t sponsored in this episode of\u00a0Modern Family,\u00a0<\/em>it does however prove the point that branding is almost inescapable in our culture. This particular episode of\u00a0Modern Family\u00a0<\/em>was simply reflecting our reality of what was popular at the time of its airing in 2010.\u00a0Sadler defends creators saying that product placement can be done creatively when baked into a character\u2019s wants or needs, or when it is baked into a storyline. When product placement is baked into the storyline of production, audiences assume that there is some form of advertising being done, especially when there is no other competition for the brand or product (Sandler, 2013). <\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to our production of\u00a0Juniper Spring,\u00a0<\/em>we didn\u2019t need to abide by financial constraints since we aren\u2019t creating this project for profit, but that doesn\u2019t mean that our props aren\u2019t important.\u00a0Juniper Spring\u00a0<\/em>is about a young woman trying to terminate her pregnancy in a world where that is completely illegal. Throughout our film, we did our best to hide any type of branding because it is distracting to the storyline of a film. We even left out any sort of branding for the pregnancy test, the most important prop. When it is seen in the opening scene, it is shown without a logo or its packaging. As producers, we told all of our actors to make sure they weren\u2019t wearing any clothing with logos or brands during filming days. There is also a small mention of a \u201cperiod tracking app\u201d towards the middle of the film. We alluded to an \u201capp\u201d rather than a named app so there wouldn\u2019t be any distraction as to what app she uses or why. As producers of a student film, we were able to leave out branding and focus on our story creatively because our film is not for profit and we had no budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n References: Image credit: Props without brand labels Filming with low\/no budget can be challenging, but it’s is what we do in Producing and Directing. Still, sometimes scenes seem to look like paid product placements simply because producers forget to frame out logo designs and visible brands. In this blog, author Zoe Sohenick talks about product placement – and… Continue Reading Week 12: Props<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2022-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sandler, K. (2013). Modern Family: Product Placement. In E. Thompson and J. Mittell,\u00a0How to Watch Television (253-261). NYU Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko, courtesy of Pexels<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"