top of page
Search

[The Mill X SANM 560] Week 1

  • yoolee23
  • Sep 17, 2023
  • 4 min read

As a great opportunity I was able to participate in the mentorship class with The Mill, as part of the team Retro with Emma, Wei Lin, Sam, and Sara.


For the first week, we mainly focused on creating a story and ideating concepts considering the branding aspects of our main object "Vespa".



Considering this feedback, we started off from researching the history of the brand "Vespa" and its origin and benefits.

  • In the past if was a speedy vehicle and gave people joy from that speed

  • Nowadays, it is known for a less speed vehicle, compared to cars and motorbikes, but that worked as a benefit in the aspect of safety

  • Unisexual vehicle, it was designed for women in skirts to be available to ride

  • World War 2 has affected the motorbike industry economically, and vespa was designed to be bought in an affordable price

  • Eco friendly - currently, two wheeler ensures zero carbon emissions

  • Compactness and extensive functionality

    • Vespa’s advertising slogan is ‘Vespizzatevi’ with the meaning of ‘Let’s Vespa’


Referring to this benefits and branding concepts, we discussed a lot of ideas, and was able to find three possible stories for our project. After developing three contestants for the story, we thought about the pros and cons of each story, and tried to provide a special reason in the aspect of "Why Vespa?".


The three stories within the pros and cons are the concepts below.

  1. A love story of two vespas

    1. Pros

      1. Is clear that it has a story, and could be an interesting subject for viewers.

      2. More fluent in making “pretty images”, has clear visualization

      3. Can bring the cute concept of a vespa, which fits the vehicle design as it being “cute”

      4. Unisexual image - fits the benefit of vespa that the brand is advertising

      5. No need for various advertisements.

      6. Good use of look development

    2. Cons

      1. How are you going to convince the two vespas are falling in love visually? Explaining the story in limited 4 shots, with a photorealistic image, would the audience be convinced enough? (Thinking as an audience with zero knowledge of a vespa)

      2. FX work is hard to find. - Showing off a strong FX effect could be a way to catch the viewer’s attention.

      3. The need of a rigged vespa model. - Just rotating the wheels would not visually convince the vespa to look as a “Character” having a feeling of “Love”

      4. Vespa might look as a “Character” than a “item” to buy

  2. Customizing vespas (New->Old)

    1. Pros

      1. Vespa does not have to move, and the use of close up shots could look reasonable to the audience. (Changing the camera angles, and position could look effective)

      2. Fits the branding of “One and only” and “Friendly” - The brand moto is to be a vehicle loved by all types of people, and high availability in price and functions

      3. Good use of FX- Paint, rust, engine exhaust, color changing, and also Good use of lighting, look development.

    2. Cons

      1. Other motorcycles can be customized too, what is extremely special with vespa? (What is it different from a teddy bear?-professor’s comments)

      2. Environment transitioning – 2 environments is the max amount we can achieve, how would we show off variety?

      3. Could it be convincing enough with 4 shots? - showing off few customizations could not be enough

      4. Would it be enough with one vespa model? - need several loads of look development work.

  3. Time lapse within decades (Old->New)

    1. Pros

      1. Definitely shows the growth of the brand and item, and could show the historical success of vespa.

      2. Direct idea to strongly deliver the concept to the audience

      3. Good use of FX in the transition of time and vespa models

    2. Cons

      1. Environments. - Hard to achieve more than 2, and showing time lapse of decades through two environments could be hard and not persuasive enough

      2. If we use images for the environments, it is hard to explain why most of the environments are out of focus. Also, if environments are out of focus, it loses the strength in the aspect of concentrating on a “time lapse” concept.

      3. Could be closer to a motion media style video without environments.

      4. Bike group has the same concept - How are we going to specialize our concept and differentiate it from their group?


After, we started to discuss how to solve the cons of each concept. Solving all of them was a bit difficult, but we was able to reach to a conclusion to combine idea 2 and 3, with the following reasons and specified them more.


(Final Choice)

Idea 2+ Idea 3 - Time lapse with close-up shots of customization


  • Why Vespa?

  1. Reason 1.

    1. Vespa has been created to give hope and energy to the young generation in the depression of world war 2, and has been loved as a timeless vehicle till nowadays.

    2. Because the origin has a special situation of “war” and “hope” different from other vehicles, we are trying to emphasize this special aspect through the concept of a time lapse.

  2. Reason 2.

    1. Vespa has been known as a “friendly” vehicle with the aspect of “unisex” and “customization”. The cute and low scale design has been created for women in skirts, and this branched out to a popular vehicle easy and nice to “customize”, compared to other vehicles.

    2. The official brand also tries to sell the image of “Let’s Vespa!” to target young generations and sell vespa as a resource to show off their personalities and uniquenesses.

  • How are we going to achieve this?

    • Transition of two environments in different timelines, each representing the time of World War 2, and 2023.

      • Old cobblestone road with a old and rusty alleyway and building of Italy during world war 2

      • Vespa parked in modern and new road of Italy, which still have some aspects of traditional architecture.

  • Close Up of customized parts.

    • Stickers or letters painted

    • Customized key chain and key turning on the engine and light of the vespa.

    • Side carts or baskets, anything that adds specialty to a vespa.

    • License plate letters transforming to a slogan message.

  • Peeling FX for rust and color change of the vespa (Rusty->Old)

    • Small destruction of the background wall creating dust in the WW2 environment.

    • Engine exhaust

  • Old music of WW2 changing to a recent soundtrack.



I have also organized most of the development progresses as an google document, to make it easy to deliver between teammates and share opinions. The following links are these documents.


Previous development progresses:

Pitch feedback from the test pitch:

Research & References documentation:

Final story choice + development documentation:


Comments

bottom of page