User:Irma

Irma Oldenburg : Trimester 1

Reading, Writing and Research Methods

Irma Version 2

What

Life Preview is a fictive company created and promoted with a television commercial, several graphic printed media and an online website .The company offers the public a scientific scan that measures the subconscious mind of an individual. This gives the customer the option to explore important life changing decisions without facing any consequences. Additional there is a mockumentary  made in a critical journalistic story structure, it analyses the problem that today’s society has with doubting and how companies as Life Preview take advantage of this insecurity. It informs the viewer with facts combined with several created characters who have both positive as negative experiences, combined with an interview with a specialist doctor working at Life Preview and an objective expert who wrote a book about the theory on decision making.

How

After researching the different languages and methods used in everyday media, the artist recreated the storytelling methods to manipulate the public. The promotion material for the company Life Preview  uses manipulating techniques based scientific based companies, such as Pre-Scan, mixed with a structure a viewer associated with sci-fi movies, like Vanilla Sky. The use of colours, music, voice-over and characters gives the viewer the impression it’s a professional business can provide their customers their required answers. The mockumentary is a recreated structure of a journalistic television documentary.  Using similar ingredients such as the type of Voice-over, colours, characters, and storytelling structure to produce the effect of reliable information.

Why

In Life Preview the artist intended to make the viewer aware, through the use of media styles, how manipulation and communication go together in the contemporary media. The influence to make Life Preview came from a personal problem of constantly doubting about big or small decisions. Although subconsciously knowing the answers. During moments of uncertainty people often search for answers in self-help books, faith, astrologists or spiritual mediums. It could be argued that it is impossible to prove they can provide their customers with the answers required. But does this change if it is presented in a scientific matter?