Venue Research

For my print based task I am creating a poster for the artist's debut album, but I am also creating a half page tour flyer to promote it.
In preparation to creating this flyer, I needed to do some research into venues that would be appropriate for the genre of music that she plays and for the amount of people that may attend the concert.
Because she is a folk singer-songwriter, the best venues for her to play would be relatively small, intimate places where she can interact better with her audience. Also because this would be her first official tour with the debut album, it would be expected that not many people would know or listen to her music yet. Therefore, smaller venues would be best.
The picture below shows some websites that I looked at in order to get my research about appropriate venues:

 Here are the places that I have decided to choose:

1.) Olympia Theatre, Dublin - 1,600

2.) O2 ABC Glasgow, Glasgow - 922

3.) O2 Leeds Academy, Leeds - 2,800

4.) The Ritz, Manchester - 1,500

5.) The Leadmill, Sheffield - 900

6.) Albert Hall, Nottingham - 750

7.) The Institute, Birmingham - 2,000

8.) O2 Academy Bournemouth, Bournemouth - 1,800

9.) The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth - 500

10.) Concorde 2, Brighton - 600

11.) Koko, London - 1,500

12.) Shepherd's Bush Empire, London - 2,000

I feel it would be best to do more shows in London as it is the place where music is celebrated and experienced much more than in other places in the UK.

Broadcasting Task (Preview)

This is a preview of my promotional video for the broadcasting task. This is only the ending of the video, but I just wanted to experiment with editing software and with incorporating music with the video before I began editing the whole thing.

I used Windows Movie Maker to create this. It was easy to use and made the editing process a lot simpler. I will definitely use this software to edit my final video.

First Print Draft

Before creating my first draft for one of my print tasks, I did some research. I am going to create an album flyer that will be run in the music press. So to research this I looked up some album flyers that had previously been run in the music press.

This is what I found. Researching these different styles helped me to create my own album flyer. The consistency that can be seen from these flyers is something that I wish to incorporate in my print task as it looks much more professional and will look like it actually belongs in the music press.

Below is a picture of my first draft of my album flyer. I wanted to keep the consistency that most other album flyers have so that it looks professional, and I feel like I have accomplished this.

Luke Friend sings I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons

The X Factor has been around for the past 10 years and only in recent years has there been more versatile and not so "mainstream" singers.
This is an example from this years X Factor.

Luke Friend has been one of this years "underdogs" of the competition. He has been consistently good, but never outstanding. However he is one of the very few contestants who has the ability to completely change a pop song to make it sound a lot more like his sort of style. Luke has played his guitar multiple times on the show and more often than not he has changed his given song into a more indie/folk sounding song.

In this particular example, Luke Friend has taken a Mumford & Sons classic (who I looked at for my research) and performed it to such a high standard that he had 3 out of the 4 judges on their feet.
This example supports my point that not many people know much about folk music but that it is becoming much more popular as it is now appearing on programmes like The X Factor. As it is becoming more popular , there will be more of a demand for it to be on TV. So in order for The X Factor to stay current and up to date, they need to gratify the needs of their audience by giving them more of what they want.

This particular show raked in an audience of 8.22 million, meaning that this genre of music would have been exposed to that many people which also means that it would get a lot more attention if these people liked what they heard and saw. And these viewing figures do not take into account the secondary audience that would have also been watching. So the final rating would have been much higher, meaning that folk music could get a lot more attention.

Questionnaire Results

Before carrying out my questionnaire, I made a hypothesis as to what I was expecting to find from carrying out this questionnaire. I expected that the majority of people who took part would not listen to folk music, but I expected that a lot of them would listen to pop music. One of the reasons why I chose the genre of folk was because I knew that not many people would listen to it so I felt it needed to be promoted and deserved to be heard. I also predicted that the majority of people would have been to a concert/festival/gig of some sort which is where I picture my singer performing. Below is a picture of my questionnaire that I carried out:

After asking these set of questions to 30 people with a mixture of ages, genders and preferences, I managed to prove my hypothesis right. Of the 30 people that took part in my questionnaire, only 10 of them said that they listened to folk music and the majority of these people tended to listen to most other genres of music too.
And 14 people had been to a festival at least once, proving that most people are open to listen to most types of music as that is what festivals are all about. And all but one person had been to a concert or gig of some sort, proving my hypothesis yet again.
From these results it is clear to see that my reasoning for choosing the genre of folk was a good decision and that I should definitely continue with my idea.

New Broadcasting Idea

This is my new idea for the broadcasting task, I am going to make a promotional video that will be posted on the singers' website and Facebook page.
These three pictures show my idea for this video in detail, they include a picture of what each shot will look like, how long the shot will last and what sound or dialogue there will be.

After doing some research into interviews and different styles of them, I found some relaxed and laid back ones that I liked the style of. After looking into a particular interview (The T4 Made In Chelsea one) that I liked, i decided that this would be the overall look and style of my video.
Looking at this video helped me to come up with the idea to use bright colours and to use sofas to make the interview seem less formal.


Creating this storyboard has helped me to get all of my ideas down in one place so I can see what is going to work and what isn't. It also has helped me to work out the timings of each shot and how long the video will need to be.
The brief says that this promotional video must be between 2-3 minutes. So with interview scenes, quick shots of music videos and personal videos, my video will be around 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

The shots that I have chosen to use are quite standard and easy to do (inspired by the T4 Made In Chelsea interview). The shots that I am going to use are long shots (for the interview scenes), medium long shots and up close shots (for music videos etc) and I will also use a few edited screens that will be included once all the filming is finished. I chose to use these shots because they are simple and easy to watch. They won't be too much for the audience to grasp but won't be too simple that they won't want to watch.

T4: Made in Chelsea Interview (Broadcasting Idea)

For my broadcasting idea, I am going to create a promotional video. This video will include information about my singer, for example; defining her genre, who her influences are etc.

This is an example of a T4 interview that was aired in 2011. I chose this video because I like the style of interview that it is in. It is quite laid back and chilled out and this is the type of interview that I would like to create. The sofas that the guests and presenters are sat on give this interview its laid back feel, this is why I am going to use sofas in my video to recreate this feel too. The questions that are asked in this video aren't too heavy or hard to answer so this is also another reason why I like this style of interview.

In the middle of the interview they show an exclusive preview of what is coming next for the latest Made in Chelsea series. This is another element that I liked as it is something that I would like to include in my video but with music and videos to get a more personal feel in the interview.

The camera angles in this interview are pretty standard and are quite typical of an interview, but this is also why I like it. The simplicity of it makes it easier for the audience to watch. However, it does change shots quite a lot. Whenever a new person speaks, the camera has a close up shot of the person's face and then zooms back out when the interviewer speaks again. I think this is also another element that I would like to incorporate as it will be simple but not too boring that people won't want to watch.

I also like the bright colours that are in the background of the studio that this interview is in. It catches the viewers eye and will therefore draw them in to watch the interview. I would like there to be a lot of colour in my interview too as I think it does make it look a lot more interesting and may appeal to a wider audience.