Task 8: ‘Band Stories’ Online Promotional Strategy

Task 7: ‘Band Stories’ Treatment

Project Summary

Band Stories is a project that brings people together and allows them to collectively celebrate music as a form of expression.

Key Features

The TV Show

The project would have a 6-part series on television that invites 3 bands on each week to talk about a real life experience that influenced one of their songs.

The Website

The audience will be invited online to watch again, discuss the songs on tonight’s show or get creative and express one of their favourite band’s lyrics visually (e.g. photography, drawing etc).  

The Flashmobs

There will also be several flashmobs that will be going on around the country. They will bring people together to sing the songs from the show ‘group a capella’ in the street.

For example, The Courteeners’ song ‘The Opener’ is about the lead singer returning to England and hoping that his girlfriend and home town will still be there waiting for him. For this particular band/song, fans would be invited to sing the song in Manchester in a particular public place, on a particular day, at a specific time.

They will also be instructed to look out for a certain person in a certain place because a performance will happen before their eyes as they sing. It will not stand out, only the people involved in the flashmob will know about it, their song will serve as a soundtrack. For example they could be told to look out for a lad (wearing a sky blue jacket) getting off the number 58 bus at 1 o’clock. This lad would be an actor and his girlfriend (played by an actress) would be waiting for him.

Platforms

The project would have a television series, and a website and Facebook page online that would allow people to interact with the program. There would also be several flashmobs going on throughout the country which would be promoted online.

Target Market

The target audience will mainly be fans of new indie music (14-30 male and female) but also art lovers in general.

Visual Treatment

The TV episodes will be split into 3 different chunks, 1 for each band. Each chunk will consist of an introduction to the band and a relaxed interview where they will tell the story of one of their songs. Over the top of these stories will be real life photos and videos of the people/places that they involve and also user generated content (visual interpretations of the lyrics created by fans). The program will be visually stylish – high contrast shots with a shallow depth of field.

Basic Walkthrough

People will see adverts for the program on TV and on posters/billboards, if they like one of the bands involved or have a general interest in music they may decide to watch.

At the end of the program they will be directed to the website where they can interact or generate and upload their own content.

If they are interested in attending one of the flashmobs, they can sign up and will be sent the details.

On returning from the flashmob, people will have the option to upload any videos they may have which will be edited together, by the people running the website, to create sketchy multi-camera type videos.

User Scenario

Steve is signed up to The Courteeners’ newsletter, he receives an invitation to express any lyric from the song ‘The Opener’ which could end up on TV. With a love for The Courteeners and photography he sees this as a good opportunity to get some exposure. He takes out his camera and tries to take a snap that sums up the lyric ‘I miss getting pissed wet threw, getting to yours, and getting warm.’ When he goes to upload it to the website, he also notices that he can sign up to get involved with a ‘group a capella’ rendition of the song on the streets of Manchester. He tells some of his mates about it, they sign up and weeks later find themselves at the event. Steve manages to capture some of the flashmob on his mobile phone and remembers a callout for any footage so he uploads that to the website. Weeks later he gets notified that his image will be featured on the TV program so he tunes in to watch it.

Task 5: ‘Merlin’ Schematic Visualisation

Task 4: ‘Pimp My Club’ Treatment

Slot: BBC3, Entertainment (Series)

Target Audience: 16-30, male

Genre: Factual Entertainment

Running Time: 30 mins

Pimp My Club is a factual entertainment series (30 minute episodes) for BBC3 with a slightly tongue in cheek tone. Every week a ‘team of experts’ (a.k.a The Pimp Brigade) will renovate a new club to try and improve the night life in a local town.

An example of this would be Gibsons Nightclub in Oswestry, Shropshire. Being the only club in town, Gibsons has little to compete with and as a result lacks inspiration.

The program will feature an ‘over the top’ voice over, possibly performed by Dominic Littlewood or Danny Dyer.

       

Locals will be interviewed before the renovation (speaking about their thoughts and experiences of the club) and after (about whether the ‘pimping’ was worth it).

From week to week The Pimp Brigade will change depending on the club but will generally consist of…

Interior designers, Architects, DJ’s, Lighting experts, Cocktail makers… 

They will work on…

Lighting, Music, Pricing, Seating, Dance Floors, Features (champagne fountains etc)…

1 Minute Promo: http://vimeo.com/10561388

Task 6: Textbook Food

Textbook Food invites contestants to put their personal touch on a classic dish and also create an environment that they feel enhances the experience even more, for example beans on toast (with peanut butter instead of butter) under candle light with Beethoven.

Target Audience: Poor cooks and people who haven’t got time to cook.

Platforms: TV and internet (in that order).

Walkthrough

People will watch the TV program because it offers new ideas for food that anyone can cook and it could be funny. At the end of the show they will be directed to the website where they can upload a photo of a classic dish that they have personalised. If the judges like it, they will then have the opportunity to upload a video of themselves making it and a potential spot on the show. The public will also be able to vote for people to appear on the show. The website also allows people to vote for their all time favourite dishes from the show, which will create a league table, and look at previous recipes.

The viewer will begin by watching the show, then applying to be on the show and then finally appearing on the show.

The benefits for the audience are entertainment, a chance to generate their own content, receive feedback from others and potentially be on the show.

The benefit for the funder is an opportunity to generate revenue from advertisements on the website.

The benefit for me is the chance to have my own idea on TV!

Task 3: ‘Meeting Ali Willis’ Financial Plan

Rough Budget Estimate: £25, 000

Markets: UK and North America

SBS Utopia: £12,500

Needed: £12,500

————————————————————————————————-

Studio Canal

£2,500

Studio Canal is the company that produced the film Bully (2001) and are therefore likely to gain revenue from the documentary.

Avon Books

£2,000

Avon Books is the company that published the book Bully: a True Story of High School Revenge (1998) and are therefore also likely to gain revenue from the documentary.

Sundance Documentary Fund (or Britdoc)

£8,000

I think the documentary is relevant to a UK and US audience (the former because it is from our perspective and the latter because it is about a US citizen). The Sundance Documentary Fund is dedicated to supporting international documentaries.

Task 2: ‘Meeting Ali Willis’ Treatment

Meeting Ali Willis is an authored fly-on-the-wall documentary about me flying to America to meet Ali Willis and find out about ‘The murder of Bobby Kent’ from her perspective. 

Ali Willis

 

Background
Ali Willis is one of the 7 kids that were involved in the murder of Bobby Kent in 1993. The case was made into a book, Bully: a True Story of High School Revenge (1998) and a film, Bully (2001). She has since been released on parole and is currently under community supervision for 40 years. 

 

 

Theme
The theme is fame but fame for murder, fame for a film/book about a true crime that you were involved in.  

Narrative
I will spend 4 days with Ali, the first being spent being shown around her house and introduced to her family (her daughter). I will also visit her husband who she is now separated from. The second will be spent at her work place, seeing what she does day to day, meeting her colleagues and finding out how community supervision affects her life. On the third day I will sit down with Ali to talk about the murder and may visit its location if possible. The fourth and final day will consist of following Ali to a social occasion (e.g. bingo) to meet her best friends and talk about what she wants from her future.  

Characters
The documentary will ultimately be about Ali, “A fierce female who has gained strength through false persecution” (taken from her MySpace page), therefore she will be the main character. I will author it (although I will only ever be heard, never seen). While getting to know Ali, we will inevitably come into contact with her husband, daughter, friends and colleagues. There is also a possibility we could speak to some of the other ‘kids’ that have been released.  

Access
We would need to gain access to Ali’s house, work place, a social location that she regularly visits, a location to meet her husband and possibly the location of the murder. I am yet to confirm any access but the way Ali talks in a very opinionated way on her MySpace page, including about very personal things like the murder case, suggests that she wants to be heard and would possibly be open to a documentary. I also have to look into the extent in which she could talk about the case.  

Visuals
I will follow Ali around with a camera to achieve an observational feel. The colours will be naturalistic. I will look to shoot some nicely composed establishing shots but the majority of the footage will be handheld and off the cuff.  

Slot/Channel
I imagine this documentary to fit into the First Cut slot on Channel 4.

The snow of Christmas 09′

Ok, so I went out with my Nikon Coolpix S1 to take pictures of the snow.. what can I say? I’m a fan.

If anyone’s actually reading this, what do you reckon?

Now, originally I wanted to embed the video I shot in the snow the day before I took these photos.. but I don’t seem to be having much luck with that. I end up with a post that says Snow by Howard Phillips on Vimeo with the words Snow, Howard Phillips and Vimeo hyperlinked. If you can help me out, please get in touch. In the meantime, here’s a URL for the video I’m talking about:

http://www.vimeo.com/8613864