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.

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