Post 1: The UK music industry

Ed Sheeran

The UK music scene is at an all-time high, with British artists, such as Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran, having huge listening figures. The latter of which is ranked as the No. 1 artist on Spotify, the worlds largest music streaming service. He is signed onto Atlantic Records which is owned by the Warner Music Group, one of the big 3 music groups. These also include the Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment. Sony Music Entertainment controls a plethora of record labels, including Colombia Records, Ministry of Sound and 8 more. A wide range of artists with varied music styles are signed to these labels, from Hip-Hop (Aitch) to Rock (Foo Fighters). They self promote their own artists through their websites news section, where important information about their artists will be posted. Sony Music has the brand value to sign people based on their talent instead of their original fame, stating on their website they employ a 'broad array of both local artists and international superstars'. Sony Music is owned by Rob Stringer, the CEO, and had a revenue of $7.27 billion in 2017. Sony Music UK is a subsidiary of Sony Music, however has standalone operations in the UK. Through this, artists signed to the label are extremely successful, with Sony Music UK winning 7 out of the possible 11 BRIT awards in 2017. As my artist will be signed to such a large company it has influenced my initial ideas as I needed to create an artist who would be able to sell a great deal of records, and would be able to gratify their audience. This helped to influence my initial ideas as I then planned out how to construct a star identity to ensure my popularity in order to sell more music. I also changed my flat plans for my website to promote my music to a greater

Olly Murs Store Page

degree, by placing my newest music video on the first page immediately when the user accesses it. I also added a large amount of merchandise to my second page, also including links to buy them in my plan. This is similar to most artists signed to Sony Music, for example, Olly Murs. With the brief explicitly stating that my artist would be signed to Sony Music, my initial ideas for my website and video were updated to include institutional information to be shown.

Post 20: Closing post

Dear Moderator

Thank you for looking at my blog. To find my research and planning evidence, click on the label called AS Research and Planning, which is on the top right of my blog. I hope you enjoy looking at my work. 

Thank you.

Ben Mudd, 3148

This blog is now closed.

Post 19: My finished adverts

I am extremely proud of my 2 finished adverts. I put a great deals of effort into both of them and I firmly believe they conform to the conventions of take-away food delivery adverts.

This was a difficult and tiring process, however I am glad I participated in it, and am greatly pleased with the outcome of it.

Post 18: My target audience feedback

I conducted a focus group meeting with 3 different members that would be able to represent my target audience. This enabled me to find certain aspects of my adverts that were successful, and which were flawed.

The focus group was conducted on Saturday morning at my house with 2 of my friends, Paul Devine and Theo Stavrou, and one of my mother’s co-workers, Billy May, and I asked them a series of questions concerning their opinion on both of my different adverts. I noticed many different trends from this data I gathered. In my first advert, the 2 younger members of the group found it humorous when the delivery person arrived so quickly after the trampoline routine finished. This feeling was mirrored by the older member, but she also did find it a bit 'over the top' and 'unbelievable'. From this I can tell that certain members of the audience can suspend their disbelief of the shot due it being an advert, however some can see past this and may find the advert hard to believe and thus identify with. Also, the older member liked the voice over and the music, which was found quite upbeat, 'jolly', which created positive connotations with the brand for them. However, both the younger members said that they found the music to be 'clichéd', and dull. From this I can tell that the music choice does not please everyone, and has different effects on different people.

In the second advert, all 3 of the people said that they understood the meaning of the advert, and were able to identify with it. However, 1 of the 2 younger members said they didn't like the effect of the colour changing halfway through the advert. I think this is more of a personal problem with the advert over an actual error, as the other 2 said they liked the choice. Also, when asked about their general thoughts about this advert, Theo Stavrou stated that he could identify with one of the characters. This is due to my casting choices of actors around the age of the target audience. This response was mirrored by the other 2, showing the success of these choices, resulting in the advert appealing to him.

Questions:

Responses:

I learnt from these responses that everyone has different opinions, and that you cannot please everyone. However, if I was to back and do it again I would have thought more about the choice of music in order to make it be slightly more interesting.

Post 17: My adverts review

After I finished editing my adverts, they were reviewed by my A level teacher. She sat down and watched both of my adverts, and gave me feedback on any errors that were present. This allowed a new perspective on my adverts in order to find issues I may have missed.

From this review, the issue of the zombie advert not having enough voice-over was raised. I then started to plan what voice-over to add, and then included this in my final version of my advert.
In my trampolining advert, my teacher pointed out how pink all of the colours were throughout the advert. This was a colour correction problem I immediately started to fix, and then I included the improvements to this in my final version of my advert.

Post 16: My rough cut

I made a rough cut in order to find out any errors I had made in the planning process. I would be able to find if any shots did not fit in with the style of the advert, and if there were any continuity problems. This would allow me to make changes to the adverts to end up with ones of higher quality for the review version.

In my trampoline advert, errors found included the music being too loud so it was difficult to hear the dialogue and voice-over. I was then able to fix this for my review version by lowering the music volume and adjusting certain parts of the voice-over.

In my zombie advert, the main mistake was the issue with the cutting of clips. Some clips ended up being too long, and some clips ended up being too short. I ended up trimming certain clips and extending certain clips so the shots felt more connected together.

Post 15: My shoot-board

I made a shoot-board in order to make the filing process easier and more efficient. I planned out what shots to film in what order, where they were being filmed, the actions and camera movement in the shot, the actors and what dialogue was being spoken.

Advert 1:

Advert 2:

This was greatly beneficial to my project as I was able to not miss any shots when I actually filmed my adverts. I was able to film very efficiently without any missed dialogue and movements, allowing me to edit both adverts effectively.