Marketing Research

Today we looked into ways in which you can market an artist to consumers and an audience. This is important when trying to create an image for the artist and therefore adding to the promotional package that we are completing for this project. This is because if we promote the artist in a variety of ways, more people are going to begin to recognise and become fans of Heidi Holmes. Some ways we found that you could market through is merchandise, posters and trailers.

Autumn Teaser Photos Release

Due to the artist we have created being new and up and coming, many of our target audience members will not know who Heidi Holmes is or what she looks like. So in order to portray to the audience a better representation and image for our artist, through our social media accounts we have released teaser pictures from a recent photo shoot of our artist.
All of the photos that we have used have an autumn theme and this is because Heidi Holmes will hold a nature theme throughout her first album and therefore in her image too. Leading on from this, the next teaser photos we release will hold a different seasonal theme, for example Summer or Winter. During the photo shoots, we decided that we wanted to showcase different seasons as part of our concept, as this will reflect our artist's unique and versatile persona, contrasting with the stereotypical 'shy' artist image within the genre of folk pop. For example, the contrast between summer and winter will suggest that there are different sides to her which will be unveiled in interviews, behind the scenes clips and other promotional videos.

Finally we have also made sure that we included the artist's logo on all of our teaser photos. This is because this further causes people to remember our artist and when they see that logo they are more likely to instantly recognise that it is hers.

Starting the Social Media

Our main way of connecting with our target audience is through social media as our artist, Heidi, will be able to showcase her bright and quirky personality through her tweets/posts as well as the accounts serving as a useful marketing platform. We are planning to announce release dates, music video, photo-shoot and song teasers on the Twitter and Instagram accounts to gather online attention surrounding Heidi Holmes which is important as she is a 'new and upcoming artist' in the industry. Social networking sites can be accessed by people worldwide, therefore allowing us to reach to a wider and global target audience.

After doing research, we have decided to use 'HeidiHOfficial' and 'HeidiHolmesOfficial' as our usernames on Twitter and Instagram. Most artists, such as Niall Horan from One Direction, normally have official at the end of their username to reinforce the fact that it is their one and only social media account because artists inevitably have posers who create fake accounts pretending to be them.

Below is evidence of the social media accounts that we have created:

Twitter: 

We have put the logo as the icon to establish Heidi's brand image, as well as the music-related bio to highlight her career as a musician. Examples of tweets include interacting with the fans by giving out teaser pictures, previews and tweeting about Heidi's day to create a sense of realism.

Instagram:

We have posted a wide selection of photos of our artist, as well as pictures of what Heidi has supposedly taken to contribute to the building of her bright, lovable persona. We are planning to release more pictures from the album photo shoot to get our target audience excited and interested about the upcoming release. 

First Draft Student Feedback

Now that we have completed our first attempt at our music video, we wanted to get feedback from our peers so that we can see what others feel works well and what needs to be improved. This will therefore help us to make our video better and further help us work out what needs to be re-filmed in the future. After we showed them the video and they told us the feedback we took note of everything positive and negative that they mentioned and then summarised it into the presentation below.

First Draft Teacher Feedback

Today now that we have finished our first attempt at creating the music video, we decided that i still needs improving, so to help us know which parts to improve on first we are asked our teacher for feedback on it. She watched our first draft and then told us what to improve and what she thought was good about it. With this feed back we will be able o make our music video look more professional and therefore more realistic for an up and coming artist such as what we are creating.
Below is the feedback we received:

Photoshoot

The last time we went to the location of South Weald we completed a photo shoot with both an autumn and summer theme. We did this because it is important that we have various photographs of the artist, so that we can use them in various stages of our marketing. This includes magazine covers, posters and teasers for which we plan to release on our social media sites.
Through completing this we are able to get more people recognising our artist, which considering she is new, is vital if we are to get the audience to buy the artist's single and album in the future.

We created the autumn theme photos through going to the wooded section of the park and maintaining a browny, orangery colour scheme throughout. We did this to give the back drop of falling leaves, show the nature of this season and achieve the cool yet vibrant feel of our artist.

We created the summer theme photos by going to the open field sections of the park and due to the day being extremely clear and bright, along with the summery nature of the costume, made the atmosphere come across as warm and cheerful. This was though the use of more pastel floral colours such as pink and greens, that many people connote with the season of summer. 

The First Attempt at the First Draft

After editing for the last couple of weeks we have come up with a template and idea for the first draft of our music video out of the footage we have so far. Whilst we realise that we need to film more and get more footage for us to be able to make this music video more professional, we believe that this is a good starting point for the first draft. However, now we are a little stuck as to which direction to take this video, so in order for us to be able to improve the standard of the video and know where to go from here we will ask for lots of feedback from both our teacher and current students.
Here is our first attempt at our first draft:

Performance Inspiration

Performance is a key aspect of any music video, because unless the performance is believable and gripping for the audience, they are more likely to just stop watching it due to finding it 'boring'. So in order to make sure that the performance from our artist is exciting to watch, we have looked into artists that perform in ways we would like recreate and put our twist on. This will further enable us to give Elona, who is performing as Heidi Holmes, a clear direction into how we want her to act and perform in front of the camera. To do this we have taken inspiration from other famous artists' performances such as Jasmine Thompson and Shawn Mendes. 

Creating the Logo

The logo is a key part of the marketing for our artist as it is what the artist will become associated with and known for. This is because Heidi Holmes' logo will be shown on her merchandise, website and photo shoot photos. Due to it being such a huge part of our marketing, we needed to get it completely correct to fit our artist's genre and image representation. So to do this we had to go through multiple stages before we could finalize our logo, this included creating a survey and trying different logos on Photoshop to find the right one.
Below is the process we went through:

Website Research

Now that we have completed the analysis of a website, we took that information and furthered it by completing a research into music artists websites and more particularly, artists websites who are in the same genre as we will try to recreate. We have gone into plenty of detail including what we should include and how we will be inspired by artists such as Carrie Underwood.

Similar Genre Video Research

Folk Pop is an extremely unique and specific genre so it is very important that we look at other videos in order to know the types of music videos that represent the music of this genre accurately. This research will therefore help to inspire our final music video creation.

Website Analysis

Before we complete our website we need to fully understand what we should expect to see when looking at one from an artist of our genre, which is Folk/Folk Pop. The way in which we can do this is though analysing  one of these websites the website that we have chosen to analyse is Ellie Goulding, because even though now she is a Pop artist, she initially started out as folk and broke her way into the top charts and this is what we aim for our artist, Heidi Holmes, to achieve.

London Filming Preparation

One location that we decided to film in is London, and due to us having to spend money and take a lot of time travelling to this location we need to make sure that we know exactly where we are going, how we are getting there and that we are going on an appropriate day weather wise to be able to film. Through completing this preparation we will be able to make the most of our time and be able to as much as we can and need throughout the day.

Shooting Day 2- Shooting Schedule

For our second day of shooting, we decided to go to London. Below is the shooting schedule for our second day of filming, to ensure that filming proceeds smoothly especially as this time, we are travelling to the busy city of London, having a schedule is essential as we have to travel by train to the different locations that we intend to film at, therefore this time, we have to consider train times and how long we are going to stay at each location. As it is a full day of filming in London, we have also scheduled a break in the middle of the day to replenish our energy to ensure that we are working with a positive and high-standard mind set. The shooting schedule, along with the regular check on London weather forecast and equipment gathering, will help us get ready for the big shooting day. 

Location Shots- London

Once again after looking at our Steal-o-matic and location research, we decided that certain places in London would be perfect, because then we would be able to film in multiple different looking locations in one day. So when we further looked into places within London we found that easily within one day we could travel from Camden Market to Little Venice and stop at Regents Park along the way, and they all fit the locations from the location research that we wanted to find. When searching these areas online this is what we found:

Search results for Camden Market

Search results for Little Venice

Search results for Regents Park

Even though when we completed this image search for the areas to make sure that in real life the areas did look how we wanted them to we completed a location visit to get shots of what the places will look like when we shoot there. This is what we found:

Name Research and Decision Making

Today as we now have a genre and song for our artist, we decided that we were able to come up with a final name for the artist. The name is really important for the selling and marketing of the artist because it needs to be memorable, but also fit the genre of their artist. It is also important for it to not only sound correct, but look correct written down, because this will then help us for when we come around to creating a logo for her.
The name we finally all agreed on was
HEIDI HOLMES

DigiPak Research

Now that we have completed conventions and analysis for DigiPaks, we feel that we now have sufficient information to complete the required research. By completing this research it will enable us to create a realistic and accurate DigiPak for our artist in the Folk/Folk-Pop genre, which is especially important when trying to portray across to the consumer the representation of our artist. Along with this we also looked into the ways in which we could follow the correct conventions, but make our artist unique as well. This research includes information on the photography used, titles and writing used and colour schemes.

This is below:

Risk Assessment

When filming as we will be on our own it is important that we fully understand any risks we may have in our locations of choice and how to come with these risks and what to do if anything of the type happened. We had to make sure that we filled it out very precisely and were accurate in the information about the nearest hospitals that we put down.
Below is our completed risk assessment:

Shooting Day 1- Shooting Schedule

Our first location we have decided to go to is South Weald Park, as it possesses the nature-based, autumnal atmosphere that we want in our music video therefore we have chosen it as our photo shoot location as well as our first filming location. Below is the shooting schedule that we created to ensure that filming goes as smoothly as possible. This will save us time during the production as the schedule states the framing, shot type and props needed for each shot. Being organised is essential for a successful production. This will therefore give us time to focus intently on smooth camera work as well as performance as we do not have to think about coming up with shot ideas on the spot. However, if the location inspires us on the day for cutaway ideas, we will make sure to record it.

Similar Artist Research

In order for our group to be able to create an accurate representation of our artist, it is important that we focus on similar genre artists to make our artist as realistic as possible. This therefore means that we will be able to market our artist in an appealing way to our target audience, who would listen to the artist's music.

Similar Genre DigiPak Analysis

Today, in order to understand what to look out for in a DigiPak of the genre of our choice, we completed the analysis of a DigiPak in the same genre. The genre we are looking at is Folk Pop, so by looking at the DigiPak of Treva Blomquist's 'As It Should Be' it will give us an insight as to what the DigiPak can suggest and show about an artist and their music.

Location Shots

After finding inspiration from other music videos and our Steal-o-matic for the locations of our music video we decided to go and visit South Weald Country Park in Brentwood. We chose this location due to its beautiful, green open spaces and autumn feel. We looked the area up online first and this is what we found:

 

After seeing this we decided that for our nature shots it would be perfect, so to make sure it would work for the music video we imagined we completed a location visit, to see for ourselves where to film. The stairs, area by the lake and forest area was exactly what we wanted and will easily help us portray across to the audience the artist's image and represent the genre of the music.
These a couple of the location shots we took during our visit:

Location Inspiration

So that we are able to make our music video as professional as possible, it is important that everything that we complete looks perfect and realistic for someone of our artist's, Heidi Holmes, genre, which is Folk/Folk-Pop. For this to happen we need to understand the types of locations videos of this genre will be filmed in, especially since we want our artist to have a happier, more fun loving and modern edge to her compared to other artists in the same genre. In order to portray this through our music video the personality which comes through from the artist must be parallel to the location she is in.

The video below shows where we have got and will get our inspiration from:

Props List

As we have now completed the research necessary on props, we are able to create a list of props that we will need for our artist to use and include within the music video. These will help further her image and make her fun representation clearer to the audience and consumers. The information developed here will help with the Shooting Schedule as it will enable us to be organised and more efficient with our time because, they will be no confusion as to what we need to bring in order to film.
The list is as follows:

1. Guitar (Acoustic) 
2. Over the head Headphones
3. Microphone
4. Microphone Stand
5. Beanie Hats
6. Flowers (Wild)
7. Floral Headband
8. Polaroid Camera (Filler Shots)
9. Scarf
10. Polaroid Film

We will borrow these props from other people or from ourselves or buy them when we go shopping. As we are on a budget, due to our artist only just starting out, we look around and cannot just go for the first one we see in case there is a cheaper option elsewhere. Luckily apart from two of the items needed above, we already have ourselves within the group, meaning we do not have to spend much money at all.

Props Research

Props can play a vital role in creating the right mise en scene for the video and therefore thoroughly contributes to creating the artists image. Through this research I was able to realise this huge effect props can have and the types of props that artists in Heidi Holmes' genre use (Folky/Folky Pop), for example Shawn Mendes and Ellie Goulding.
This research that we have completed will further enable us to develop an understanding as to what should be included on our own prop list.