promo examples - animation

This promo video was created by one of the members of the cambridge film festival, and was made to promote the secret spy films event at the festival. 

i think its a good quality animation and fulfills its purpose successfully 

What is a Promo video

Everyone knows what a promo video is, its a video that promotes somthing, but if you try and find a 'standard' promo on the internet it's fairly tough, because there is no real correct structure to a promo video, it's one of the very few kinds of video that pretty much anything goes.

one of the most effective videos i could find, was the o2 priority advert

I think the video is effective because it's so basic and tells you the bare minimum and tells you where you can find out more if you need to. the main point about the advertisement video is that it builds up tension, which helps to keep the audience interested in the advertisement, and the promotional video too. I think some of the shots used are really effective and help to keep the audience interested.

FeedBack from Bournemouth student

When we got to Bournemouth University Laurence and I sat down with one of their MA students and discussed our rough cut.

We spent about 30 - 40 minutes talking about it and she basically told us it was amateur and generally not very good.

To be more specific, her main points of criticism were;

• The audio levels were poor
• It wasn't cut nearly fast enough
• It had no structure
• Gave no real information
• Titles were a good idea but not executed well
• Email address came across far to fast

Once again, these are all things we are well aware of already but i felt that her in depth, constructive criticism was well needed and very helpful.

After she was finished proverbally ripping our work to pieces, she begun rebuilding it with us. This was hugely helpful and between us took 45 minutes to an hour discussing how to make it better and what makes a good promo video

Feedback from Simon Bates

Simon first wrote general points of what he wanted included in all the promo videos

• Live footage of The Fiver 
  
• What the requirements are for getting in 
  
• What you get if your band is accepted
  
• How to apply 
  
• It must look contemporary 
• Appealing to the 14 – 17 age group 
• Supply all the relevant information 

Simon then wrote these points referring specifically to our first rough cut promo. Simon said;

• Good use of the bands, drops me straight into the evening
  
• Does not show entry requirements
  
• Mentions financial incentives but not the opportunities of working on large stage with sound and techs - would be great to include this in the final cut
  
• Left me slightly confused
  
• Looks modern
  
• Great editing and speed
  
• Yes but does not include too much of the younger band(s)
  
• Unsure the ticker tape is clear enough, moves too quickly, unclear
  

These are all points we were all to aware of ourselves and if anything, i feel Simon has been too soft on us.

Interaction Budget information put into a table

 (click to enlarge)

Project budget

Skillset Budget for the project, as bid for by Simon:

Travel £ 1000 Hire coach

Accommodation £20 per head for o/night at bournemouth, based on staying in a hostel £400

Food £20 per head £400

Uni fees £500 pay for student mentors from Bournemouth

Samba tuition £260

equipment costs at LR/Coleridge Nothing.

Total £2560

Above is our original budget for the interaction project, the budget was planned by Simon Bates, he had budgeted for us to travel to Bournemouth University, stay there over night and come back the next evening. this would mean we would need lunch for the 2 days, dinner for the first day and breakfast for the second, the coach hire would be significantly higher and the paying for the student mentors would be twice as much.

Because we didn't stay overnight in Bournemouth, the budget is considerably less

£1000 was our total budget for the coach hire, an estimate of £750 was thought to be an overall estimate, and in the end we only payed £675 for the coach which means we can take £325 away from the total.

Food at Bournemouth University had also been cut from £400 to £120 in the end, which cuts a £280 price from our original estimate total cost.

Therefore, our new revised total costs would be £1645

This new budget means there is £1355 left over from the £3000 grant from Skill Set. although we were not able to have the extra time and were unable to experience university life over night, saving that much on the budget meant that the samba work shops were able to be payed for and there was extra money able to go to the next project and give us much better resources for it

Interaction Health and Safety information in a table

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Health and saftey risk assesment for filming at The Junction

Due to the situation we were filming in, in such a large group of the public, very loud music, bright lights and busy surroundings, a risk assesment was vital.

The key things that had to be paid attention to were;

• Stay a good distance from the cherry picker, it's big and the driver can't always see where he is going.
• Wear the ear plugs provided, we spent a lot of time very close to the PA system and were in danger of dameging our hearing permanently.
• Don't stare at the lights, especially the strobe, strobes are twice as bright as normal stage lights and the rapid flashing can cause serious damege to your eyes
• Don't leave anything lying around, people are very busy back stage etc and could trip over things easily
• Be carefull of cables and equiptment on stage, back stage and in the pit, don't trip over things!
• Be aware of the crowed, especially when in the pit area, people tend to crowd surf and throw things around at gigs.
• We had to wear our white CMDiploma shirts to make sure every one could identify us.
• We were given AAA (Access All Areas) and PHOTO passes so staff knew we were aloud to go anywhere and weren't thrown out.

Model release forms

Due to the nature of The Junction, i didn't have to get any release forms signed because the audience automatically consent to being filmed and having photos taken by buying a ticket for the event and the band members consent to it when they agree to play.

The Junction Fiver Gig

By the time all the bands had finnished sound checking etc and everything was ready there was a resonable que forming out side, so James and I took the opertunity to film everyone waiting to come in and do a couple of little interviews. Dave set up his camera on a tripod facing the door everyone was going to come in through so he could film the crowd all coming in at the start.

When the music actually started we all had to make sure we were on top form and paying attention to everything that was going on around us, so as not to miss filming important things that made our footage exceptional and not just standard gig footage.

The key things we wanted to film was;

• Each band coming on stage (from front of stage)
• Each band coming off stage (from back stage)
• Atleast a whole song from each band
• Crowd footage/reaction to each band
• An interview with each band

I think all in all the filming was very succesfull and we achived everything we wanted to and more. The experience was incredible and really gave me a big insight to filming live performances and working with large groups of the public. I loved the fact that everyone treated us like such professionals and with a lot of respect. We wern't considered to be in anyones way at any point and were often asked if things were ok for us and if there was any thing that could be done to make the filming go better, e.g. the lighting tech asked us if we had rolling shutters on our camera because if not his strobe lighting could cause all the footage to look terrible because it would cause big white lines to appear on the screen. but luckily it was ok and looked great.

Pre - Gig (soundcheck)

Once we got to The Junction we were met by our client, Simon Bates. Simon took us into J1, the main venue and room the Fiver event happens in. When we got there, the band 'After 4' were sound checking. We caught some footage whilst Simon was finding Gary Brown (Maneger of The Junction) once Simon found Gary we went to Garys office for a breifing. In the breifing Gary basicly told us we were aloud to film anywhere we liked but to use common sense, stay out of the way of the cherry picker and not to film the paramedics. Nick asked if there was somewhere we could use as a dressing room so to speak. So Gary took us to the spare dressing room upstairs backstage where we put all our stuff and set up the cameras.


Set up and ready to go we discussed who was going to film from where etc. We decided, being the tallest, James should film from the back of the crowd, having the most experience of gigs and being most aware of what to expect i went in the pit area (front of stage between crowd and band). And Dave went between side stage, pit and crowd. Mike, being documentary, roamed around and filmed as much as he could whilst Kirk took photos (Kirk had to leave at 7pm)

Positions disscused, we went back down stairs and into J1 and got to work filming the bands sound checking and technicians setting setting up. James and Mike interviewed Gary Brown and Simon bates, Kirk and Mike interviewed the lighting and sound technicians and the DJ for the night and i interviewed Operation FM and got a lot of cutaways of equiptment, lights and equalisers.

Preparation for filming

We started off the day of filming at college as usual. we got in at 1, got all the equiptment out, eqiptment consisting of;

1. 4x camera bag, each containing 1x Sony HD video camera 1x Battery 1x rode mic 1x HD DV tape 1x Senheiser headphones 1x mains power cable
2. 4x Cram tshirts
3. 1x Kodak digital camera
4. 4x Tripod
5. 1x battery charger

Once we had all our equiptment we made sure everything was in working order, this means making sure all the batteries are charged, the cameras are all set to HD and contained blank HDDV tapes and that the Mics are set up properly to record stereo audio.

We then left college and walked to The Junction.

Day of filming at the fiver

Friday the 29th of January was D day so to speak, the day we had to go to the junction and film the entire process of the Fiver. The day was split into three parts;

Prepartion

Pre-gig sound check.

The actual Fiver event.

General Feedback

I was a unsure after we finnished the rough cut as to weather it was genuinly not very good or weather i was doing what i often do and being far to over critical of my own work. To give me a clearer picture i showed it to some friends, some with media experience and some without and most of them said a similar sort of thing, that it had it's strong points and had potential to be okay but wasn't very interesting and lacked pace. 

I thought these were fair points and fully agreed with them, a few people said that the track wasn't a good choice but this is one point that i strongly disagree with. i think the track is a very strong one and sets exactly the type of atmosphere i wanted to give the video. I wanted something that would have a fairly stripped back sound to it but had enough pace in the beat to give me something to cut quickly too.

Rough cut analysis

Junction Promo B rough from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

This is the rough cut of the promo video produced by Me, Loz and Ash. Although we have made music videos and short films before, this was our first attempt at a promo video. We decided to use the track 'Till Death Let us Dance' by Operation FM, one of the bands that played the fiver we filmed. We decided to play on the live aspect as much as possible for our video, there for we started the video like a live performance video with the live track and edited the footage of Operation FM playing live for the first verse. after that we faded the live track into the recorded one ( we didn't have the full live track to use). after the fade to the recorded track we decided cut into a montage of bands playing and the crowd partying whilst over the top of the footage we put questions asking the viewer different things to make them relate and stay interested. After the montage, at 1:10 we cut to interviews with Operation Fm, Boiling Point and Franko with a flash of stage lights to a fade out to finnish. This is only the rough cut and needs more work because the audio levels are fairly poor and it needs to be cut much quicker. Also, although there are questions to try and interest the viewer, there is very little information other than a very quick scrolling info track which is un-effective and illegible. As far as my projects go i feel this is one of my weakest so far and i am fairly un-impressed with it. There are strong points like the middle montage section and i like the cutting of the start when Sam (singer of Operation Fm) jumps from the drum risers. But all in all it isn't a strong peice of work and i fully expect to get a fair amount of negative feedback from the Bournemouth students.

Junction Fiver sound check 15/01/10

On Friday 15th of Jan was the 1st Junction Fiver event of 2010 and the one before the event we were due to film. It was decided that it was a good idea for a couple of students to go down to The Junction and film the sound check of this event so that we have some extra footage and somthing to work with in case somthing goes wrong next time. We wern't aloud to film the entire night because it was to short notice to fill in risk assesments etc so we only went for the sound check.

Nick asked for 2 students to go down and film, once again, being very keen to get as involved as i can, i instantly offered to go, Dave was also keen to do some filming too. so the 2 of us met at The Junction at about 1:30 and got stuck in filming bands sound checking and did a few interviews.

I'm glad i got this opertunity as it gave me a chance to get to grips with what was going on and what filming the next Fiver will be like. i was kind of nervous to start with because it was all pretty rushed and no one (other than Simon Bates and Gary Brown) knew we were going to be there.

Cramba rehersal

For one of their projects, the level 2 CRaM students are participating in Samba drumming work shops at The Junction to learn enough to perform a peice infront of the public in a few weeks time. To make our documentary video more interesting and to give it more depth it was decided that putting footage and information about their project into ours, as it is CRaM colaborating with The Junction.

Nick wanted 2 students to document one of the workshops (Thursday 14th Jan). Keen to get as involved as i possibly can, i jumped at the chance of filming and Phillipa came as well to take photographs of everything.

The level 2 students found the Samba quite tricky at first and were not very confident about it but by the end of the session they were fairly good and able to keep a decent rythem as a group (this can be very tricky in such a big group)

I enjoyed filming and getting involved because not only did i get to film but i also passivly learn't about Samba too!

Brakedown of the project

For our interaction project we decided to work with The Junction, a local music venue with who we previously work with to create our music videos for our A level project. We also wanted to collaborate with Bournemouth University's Masters degree students as mentors. When we approached The Junction they said they want a promotional video for their Fiver event, to try and draw in new local talent. 

The Fiver is a monthly gig put on by Gary Brown (maneger of The Junction) and features 5 local bands for 5 pounds. The event is hugely popular but doesn't get alot of new acts applying to play. Hopefully our video will help them get more artists.

To help make our promo more professional and recive feedback from people that will be far more critical, Simon Bates (our client) secured a £3000 grant from SkillSet. This grant alowed us to go on a trip to Bournmouth University to work with a group of MA students.

The students watched our videos and gave us extensive feedback. In addition to this, we were asked to produce a behind the scenes documentary of everything from filming at The Junction, editing, and working at Bournmouth.

Promo style

I Found this promotional video for Bournemouth University and realised, other than being much longer, it is produced in a similar way as to how i want to make my promo for The Junction. It starts off with a very effective, quick montage cutting, whip panning and fading to the fast paced, interesting sound track. it then fades into a title screen followed quick cut interviews then into another title followed by more interveiws etc.

This style of promo is baisic but probally one of the most effective, becuase it is quick enough to keep the viewer interested but also puts across alot of information and requires no effort from the viewer.

Promo video pitch

During the second meeting with Simon Bates we pitched our ideas in our groups. We decided we wanted our video to use the fact that the junction is such a nice venue and draws a good crowd as a strong selling point and therefore chose to use a lot of live footage of bands playing at the fiver we used these videos as refrence to give simon an idea of what our groups video was hopefully going to look like.




We chose this video for the first minute of footage which show the band arriving at the venue, setting up and crowd flooding in. This process is somthing we want to show at the junction as it gives prospective bands more of an insight into how things happen at the fiver and show them how professional it is.




This video "save it for the bedroom" by You Me At Six is a good example of a live video and shows a livley band having a good time performing to a livley audience, this is what we want to show happeing at the junction after the setting up etc. but it will contain footage of multiple band obviously.





After a couple of minutes of setting up and live footage we wated to have interviews with the bands cutting in amongst the live footage. This interview of Enter Shikari shows the style we want to use, it's a pretty informal interview and cuts away to live footage between talking.

Junction promo planning meeting #3

In the third planning meeting with Simon Bates we started off with asking him any further questions as last time we didn't have much to ask and since we have been planning we've realised theres a lot more we need to know. the main questions we asked were:

1. What Kind of bands are you looking for? between the age of 14-15 so we have time to work with the band and help them become a better band
2. Do you want us to use Junction branding? Yes
3. Do you want Interviews in the promo? Yes but also live footage
4. Do you have any Archive footage? No
5. When is the Deadline? End of Febuary
6. at do we have to use for the promo soundtrack? Use bands from the Fiver

After this Simon came round to each group and we pitched our ideas.

The Junctions role in the community.

This year is the 20th year The Junction has been running, boasting a thriving business that has provided the community with affordable, enjoyable and safe events for the past 20 years. The Junction began in 1990 as an alternative venue for ravers to party, trying to keep them out of abandoned buildings etc. The venue gave the ravers somewhere to party and made the community feel safer.

Since then The Junction as a venue has evolved beyond belief and developed into a 4 room venue providing live gigs with a 700 capacity main room, theatre events in a fully seated theatre and club nights spreading into the whole venue.

The Junction clearly promotes a venue space for community hire for events in Cambridge, for example drama productions by schools, Christmas or seasonal plays and local bands. The venue make a point of making sure the venue is affordable for hire by most people.

One of the biggest community driven events held at The Junction is the Junction Fiver event. an event that encourages young budding musicians to play in front of an audience considerably larger than they would normally get to play too.

Junction promo planning meeting #2

Today Simon came in to meet with us again so he could take any questionswe had and explain what he wants from us in further detail. Simon told us he wanted 2 videos from us, the first is the Fiver promo and the second a behind the scenes documentary of us collaborating with the Junction. The first video needs to be between 2 and 4 minutes long, the second, the documentary needs to be between 5 and 7 minutes long. After this meeting we diveded into 4 groups of 3 and one group of 4. 3 groups of 3 are working on 3 different versions of the promo and the other 2 groups on 2 different versions of the documentary. The 5 groups are to plan and come up with ideas and samples of other videos, photos and techniques to show to Simon in a weeks time at the next meeting

Junction promo planning meeting #1

In the first planning meeting for the production of the 'Junction Fiver' promo video. Simon Bates (head of learning and access at The Junction and our contact with The Junction) came into our class for a short time to breif us on what it was that The Junction wanted from us and give us key dates like when we will be able to film at The Junction and when the completed video is expected. Simon also took any questions we had for Gary Brown (maneger of the junction and runs the Fiver) Questions like where will we have access to on the night, do we need to get release forms signed and will we be able to film every band there (are any of them signed and thus creating legal issues?)

Who we have chosen to work with and why.

I have decided that The Junction is the best local company to work with. I know they are great to work with and are great at discussing what's going on, what they want and what we want. They have also already approached us with the idea of making a promo video for their Junction Fiver event.

The Fiver would be a perfect event to work on because it is a frequent event, aimed at getting teenagers off the streets of a friday night and into a controlled environment, there fore doing a service to the community and keeping the teenagers safer than just roaming around town.

The technicians at the junction are really great to work with, they really pay attention to what you want and do their best to get everything exactly how it's needed, i know this from my music video, they really made it easy for me to do what i needed to get a great final product.

I am really looking forward to working with The Junction again !

Uprizing

Uprizing is a collaboration of underground DJ's and music producers who frequently put on big club nights at the junction and other venues. They are currently looking for people to film and edit live footage from their events and would probably be very entusiastic to the idea of working with us to make them a promotional video. However due to the club nights being fairly spread out, finding one convinient to our timing would be difficult. Also the fact the nights are 18+ would once again be a problem.

Shakin' Moos

Shakin' Moos is a new independent milkshake bar in Cambridge. It recently came very close to closure but was saved by donations and public demand, since this save they have been thinking up lots of new marketing techniques. This is a prime opportunity for us to get in contact and use our skills to help them get back onto their feet so to speak.

The Portland Arms

The Portland Arms is a Cambridge pub that is very popular as a smaller music venue. It recently came very close to closure to be knocked down to make way for flats. The pub was saved by the public protesting about how important it is to the city and the local music scene. The Portland is now hosting the heats to the cambridge band competition and look likely to host many more similar events. The Portland is clearly a very important part of the cambridge community, and is one of the best small venues around. I would love to work with The Portland Arms and help them promote their events and build that community heart into something EVERYONE wants to be a part of.

Vue Cinema

Vue Cinema Cambridge is one of a huge chain of cinemas across the country, when thinking of businesses in cambridge that I may be able to work with, Vue was one of the first that came to mind but i soon realised that because it's such a big organistion they would be VERY unlikely to have any interest working with me and if i DID get to, it would be more like a Commission because there would be no one there regularly enough, with enough spare time to work with.

ADC Theatre

ADC Theatre is a local theatre that shows mainly Cambridge University productions of traditional plays such as Shakespeares Merchant of Venice and Bacchae. Being a small time theatre i think they would be quite good to work with as we would get the same personal interaction with the staff and be able to bounce ideas off people quite easily. However because they are so closely related to Cambridge University i don't think they would be interested in working with us as they probably have a lot of uni students wanting to work with them as well.

The Soul Tree

The Soul Tree is another Cambridge club, which also have bands play and host the Cambridge battle of the bands heats some times. On a wednesday night they have a new club night on called HonkyTonk, this is a alternative/electro house/disco night hosted by new up and coming DJs. I know one of the guys at HonkyTonk personally and have worked with him before and know that he's really great to work with and is always interested in working with me on projects like this. But the same problem stands as with Fez, that a lot of the class aren't 18. Also using the equipment in a club around, probably, fairly drunk people would require some pretty extensive risk assessments etc and we would be lucky to get permission.

Fez Club

Fez is a cambridge night club, known for it's alternative indie/drum and bass nights. most popular being every monday nights Fat Poppadaddys. i thought that it could potentially be a good opportunity to work with a slightly different organisation other than just arts theatre style places. However as not all of the class are over 18 it could make things more difficult and unfair as only a few of us would be able to work on site during open hours.

The Arts Picture House

The Picture House is part of a small chain of 'Indie' Cinemas, they show more obscure films and give more opportunities to budding directors and low budget films. Having worked with them before, i think working with the staff at The Picture House would be a really good opportunity to work together with professionals, not as clients but as partners, being able to pass ideas back and fourth and discuss them.

The Corn Exchange

The Corn Exchange is another Cambridge music and theatre venue, it is far larger than the junction however, and doesn't have as many events featuring local and fairly unknown artist etc, there fore don't need as much publicity because the events are usually of well know artists.

The Junction

The Junction is one local business we could easily collaborate with, we have already spoken with their head of learning and access, Simon Bates. In this conversation Simon seemed very keen for us to work with them on different projects and that we would have access to most, if not all of their facilities. Since that conversation, some of us have already worked with them while producing our Music videos for our A level media project and they were incredibly helpful and gave us anything we needed to get the absolute best out come.

The Junction would be a great organisation to work with because we have worked together before and they are a big part of the community, providing affordable entertainment almost every-night to all age groups. However it would be good for us to get the experience from a different business.

Background Research (possible partners)

For this project we need to find a local business that would be interested in working alongside  us to create something that we will both be happy with and will promote their community presence. Below is a list of companies with a clear community presence that i think might possibly be interested in working with us to help increase that and give us the chance to creatively discuss and adapt a project together to achieve the best possible outcome.

1. The Junction
2. The CornExchange
3. The Arts Picture House
4. Fez Club
5. The Soul Tree
6. adc Theatre
7. Vue Cinema
8. Portland Arms
9. Shakin' Moos
10. Uprizing

researching promos

I decided to look for existing Promo videos to give me some idea of what sort of constraints i should be trying to follow.

Commission VS Interaction, What's the difference?

Whilst Commission and Interaction both seem fairly similar at first glance, there are certain key differences. They are similar in the fact, both are working in conjunction with a separate organisation to ourselves to produce a final product to promote the organisation. How ever whilst commission is all about working FOR a client, making what THEY want, Interaction is about working WITH a PARTNER to create something better than either of us could have done alone.

For Commission, my client was cambridge based indie electro band, Betty. On the verge of a record deal, they were after a video to be released in conjunction with there first single. i was given a song and told they wanted the video to reflect the lyrics.

For Interaction i chose to work with The Junction (Simon Bates in particular) Simon agreed to work with us and suggested a Promo video for the fiver event, this was agreed and we had on going discussions about what to put in it and continued to bounce ideas back and fourth untill the video was complete. 

Introduction to Interaction

Interaction is a project where we will be collaborating with several different organisations, both near and far. The point of this project is to give us in depth industry experiences by working with multiple organistions in order to boost the quality of a final product. The other main thing this project is intended to achieve is making it clear weather we want to go from sixth form to uni to work at a higher level or miss out uni and go into industry work at the very bottom.