The tasks that I have chosen is an EPK on my friend’s band Not Much Nothing and a website the reason for this is I have a vast knowledge on music and the reason why I chose the website because I am familiar of how to use the internet and the audiences of today have easy access to the internet.
Another reason why I chose the website because it’s the best way for bands to promote themselves and it works with the age of technology.
I researched them by looking at some epk’s for example Ben Folds and Nick Hornby’s epk shows several good techniques. There are different interviews with them both in the interview to talk about what they did together and other interviews when they are separate from each other which let them have a chance to give their opinion on each other. Another EPK I researched was the Killers what we used from their EPK was at the start the would have a black background and the band’s name which at the start of are EPK we used the same technique. The reason this attracts the audience is that the flashing colours of the title will hook them in because they are attractive colours and another reason why these EPK’s attract the audience is that they get to know the band members and musicians.
I researched into three websites which where AC/DC, Rise Against and Joey Cape. I based my website design on the AC/DC website by the way I have laid with the button bar above each page to give it easy navigation the way it attracts the audience is that I used different colours for each letter which makes them hard to miss. Other ways I based the design of the band’s website I made boxes that hold information with band news and store.
The colour scheme is dark colours of black and brown to show the style of the genre which is rock. My epk at the start of interviews it will have a quick cut of the question on the screen and then it will cut to the band with them answering the question. Shots that are used in the interviews are mostly close ups on the band or if they are the one that are talking the most or introducing the subject there will be a close up on them. I play the part of the interviewer off camera I do not say anything because I am there to show that there is someone interviewing and it makes it look professional. I worked with a partner on this project and the reason why we made these decisions is because we want to make it quick and we want to hook the audience and not bore them.
The target audience that we were aiming at were male and females of sixteen to twenty-five, mostly people who got school, college and university. The type of people that would like this video are groups that like the rock genre or people that have an open mind on music and if they are passionate of their music. The way they we are specific to representing the target audience and appealing them is the band wear casual clothes and in the interviews they are just sat casually in the practice room where they were playing which shows a personal attitude towards the audience and how even a recognised band can act the same way as a standard student by lazing around in a practice room the reason this hooks the audience in is because it is communicating in their language the lazy teenager and student.
The tone of the band member’s voices is like they are having general conversation with the audience and they are always addressing them for example when they are talking about the filming their music video “love train” and then cuts to the music. The way we got feedback with the epk is using facebook and all the people who have watch are students from the sixth form and the feedback was very positive because the techniques we had used have hooked them and even amused them as well and the style of music has attracted them through the catchy songs with really well known words with the two songs they performed “Love Train” and “Crazy”.
The production was very successful because all of the feedback we got before the deadline. We managed to repair some of the audio problems because on the first version of the video the voices were to quiet and the background music was drowning out their voices, but we managed to fix it before the deadline so now you can hear the voices perfectly. The strengths of the epk are the interviews because they give a good insight into the band and how they had formed the band. Another strength of the video is the cuts into the live performance when each member of the band is being introduced and the close ups on the band members that are being introduced.
The weaknesses of this video are the problem of how much time we had so we could not fit enough time for songs. The audience only had a taster but that was one of the main purposes of making the audience want to buy their album but we would have wanted more song time. What I would of wanted have in the video is an interviewer actually asking the questions instead of a screen showing the questions and perhaps showing them talking to them replying back to them. The interviewer would be the same age range of the target audience sixteen to twenty five the reason for this is to keep it an informal interview and speak the audience’s language which would make them interested instead of someone who is older and make the interview formal.
Another thing that we would improve is lighting in some of the videos for example when they are in the bits of the music video it is very dark this is because it was later in the evening and we would of preferred to that part of the EPK in the day so we would have had more lighting. The reason we filmed it that late was because of the amount of time we had if we had more time we could have planned it to be filmed in early day time.
Another thing we could improve is taking the dates out of the photographs because it looks unprofessional and we should have found a different location for the live gig because the live gig is in another practice room in the school.
If I could do another task I would have done a magazine like Kerrang or NME because this would have been a good way of advertising the band. Another reason I would done this as a third task is that the audiences would get more of an in depth biography in a magazine compared to the EPK or the website because magazines sometimes have exclusive stories and can ask more personal questions about their life. The main thing I would have included is a code that gives you a download for a free track from Not Much Nothing and this make the audience buy their album because they have heard one song so they will go out and buy the album.
In conclusion to my evaluation I would say that the video has been successful because all of the feedback we got from Facebook, but there are still things that we could do some repair on but overall it has been a successful project.
