Professional Practice - Analysis of 3 pieces of relevant content

Gillingham hospitality video 2018/19 season (League 1) Run time - 1:14

Narrative:
The narrative for Gillingham's previous promotional video is a very simple yet effective narrative. They have decided to use a match-day to their advantage by having it like they're there before, during and after the game. So the piece had a clear start middle and end. The video begins with a simple establishing drone shot which shows the entire stadium empty before the game. After that, with some clean transitions, we are taken to the executive boxes to see the best seats in the stadium and then we are taken to see the rest of the hospitality areas (Legend Lounge / Bars). Also, we get to see one of Preistfields biggest attractions which is their Great Hall, this is where they host a lot of different events. After we see all of their different options for their hospitality we then see some match clips of the players training to then finally playing before ending with another drone shot of the stadium at night and everyone has gone. This short story they have been able to make is very effective as it's clear on showing what features the club has to offer.

Camera Work:

The camera work in this small promotional video was very well thought out and executed to perfection. However, it felt too safe, with the shots they decided to use it never felt like something I've seen before. It's clear to say that the people who made this promotional video have better equipment than us currently, with the use of a drone and some sort of stabilizing equipment they were able to make every shot look smooth. Which has an effect on the audience as they will see these aesthetically pleasing shots of around the stadium and want to see them for their own eyes. I felt as if they overused the tracking shots as it felt like you could never see the main factor of their hospitality features. If they would have used more static shots on a tripod the audience would be able to see what they're trying to sell in more detail, rather than showing them 1 second. For example, the Piano Bar was only in the video for 1 second, which was a shame as that is one of the nicest looking bars in the stadium and they underutilized their opportunity

to make the bar look really nice.

Graphics:

The promotional video contains only one use for graphics and that is at the very end of the video. It is a very simple use of graphics with no animations being used on it. They have simply stuck all of their booking information and inquiry information onto a blue background. Its a very simple graphic, but it has worked and has been very effective in helping audiences and fans be able to find and book themselves an amazing opportunity
.

Music:
The music used in this video is definitely copyright-free and found online somewhere, this does not surprise me considering Gillingham is currently sitting mid-table in league 1. Meaning that they don't have the expenses to get a major song from a band. Personally, I wouldn't have chosen that specific song as I don't think it suits football for example when Soccer AM shows off different clips for football they use more of a hip/hop or rock track. However, that would only work if it was just a backing track.

Editing:

I felt like the editing in this video was done quite well the pacing felt right it didn't feel too long or too short. They also used a technique where they would transition between rooms that were empty showing their basic look, but then they would transition to the room full. This idea is great for showcasing what these rooms would look like on your typical matchday, but they did not do it well. They used a transition called blur/morph and what it does is blur the screen so it can change shots smoothly rather than having a jarring edit. We will definitely not be using this transition because it makes the video looks unprofessional.

Manchester United Hospitality 2019/20 season ( Premier League) Run time - 1:43

Narrative:
With this promotional video, they have done it in a more informative direction and it also is very product-focused rather than going with a narrative. the promotional video focuses on showing and telling us what their club features in their hospitality. If we were to compare this to the Gillingham video it seems like Manchester United missed out on an opportunity to create a very good narrative story promoting their features. The reason I think this is because the club has more of a richer history than any other club in English football, with the disaster of the Munich plane crash of the peak of their success by winning the treble. However, even though this specific video doesn't have much of a narrative it still manages to showcase all of the features available for purchase in a clear way for the audience to understand.

Camerawork:
The camera work done in this video has been very well thought out, however, it does all look very staged which doesn't help give authenticity. On the other hand, we need to consider that it may have been planned to be like that. Many of the shots that were used in the video were used with some sort of gimbal to create that smooth look. With Manchester United being the biggest club in England, it's vital that all the camera movement is the best it can be as it's representing the entire club. Another piece of camerawork that really worked for this video was the statics of the players looking into the camera. Having the player look directly down the camera lens I found to be a really nice touch as t helps bring the audience closer to the players. This is definitely an interesting idea to maybe include the Gillingham players in our promotional video, that way it would hopefully attract more fans to watch the video.

Graphics:
The graphics that were seen in use during the video only occurred when we got a close up of the players, however, this was done so the pacing of the video flowed right. Every time we were introduced to a new player some text would appear next to them, the text is used to first tell the audience a quality that they provide and then we'd go on to see that quality happen, for example, we see this occur when we see 'flawless service' appear. We see this to then be shown their hospitality staff greeting and helping customers. Having this style of graphics is actually quite good for helping the audience
know what they're looking for.

The music throughout the video is classical strings with a modern beat and the use of this music really gives off a sense of upper class and royalty, this has been chosen to give the audience the sense that if they were to come here they'd get treated like royalty. The music really helped the video flow smoothly, but I don't think this type of music would work well in attracting more local fans as they are a lower league club.


The editing was done in a simplistic fashion with no major transitions between shots and it worked really well. One thing I did really like about parts or the edit was the use of a matchday commentary that was played during some parts of the video. Using this audio brought a different factor to the video. If they just kept the same shots of people walking around their bars/restaurant audiences would be confused as to what they're buying. Our group definitely needs to consider if we can potentially find any commentary for big Gillingham games that way it should connect with the fans more. We can easily achieve this style because Ewan and I both have footage of our own of previous Gillingham games, but we just need some commentary that they have stored at the club.


FC Barcelona Hospitality 2016 (La Liga)


The narrative in this short promotional video is probably the best out of the 3. Even though it doesn't have a clear middle segment of the video it starts off strong with some narration played over shots of the Barcelona team playing football. The use of narration whilst playing with football clips gives of the sens that they're trying to inspire fans and even businesses to go to the stadium. However, using narration I personally believe that the club needs to have a rich history, however, Gillingham doesn't have that rich history like Barcelona so for us to bring in a narrator to discuss their history and to inspire I just don't think it would work well.


The camera work that I focused on more in this video was anything other than the game footage. The footage of their hospitality was well filmed, but I felt that it really was not long enough in showing everything that this club provides. Barcelona is meant to be the biggest football club in the world, so it comes to a surprise that they spent so little time showing us their facilities. However, the club might have made the decision not to show much of their hospitality features because they're such a big and well-known club they don't really need to promote their club as it is already a massive tourist attraction. There is one shot during the promotional video that I found to be very mesmerizing and that was the multiple shots tracking through different parts of the stadium. The first shot starts from tracking away from the pitch and into the tunnel, with smooth transitions from shots it looks as if we are going from the pitch and into the nice hospitality area.

The graphics used in this video was the same as Gillingham. The fact that the biggest club in the world is using simple graphics has given me a lot of confidence as this is the area I thought we wouldn't be on the same standard as professionals. I've never been great with graphics and editing I'm more practical, however, seeing that this is how the top clubs in the world are doing it there's nothing wrong with our group having simple graphics. Having one clear graphic at the end I believe to be a better idea, due to the fact of it being the last thing the audience sees so, in theory, they should remember that more. Another reason why it would be better to have graphics like this is that if there were to be a lot of graphics appearing in a 2-minute video that would distract the audience and they would end up not knowing anything new.

The music in this video doesn't really start until the last 20 seconds of the video, the reasoning behind this is because the start consists of narration. So at the start, you could only hear a faint beat that went well with the narration. Due to our group not even considering a narrator we need to find music that would best suit Gillingham.