Professional Practice - Content Research

Content Research

Brief Description of the job:

Our job is to plan, produce and edit together a slick promotional video for Gillingham Football Club & Preistfields. Gillingham Football Club (GFC) want us to help promote their facilities on the hospitality side of the club and the events they have at the stadium. We will have full access to the clubs management/players and fans if we require to use them. They've told us they are looking for an overall feel of what Gillingham FC hospitality has to offer and what rooms/venues/ they have available to not only fans but businessmen/women and corporate clients.

Who are Gillingham Football Club

Gillingham football club is the only Kent-based team that has managed to make their way into the top 4 leagues in English Football, they currently sit at 13th place in league 1 which is the third division of English Football. the club was founded more than 100 years ago, therefore making it one of the oldest clubs in England. Gillingham is currently under the ownership of Paul Scally who has been active chairman for Gillingham since 1995. The club's stadium (Preistfields) contains many different features that they want to promote this includes places like The Piano Bar, The Factory, The Legends Lounge, and of course their executive boxes to sit and watch the game from the best seats in the stadium.

With the club currently sitting in one of the lower leagues in English football means that they don't have as much money, this means that there is no budget provided by the club, so if we need anything it will have to come from our own funds, however, I don't see us needing anything major when it comes to equipment, as we all have our own equipment.

Freelancing:

As we're being asked to do this by Gillingham this has meant that I and the team I'm working with have become self-employed (freelancing). What is freelancing? Freelancing is a type of self-employment which is provided by different types of businesses. Every job that an employer needs can be sourced through a freelancer, but in some cases industries where freelance work is particularly common:

• Graphic Design 
• Marketing, Media & PR
• Financial support
• Writing, editing & proofreading
• Fashion
• Photography
• Videography
• Data entry
• Programming.

As you can see there are many different paths to go down when it comes to freelancing, but this doesn't mean that its better. There are also a lot of pros and cons when it comes to freelancing that can either have a small or big impact on the money you could potentially make. Here are a few advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. You can work whenever you want
2. You can work wherever you want
3. You are your own boss.
4. You can potentially have more income
5. You can take advantage of more tax deductions.

Disadvantages:

1. Managing multiple clients and projects can be a challenge.
2. The work is not always consistent 
3. Your clients have schedules.
4. Being successful will take a while.
5. You'll have to pay self-employment taxes

Promotional video's:

As this is the first promotional video I've been asked to construct and create it means that I must have some knowledge of what to consider when making these types of videos. Another aspect that we need to consider is how are we going to tell/show the audience the message Gillingham wants to reveal. In our case, the message Gillingham has asked us to really push when making the video is to try and promote their executive boxes to fans.

I've managed to find 8 really helpful and useful tips by Annie Maguire, for what to consider when planning a promotional video. There is a lot of information given in these tips that really helped me actually think about what needs to go into our promotional video for Gillingham.

1. Identify your goal.
2. Choose a direction
3. Set the tone.
4. Decide on duration.
5. Choose a video style.
6. Outline the idea.
7. Storyboard. 

These tips have been very helpful for me and my group when it came to actually plan the video. We didn't really get much from Gillingham as to what they were after, they only really wanted to show their bars, executive boxes, and The Legends Lounge empty then using some sort of transition to show all of these places full and lively before games. However, there are a couple there which really helped me in truly understand what I should be thinking about when planning a promotional video, these tips were numbers 2 and 3.

Choosing a direction:

 There are a lot of different directions we could use to make this promotional video; like Narrative, drive action, testimonial, and informative. However, there are two main directions that we would like to take this promotional video and that is by being product-focused and informative. Being product-focused means that we would introduce a specific product or feature. In our case, we will be showing Gillingham's specific hospitality features, like their executive boxes and bars. If we are to do this promotional video to a high standard this is key for us to succeed by thinking about how and why they want to showcase these features.

Set the tone:

Another aspect that had me thinking was what tone should we have this promotional video, fun/playful, urgent, straightforward/informative or inspirational. We thought that it would be best if we tried to go with a dramatic informative promotional video. Using clips that we already had for previous Gillingham home games we've filmed we could use them to show inspiration to the younger generation promoting the club to get new fans as well as promoting their facilities.

Camera techniques:

As I go into every new unit thinking only about what can I do differently with the camera to help improve my skills. I've always been heavy camera-based and I do really enjoy it, but I normally just use the standard shots and not really test my ability. So there are a few new techniques that I would like to look into and potentially include them into our promotional video.

The first technique that I've been planning on using is called the golden ratio, otherwise known as the Fibonacci numbers. The golden spiral is a more advanced version of thirds, using a mathematical equation that helps make the shot more aesthetically pleasing. If we are able to use this technique for a few shots in the promotional video hopefully it will have an effect on the audience making either the bar or executive boxes appeal to fans thus helping Gillingham gain more money for their hospitality. However, this technique is mainly used in film and tv not really for promotional video, but we can change that by trying to include the new and exciting things that the audience may not have seen before.

Gillingham have already given us some idea to what they're looking for, they stated that they would like the promotional video to feature everything their hospitality provides, they also want us to have each bar/box empty before a game and then with fans using them. To be able to pull this off we need to think about what camera shots and editing styles to help create smooth shots and seamless transitions between shots.

Harvard References:

R, Duermyer. (2019). the balance small business. https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-freelancing-1794415. (Date Accessed 26th November 2019).

A, Maguire. (2016) 8 steps to creating a promotional video. https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-create-a-promotional-video-707fa7a63019.(Date Accessed 26th November 2019)

R.Northcott. Fibonacci, The Golden Ratio, Video & Film. https://www.mediapop.ca/fibonacci-golden-ratio-video-film/ (Date Accessed 28th November 2019)

Why you NEED This Composition Technique | The Golden Spiral, Explained (2018) [Film and Animation] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8g3dC1bHNM (Accessed 5th December 2019)