18th January 2017 – Marketing

Marketing Terminology

Product

    What it is you are actually selling

Service

    More vague than product – can cover a range of things whereas a product will be more specific

    What is your area of work

    What can you do

    What are you offering to customer/client

Marketing

    A way of raising public awareness about your business/service/product – website

    Bigger term – used to describe all the business activities associated with a specific product

Promotion

    The act of marketing – fliers, Facebook, posters

    More specific

Target audience

    What demographic is it aimed at

    What industry

Image

    How the public perceives your company/product/service

    Themes of product/service

Market Research

    The act of looking at other companies who operate in a similar field. Looking at pricing, variety of services offered etc.

    Surveys

Product/Brand Culture

    Ensuring that what you are selling remains at the heart of your business.

    Look of product

    Association e,g, Broad  Bean = Heinz

    Google

Budget

    how money is distributed/spent within your company

Promotional material

    social media, fliers, poster, e-mails, web presence, TV (video), radio, vouchers/coupons

Marketing Strategy

    Deciding what of the various methods of promotion would be the best way to get the word out there.

    Prioritising most effective method.

    Bringing all other aspects together

Gap in the Market

    Recognising that there is a service that is not being offered elsewhere

Unique Selling Point

    What separates your business from all the others out there. e,g Filling the gap in the market

Methods of Marketing/Promotion

Social Media

    Youtube

        Review

        Product

        Self promotion – companies

    Instagram

    Twitter

    Periscope – live broadcast

    Snapchat – Frames for events (Kendal Mountain Festival)

Online

    Targeted adverts

    Kickstarter

        Set target

    Crowd Funding

    Pledge Music

Fliers

Poster

E-mails

Web presence

TV

Radio

    Jingles

Playlists

Slogans

    BBC Introducing

Vouchers

Magazines

Word of mouth

Bill boards

Bus adverts

Merchandise

    Clothing

    Patches

    Badges

    Mugs

Sponsorship

    Branding – event – red bull soapbox

    Naming venues – O2 Arena

Product Placement – P on Television

    James bond – sony phones

Endorsement

Trends

Flashmob’s

Pop shops

Met and greet

Networking

Spring Term Buckets and Comic Potential

1st Day back after the xmas break. this term we will be working on 2 shows to be presented  week beginning 13th March.

6th March Get in/Set-up/tech

Both shows t seat 60 – 80 people

Weds 15th and Fri 17th – Buckets – The Box (Buckets is a modern contemporary play, very new)

Hilary is director for all the shows

Buckets is contemporary theatre a little abstract ad forward thinking with staging and content writen by Adam Barnard. Only one other production of this by ‘Orange Tree’ theatre.

Research contemporary theatre and think about including the audience

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=strict&q=comtemporary+theatre+wikki

Idea about a bucket lists of things you’d do before you die. Research these ideas and explore.

How to set out the performance space, possibly 360 show

Look at other shows in regards to that layout

33 different scenes in the show – don’t follow on as a story but are all linked to the theme.

live band

Projection above and set

lots of props given amount of scenes

Different level staging

Lighting underneath

We were also advised to look at ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime‘ this page has some technical information. Slightly out of the college budget.

LX/Prj – Coops, Tom

SX – Charlie, Sarah

PM/Stage – Lucy, Louise, Arron C

Further information about our process is here

Comic Potential

tues 14th and Thursday 15th – Comic Potential – Wildman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Potential

2 Studios opened up in Wildman

Is a farce/slapstick look at Buster Keaton

Other plays Noises off and comedy of errors

Wants the space to feel like a TV studio, so set around the room.  Like shooting a sitcom.

Research TV sets what do they look like what.

Prompt cards for audience

Set in the future.

One actor is a robot that makes noises etc

Look at extras, 3rd  Rock from the sun, Humans, 30 Rock

Soundcspaes.

Lx/Proj – Aaron, Astrid, Thomas

SX – Abi, Brandon

PM/Stage – Jack, Bronte, Nathan

How to programme Avolites Quatz Desk with Moving heads introduction

For this blog post we used an Avolites Quartz Desk and 2 of each of the following ‘Robe colorspot 250 at’ and ‘Robe colorwash 250 at’

This will be a basic run down of the steps we learnt though time was very limited in this session in terms of hands on experience with both the desk and the fixtures.

Please note the avolites desk uses touch screen technology so though i break it down into steps there are no buttons to press as such sometimes some typing.

These instructions are taken from the manual

Creating a New Show

• go to [Disk]
• then press [New Show]
• name it and hit [Ok].

Adding Fixtures

• Press Patch (one of the white function buttons above the numeric keypad).
• Press [Fixtures].
• Select the correct fixture manufacturer from the softkeys ([Previous] and [Next] page through the list of manufacturers). Or use Quick Search and type the first few letters of the manufacturer’s name on the keyboard to find the one you want.
• Select correct fixture from the softkeys (F and G show other pages). You can use Quick Search here as well.
• Select the correct fixture operating mode from the softkeys.
• [Address =] shows the first free DMX address. Type the new address on the numeric keypad if you want a different one. [DMX line=xx] lets you patch to a different DMX line, or you can enter the address as [line].[address], e.g. 2.45 would set address 45 on line 2.
• Press a Fixture Select button to patch the selected fixture.
• The onscreen Select button turns dark blue and shows fixture details when it is patched.
• Repeat from 7 to patch more of the same fixture type. The DMX address automatically updates so you can just keep patching by pressing Select buttons.

Selecting Fixtures

• Press Fixtures and Groups
• Press the Select buttons for the fixtures you want. The select button will light up pale blue for selected fixtures or on the preset playback faders the select button will light up (they are also shown in light blue on the HUD).
• To select a range of fixtures, slide your finger across the touch buttons to draw a selection box.

Lamp On

To lamp on your fixtures, select them and then press [ML Menu], and select the [Macros] option from this list. To turn on your fixtures, press [Locate]. This puts the fixture to a home position and default values, but puts no information into the programmer. To clear this information from the programmer, press [Clear] – this will put your fixtures to zero (provided there is no dimmer information for them coming from playbacks), but leave other values in their current state. For people who are used to [Clear] releasing the attributes and working with “@full” commands, if you right click the [Clear] button then Softkey D reads [Clear Options]. In this menu you can toggle Sofykey C between [Freeze Current Values] and [Release to Playback Values]. If you want to always put dimmer information into the programmer when you turn a fixture on, then press [@] twice to send the fixture to full.

Intensity (not from manual)

• Select fixture
• press ‘Intensity’ button
• Turn corresponding wheel to control
• Press record
• Press button above the fader you want to control the intensity.
• exit

Colour (not from manual)

• Select fixture
• Press Groups and Palettes
• Press attribute editor
• Choose colour
• Double click in colour box

Positon (not from manual)

• Select fixture
• Press Groups and Palettes
• Press position button
• Use the control wheels to position light
• Double click in position window

The manual speaks in general terms of attributes for the uses I’ve mentioned as ‘(not from manual)’ this is because they are accessed in a similar way. I will look at expanding on these at a later date.

 

L3 Yr1 Showcase – December 2016

L3 Yr1 Showcase – December 2016

Children’s Theatre Show Videos

Children’s Theatre Show Videos

Arabian Nights 1

Arabian Nights 2

1st November Children’s Theatre -Arabian Nights

This term one of the projects will be to help the second years with a production of the play ‘Arabian Nights’.

There are 3 aspects of this support required

1. The roof of a tent to be hung above the performance space with material attached to pull out to look like the walls of a tent.
2. Archway to be made for the rear of performance space
3. A ‘Magic box’ to be constructed. Large enough to hold 2 people and compartments for prop storage.

I had a little play and came up with the logo you can see.

As usual I will document this as a page to be found here.

Save

October 19th 2016 – Sound Theory

We had a recap on microphone types and their differences.

Differences between types of microphone

Condenser	Dynamic
Sensitive	Handle high pressure/loud sound sources
Requires phantom power 48v	Doesn’t require power
Can be Cardioid, Figure 8 or Omni-directional	Cardioid
Delicate	Durable
Wider frequency pick-up range	Source needs to be close
Acoustic #(piano, strings etc)	Guitar Amps
Studio Vocals – more definition and less spill	Stage Vocals
Overheads – drums	Drums – close to drum
Amps – but distanced

Other mic types

• Ribbon Mics
• Contact Mics
• Boundary Mics
• Valve Mics.

 

It was also suggest we look at http://soundonsound.com as it can be a very good resource for learning.

We also worked through a worksheet on some terminology used in Sound Studios and looked at 3 areas within the college The Box, Wildman Building (new build) and the sound booths to look at them from a sound point of view.

Performance Venue	The Box
Purpose of space	music, dance, talks, film. (Multi purpose)
Size of the room	30m x 30m
Shape of room	Square, though walls are angled
Materials used	Hard surfaces. Dance flooring Fiberglass roof
Audience would this change acoustics	Yes, seating can be changed around so audience would effect acoustics in different ways.
Acoustic treatment	Heavy drapes(black tabs) , angled walls, roof material
Speaker position	3 front, 2 rear
Sound problems/issues	Spill, doors and windows of the control room
How could we improve the sound of the room	Ceiling baffles, flats.
Other notes	Live natural sound

 

Performance Venue	Wildman Building
Purpose of space	Multi purpose (as The Box)
Size of the room	10m x 30m
Shape of room	Rectangular, but room can be changed via partitions
Materials used	Plaster walls, black tabs, dance flooring, metal ceiling. However worth noting that space is currently under construction (October 2016)
Audience would this change acoustics	Yes(as The Box)
Acoustic treatment	Black tabs only currently
Speaker position	Non as yet
Sound problems/issues	Reflections, spill from outside.
How could we improve the sound of the room	More black tabs, acoustic baffle for ceiling.
Other notes	Live natural sound

 

Performance Venue	Sound Booth
Purpose of space	Music recording/practice
Size of the room	4m x 3.5m
Shape of room	Square
Materials used	Sound dampening, acoustically treated, thick walls, dense padding, carpet, double glazed windows, thick doors.
Audience would this change acoustics	No audience
Acoustic treatment	Yes see materials used
Speaker position	Movable – will be set-up for specific results
Sound problems/issues	Designed to not have any
How could we improve the sound of the room	Remove any unneeded equipment
Other notes	Dead sound

 

 

We also spoke briefly about decibels and frequencies.

17th October 2016 The Box

Today was derigging the box after the comic arts event which was held there last week. We then began rigging for the Year 2’s showcase which happens after half term. The Level 2’s had created a lighting plan which we followed and then started to create a magic plan.

year-2-showcase-rigging-17-october-2016

After half term we have a couple of projects to work towards

• 14th December – show with year 1 performing arts students though not confirmed as yet will probably involve acting, singing and dancing.. This will be a daytime and evening show.
• 17th – 20th November is the Kendal Mountain Film Festival for which we may volunteer,
• Construction techniques.
• Stage layouts.
• Projections and software.
• DI boxes.
• Ava light desk.

10th October 2016 – Lighting the Box for the Comic Festival

Todays challenge was rigging the lights for ‘The Box’ in anticipation of an event being held there on Thursday for the launch of the International Comic Arts Festival in Kendal.

there were 2 main aspects for this rigging the lighs and creating a magic sheet and submasters for the rigging.

I was stationed on the lighting desk hepling create the sub masters and the magic sheet.

We were given a plan to work from.So a fairly simple set-up as it is for a dinner speech event with tablesm podium, lecturn and some washes. So we knew what lanterns were going where, so we just needed further information as channel number and colours.

For further info and details

3rd October 2016 Lighting and Sound in the Box

In the box today introducing us to Lighting Desk, Sound Desk and creating a lighting plan from scenario

Sound

• Power on procedure – Amp and Speakers.
• Playback from iTunes/Computer.
• Controls of mixer – Allen and Heath ZED 24
• Qlab – uses and basic programming
  • Fade
  • Volume
  • Stop
  • Pause
• Connecting a mic (dynamic)

Lighting desk

• Submasters – multiple lights on one fader.
• Magic Sheet – Diagram of lighting rig electronically on computer.
• Lighting cues

Lighting Plan

• Scenario – ‘Horror’ musical e.g. Adams Family.
• 5 stage states
  • House lights.
  • Graveyard.
  • Old house/ Castle outside
  • Indoor castle wash
  • Outdoor night wash
• Backdrop material.