Unit 2: Managing a Music Product

Meeting one:

My group:

• Vicky
• Kiera
• Jacob
• Kristie
• Kinga

My group have decided create a CD. The name of our CD is Leavers 2K16.

This is our logo that we have designed, we went for a simple design as our research that we gained  said they would prefer to see a simple idea so its not over complicated. Also the design that we went for is short and snappy, so it is eye catching and memorable towards our target audience.

Our target audience we have agreed on is students who are 15-16 years old as the money we raise from our CD will be contributed to prom and to help produce the CD. Therefore the buyers of our product will be targeted towards them as our CD is called 'Leavers 2K16' In order to find our more of what our target audience wants, we are going to produce a questionnaire, with various questions to ask 15-16 year olds to find out what type of music they like etc. Jacob is creating our questionnaire. Our group has decided that there will be a variety of covers which the artist will chose from based of the research we find out. Also we have various performers who have agreed to be apart of our CD that we could use such as Harry I and his group, Aaron M could do a cover solo, Sophie H who could also do a solo, Lucy D and her group and many more. Kristie and Kelly are going to find out the availability of the performer, and insert their times in a table. Also Kristie will create the table. As well as that Kinga is finding out the rooms we have available on the days we need to.

To get our CD progressing, we as a group are going to create a table with different time slots, so we can talk to our performers and see when it is best to record for us and them. Also as we are doing time slots it will give us time to set up the equipment  and get the recording studio ready for each performance. As well as that our whole group is going to take part in recording certain  groups so everyone get the opportunity to take part and get some experience. We are hoping to finish all the recordings by 29th of February, so it gives us two months to work on the design and publicity of our product. Also if there's any problems with recording the performers, then we have time to take action; also it gives the performers time to rehearse and get it how they like it. We will also have no copyright issues, as we will include the artists name who originally sung the songs, also we are not selling our product publicly, it will be within school students and the school has a PRS license. 

Meeting two: 

We started our discussion by speaking about market research that Jacob carried out. Generally our research presented that majority people would like too see a CD which has a simple design and a mixed gender colour, so its not specifically aimed at a girl or boy. Such as people we questioned said they would want to see bright colours and have the name of the CD in a bold font as they will remember the name. Also we found out that people who are 15-16 mostly enjoy listening to up to date music and chart hits which we will have on our CD.

Afterwards we starting talking about our advertisement. We discussed how Kiera will be in charge of publicly advertising our product on instagram which is a social networking site that all the people we questioned had and used often. Also Vicki will be advertising on snapchat; so she will create a new snapchat with the name of our CD, and update videos/pictures of the performers and have previews of what our product will include. I am in charge of making a twitter page to advertise our CD. It will have many tweets to show our progress until our product is finished. I will tweet pictures and previews of our performers, so it will attract more people to buy the CD. As well as that, Kinga, Jacob and Kristie will be making individual posters to post around school, and as they are doing different designs, it will then appeal to different types of people.

As we are doing a live performance CD, we had to think about copyright issues but we have spoken to our teacher and if we have a PRS license which our school does, we will not have any copyright problems. Also all of the money we raise will be going to prom and not ourselves. We are doing a live album as this will be easier because the studio equipment can be unreliable and we can also record people any time using an iPad.

Meeting three: 

In our meeting today, we spoke about where everybody is at with our music product. Such as Me and Kiera have started designing ideas for our CD cover. For example we are designing three different covers and getting people in the age group we are targeting, to chose which one is their favourite and why. We also spoke about the dates of when we want the live performances to be done so we can take pictures/videos to advertise on our social media sites and put on posters. We decided that the recordings will take place next week in our lunch times, we will do this over two lunch times. as well as that I spoke to my friend Adam who has had experience in this area of photography and he gave us some tips. Such as; do the pictures/videos from different angles and from a close view and long shot. This is because it gives you arty shots which is more interesting to look at and then it will grab peoples attention.

*Also angles like this, which has been taken with the camera looking up

Kinga is going to take pictures of all the bands and take some video/pictures, so we can use it for our advertisement. Also I have spoken to Kinga and discussed how the pictures need to be done such as from different angles etc. Kristie will be beginning to record the performers this week with help from others in our groups.

These are twitter pages of bands. the first one didn't inspire me for our twitter page because the page doesn't stand out and it isn't very clear of what is the page about. There isn't hardly any pictures that are shown on the front page, it is just a lot of writing. And when speaking to our target audience they said how they like loads of images so its more interesting and they have a bit of a preview of what is going to be on the CD. In addition the second twitter page is bold and stands it. The title is big and there is a good colour scheme going on as they have kept it simple and not over the top. The colours used on the second page is what I call mature colours, they're not too dull but not bright. As well as that the page includes pictures of who is involved in their band as it shows the three girls standing their with a positive posture.

Here is my webpage on our CD 

https://twitter.com/Live2k16

This will encourage our target audience because as we researched it showed that majority teenagers use a social website, so as i have broadcasted it on twitter more people will see it .

On my advert I am creating, I have added the logo to our twitter page to advertise our CD  more. I have put it quite big on the header, so it stands out to our audience.

My page matches our market research because the people we asked, they said they like lots of images at different angles and that is what we have done in the profile pictures. As some are from a side view. Also on my twitter page I have kept to simple, light colours as that what people said they prefer. they prefer to have light colours and make it look more modern. Also they said they wouldn't of liked it if there was bright, bold colours as they think it is over the top, so I kept to what they said and designed it based around the research we found out.

FINAL MIXED TRACKS ON CD

TRACK 1


TRACK 2

TRACK 3

EVALUATION:

The strengths of our planning were that everyone set out willing to work hard and input various ideas to make our project better. Also our product was completed before the deadline, which was an advantage as we had time left over to make it better and improve on what we thought needed changing with the mixing. As well as that when advertising our product in various ways such as on social media; posters around the school etc there was time for us to get this done. This was a strength as our group was committed to create these pages and make them eye catching, so our audience increased massively as we kept our social media up to date, and gave them previews of what our CD contains and pictures of the band.

The weaknesses of our planning were that not everyone in our group was organised, so other people had to take on responsibilities, or fill in where there were gaps. Vicki and I had to take on the role and find out what people thought about our logo and CD cover. Also we changed our recording from studio to live, and we could have maybe had better quality recordings in a studio. 

What was effective about our planning was that we set a time frame to get things done on each task, asWe needed because we done that, we were more willing and determined to get the task we set done. for example we set a date to get our CD cover completed and because we knew we had a date set, we got it done and it pushed us. Also as we planned each task by dates etc, we got our evaluation completed by our deadline and everything else we wanted done. As well as that because everyone had their own task to complete, as we planned it step by step, we individually completed what we wanted done.

During this project we were very calm and chilled out with each other in our group, as everyone had their own things to do, so it was a very calm project as people had their own responsibilities. However with the artists that performed we acted a bit more professional towards them because we wanted to show how we came across like it was a real thing. We needed to talk more as sometimes we didn't know what each other had got done.
Our individual and team contributions to the planning and preparation process:

• Jacob - market research. He also designed posters to put up around school for advertisement
• Kelly (me) - Found market research about our product ideas and made a twitter page to advertise our product and keep the audience up to date
• Kristie - She mixed the final product and made the logo.
• Kinga - Recorded the artists
• Kiera - Created an instagram page to advertise our product and ideas for market research questions.

• Vicki - Helped with market research, also created snapchat account to advertise and took pictures for it.
  
  
  

EVALUATION OF THE FINAL PRODUCT.

The strengths of the final product are

• Our product fits our target audience
• We listened to what our market research said and acted on it
• All the sounds for the recording are equal, so nobody is over doing anyone
• The editing is done well
• As we worked as a team and stepped in to sort problems everything got done for our final product

The weaknesses of the final product are...

• our recordings would of sounded better if we recorded the artists in the studio
• Should of communicated more so we knew when jobs were not done on time.

Audience responses:

""The cover of the CD is simple but very eye catching as it isn't over the top but isn't boring and dull" (Aaron Mathewson)

" "The songs on the CD are alright quality for live recording, I really like the songs as they are up to date and very catchy. Also there isn't any songs that I don't like so this is a well thought out CD" (Matt Wren)

·        improvement/development in terms of future projects. 

If there was a next time, I would focus more on making the recording better and mix with the other tracks. Also be a bit more stricter on people who aren't taking responsibility to get their tasks done in a quick manner, find out earlier when they are not getting things done. Also I think next time we should sit in our group and listen to our final product and give our opinions on what went well and what could be improved.

-