HNC: Promotional Video Treatment

Promotional Video Treatment

The information within this treatment will be presented to the client through a PowerPoint presentation.

Psychographic analysis and how they will be incorporated

The psychographic and demographics that the product is targetted for are: Mainstreamers, Explorers and Aspirers as well as 24-60-year-olds and an ABC1 social standing. To target the mainstreamers I will create the video in a focus on telling the audience some of the similarities this product has with other mainstream apps such as Facebook, in doing this it will appeal to the mainstream audience through familiarity with an already popular trend that this group would likely follow, it is said that mainstream audiences seek security when it comes to products so advertising some of the safety and security features this program will have, might help bring in more downloads and signups, which is the overall purpose of these promotional videos. To target the explorers' side of the target audience I will need to market this product in a way that highlights the products ability to help people share stories and experiences with each other, incorporating this into my video will mean I will have to show off the elements of the app that appeals to this audience such as the ability to share stories and experiences. The Aspirers psychographic group will be targeted through these videos as one of the features of the app being the ability to share photos and more, this will appeal towards the aspirers through them being able to show off their materialistic objects and appearance so I will have to show off these features during my promotional video to target this audience. To target this product towards the age range stated in the brief (this being 24-60-year-olds) the emphasis will be on family, with the family-oriented videos I have planned it will show this older audience that this is an app with a focus on family, therefore this appeals to the older audience through personal connection as most of these people in this age range will have a family and therefore be able to personally connect with the narrative in these videos. One key point to make is that to target the younger side of this range such as the late twenty and early thirty-year-olds, some of the target psychographics are based around younger people, giving them more of an interest to join the app as their families might be a lot younger or smaller than some of the older people in this range and therefore might need a little more encouragement to join the app. Finally looking at the target social grouping of ABC1, I will need to market this product towards a more upper working-class/middle-class audience, this won't be too much of an issue as this range is typically family-oriented or at least has a family so therefore when creating the videos like previously mentioned this audience will be able to connect with the family narrative I have planned.

Gantt Chart

Video 1 Plan

Some key aspects of the brief that I need to incorporate into this video are the core messages such as staying in touch is vital, connecting to the past is as important as facing the future and that family is as important as friends. To incorporate these ideas effectively and by following the narrative style that the brief asks of me I will create a story that involves a big family, in this case, all laughing and clearly having a good time, in doing this it will show the audience the positives of family and help incorporate these key ideas by portraying this family life as something good, and something that the audience would personally want. To link with the product the family will be telling each other stories around a dinner table, people of all ages will be telling these stories, from the young to the elderly, as they are telling these stories they are shown laughing and having a good time. While this is happening, the shot will fade out to the products logo, in doing this helping create an element of brand identity for the audience to recognize, followed by a brief view of the overlay as a voice over is telling the audience what the product does, this element of the video will briefly look over the elements of the app, showing the audience what they can do while reaching out to the different psychographics with explanations such as, the similarities to other mainstream products and the security this provides to help mainstreamers connect and want to sign up to the product. To connect to the explorers I will show off how the app can be used to connect to other people by mimicking the narrative I created in the first part of the video in showing the app being used to tell stories. Another psychographic group that I want to be focused on during this video are the Aspirers, to target this group during the explanation period of the video it will show how the user can share images on the app, appealing to their need to show off to others. This focus on family, I hope will attract the interest of the older audience I am trying to grab the attention of. This video as a whole will make audiences think that the app is easy to use, this being because of the brief explanation that the video implements. It will also make them feel like they need to reconnect with the past, they will feel this through watching the narrative of the family telling stories and really enjoying themselves, in seeing this they will feel as if they need this, this will create a goal for them that the app being advertised will be able to fulfill. The desired goal for our audience is to feel sentimental and nostalgic when watching the narrative and in feeling like this they will feel curious about the app and want to try it out for themselves. In doing all this and attempting to reach out to the target audience set out for me in the brief I believe the audiences will be inclined to sign up and download the app and try it themselves.

Edit Decision List

Establishing shot of dinner table with the family sitting at it eating dinner.
Mid to short shots of each family member talking while eating dinner
Cut to a wide shot of the family laughing at what has been said.
Fade out to the product logo
Shot of the Apps interface while a voiceover explains its features
A close up of a hand using the app to share stories
Fade out to a long shot of the family enjoying themselves laughing
Fade to logo again

Script

For script see Blog post "Promotional Video Analysis Scripts"

Production Details, Costs, and More
This video will be aired using the TV spot stated during the brief on National Geographic and Discovery Channel. The promotional video will be around 30 seconds long, which is on the longer side of advert lengths, however, I thought the length was necessary to be able to reach out to the wide target audience while conveying the right information about the product as to not leave the audience confused or misinformed.

When looking at the production costs for this video I first looked at the price of which small-time or amateur actors usually get paid. "In general though, for a smaller, non-broadcast TV level production, you can expect to pay anywhere around $50-400 an hour for an actor. Or you can also think of it as something like $250 per actor per (8 hour day), in a market which is priced at the lower end of the spectrum."(Winograd, 2018). Going off of this information I would need to hire the actors for a days shoot (due to the short nature of the advert one day should suffice), for this video, I would need 6 actors, Mum, Dad, Grandparents, and Children. Considering that this advert is for a limited TV spot I would have to pay the actors around the higher end of this spectrum at around 400 a day for 6 actors, totaling my actor cost at around £2400. With this out of the way I can look at the other production costs, The next thing to look at is the cost of a set, now due to the homely feel of this video and to help keep the costs as low as possible I would hire out someones dining room for a set price rather than building a set from scratch. This will be cheaper than renting a studio and buying furniture to build a set, while still achieving that homely feel as it is actually someone's house. I would offer someone £600 for use of their dining room for a day. Now that I have the prices for actors and a set I will be looking at the costs of the production period with spare hands operating the Cameras and helping secure health and safety. Looking at this I researched the average rates for cameramen, my research concludes that the hourly rates for these Cameramen vary in locations "the five states that employ the most cameramen are California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Illinois, respectively. The hourly mean wage for these states ranges from $17 to $34 per hour."(Manuel, 2019) Although this research comes from American states I can still base my prices around this average, For this project, I will be hiring 3 Cameramen at an hourly rate of £25 per hour for an 8 hour day, totaling at around £600 for a group of men to help in production. Going on to the second half of the video, this being the voiceover showing off the app and its features, the production costs will be much lower, with the only real costs being the voice actor. When looking at prices for voice actors, I am planning around the lower end of the standard charge for normal actors due to their likeness being used for national television, this being said I will estimate the charges for the voice actor at around £150. To save money I will be editing the promotional video personally, this will help me save money keeping the production low budget while allowing me to keep my directorial vision over this product.

Video 2 Plan

This promotional video will provide the audience with a brief narrative that helps explain what the app will do within a fun narrative rather than a boring explanation. This promotional video will also follow the average length for promotional videos at around 30seconds, providing me enough time to incorporate all the key messages that the company wants me to include. This promotional video will be developed to be marketed on online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and youtube AdSense. The promotional video will start out with a Grandfather sitting in his garden on a bench watching over his grandchildren from a distance, the father of the children will then come over and sit with the grandfather, they begin to speak about their children and the future they want for them. In doing this it will appeal to the demographics the company tasked me with appealing towards, the ABC1 24-60 year-olds. It will do this through letting this audience connect with these characters on a personal level as they will most likely be in the same sort of position with their family, wanting what's best for their children and grandchildren while wondering about their futures as this is the age and demographic range common with growing families, this is especially the case within the ABC1 range that the company wants me to target as this is the economic range that typically is more family-oriented due to the lack of concerns or at least reduced concerns over other issues such as money. Following on from this it will cut between shots of the children in the distance and the two adults conversing, showing this strong family bond and the way they feel about the children in front of them helps convey the three key messages that the production company wants, these being: Staying in touch is vital, Connecting to the past is as important as facing the future and family is as important as friends. This will be achieved through this footage as the audience will see the strong bond that this family has in the video and will feel that this is an important element of family life and will want to incorporate these points in their lives in some form. Now that these key messages have been delivered to the audience and that the correct audience has been targeted the adults begin to speak about how they wish there was a way to share their experiences with their children and other long-distance relatives and how in doing this it would provide all these positives towards their life and their children's lives. Doing this will make the app appeal to the audience and hopefully gather more signups and downloads. Once this has carried on and the adults finish subtly describing the features of the app through their wishes the screen will fade out towards a screen showing the logo of the app and its name "DNA", this will create an element of brand identity that can link with the other promotional videos that I will be producing for them. This will be followed up by a brief showing of the user interface and creating a hashtag for people to follow and interact with helping develop an element of brand interaction with the viewer base, this will be like in the Trading 212 promotional video that I analyzed, "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkbP0hcFhl8", as the narrative video ended the user was given information on what the app will look like while creating a way for the audience to interact.

Edit Decision List

Establishing shot of bench in a garden with grandad sitting.
Mid tracking shot of father joining him at the bench.
Mid shot of both sitting at the bench talking.
Long shot of children playing in the garden
Cut back to mid-shot of father and grandfather talking
Shot reverse shot while the conversation continues
Fade out to the logo of the product.
brief shot of User Interface of the App while a hashtag is present.

Script

For script see Blog post "Promotional Video Analysis Scripts"

Production Details, Costs, and More
This video will be aired using Youtube Adsense at around 30seconds in length, I chose a longer length video to help promote the ideals that the company tasked me with. The longer length allows me to develop a narrative for the audience to relate. I will be looking at the marketing costs for a 30-second advert on youtube, "YouTube ads have an average cost-per-view of $0.010 – $0.030, and the views that you generate will count towards your overall YouTube viewer count. The average cost of reaching 100,000 viewers is around $2,000." (Influencer Marketing, 2020). Knowing this information I can set aside at least £6,000 for marketing, gathering at most 300,000 views helping promote the product effectively.

Planning this promotional video I would be looking at a cast of 4, Two adults and two children, the adults would need to be different in age with one being around 30 and the other being around 60 although ages won't be said during the advert so the appearance of age would be regarded over actual age when looking for who to cast. The two adults would be paid at £400 a day, this is the same rate as the other promotional video I have planned. The two child actors would have to be somewhat similar in appearance as if they were related, I would be looking for a boy and a girl to help appeal to a wider range of parents. When looking at what I should pay the child actors I gathered some research to make sure that I am paying them just as fairly as the adults."The starting rate for a day’s work on a national commercial is $592.20, and with these types of commercials, which are usually union jobs, actors earn residuals every time they air. However, with non-union commercials, the child actor usually earns one flat fee, with no commissions paid each time the ad airs." (Izea, 2019). Going off of this research it states that the average rate for a child actor is around $592.20 which relates to £475.83, going off of this the 2 child actors will be working at a round number of £475 each. This means the overall cost for my actors will be around £1,750. Going on to the next stage of production planning I will be location scouting, looking for a place to shoot this promotional video. Going off of my plan and storyboard I will be looking for a garden-style set where the adult actors can be sitting on a bench. To help me search for these locations I have found a website that allows me to browse properties that allow renting for video shoots, "https://ukfilmlocation.com/". On this website, the price range for renting varies for each property, however, the middle-class property style I would be looking for would be around £500 to £1000 per day, therefore I will set aside at least £1000 in my budget for location shooting, examples of what style I am going for can be seen within my mood board. Going off of my previous research into hiring a production crew I will be hiring 3 Cameramen at an hourly rate of £25 per hour for an 8 hour day, totaling at around £600 for a group of men to help in the production. This leaves me on to my final part of the production, the editing, again I will be covering this myself, in doing this I will save money and help secure the final product follows my vision.

Kit List

Canon 850D DSLR Camera (£899.99, With 18-55mm Lens)
50mm Lens (£99.99)
18-55mm Lens (See Camera)
Tripod (£24.98)
Gimbal (£26.60)
Shotgun Mic (£130)
Deadcat/Windscreen(See Shotgun Mic)
Shockmount (See Shotgun Mic)
Boom Pole (See Shotgun Mic)
Lavalier mic (£13.99, x4)
Ring Light(£29.00)
Softboxes (£42.99, Comes with two)
Reflectors (£17.99)
Premiere Pro (£20 a month)

Total Equipment Costs = £1347.50

For sources see "Kit List Reference" at the bottom of the page.

My equipment list contains all the key elements of shooting a promotional video from lighting to the sound. My list starts off with a Canon DSLR camera and the lenses I have to hand, allowing me to swap out for each different element of the shoot I might need, with some shots requiring a different lens. for example, a zoom lens won't support both strong levels of details combined with the magnification it gives within the shot. The list then mentions the Tripod and the Gimble, these being key for keeping the camera steady when recording extended shots. Next on the list, I mention the different audio equipment I would require when shooting with the shotgun mic "A shotgun microphone is a highly directional microphone that must be pointed directly at its target sound source for proper recording. Shotgun microphones use unidirectional microphones to achieve this high beam of concentration on the sound source to record the sound" (Learning About Electronics, 2019). This would be required to help gather audio from a select group or location during shooting. To go along with this piece of equipment I have added a Boom Pole to situate the Shotgun Mic easier and a Shockmount to attach the microphone. A different type of microphone I have added to the list is a Lavalier Mic, this will attach to each actor and help record their voices, "These mics capture incredible audio when conducting an interview for television, documentary film, or industrial video. Lavs come in a wired version and a wireless version, with both versions being small enough to hide beneath the collar of a shirt or on the underside of a jacket." (Paul, 2015). To top off the audio section of this list I am including a Deadcat, this will muffle sounds such as wind and help produce higher quality audio. Moving on, my list includes different lighting equipment, first of all being a ring light, this will be used to highlight the actor's faces when the camera is on them, with other sources of lighting such as the softboxes providing lighting for the shot. I have added Reflectors to the list of equipment to help take advantage of some natural lighting during my outside shoots. Finally, on my list, I have my editing software, Premiere Pro, this being my editing software of choice for this project.

Budget Management

When going through the brief with my client they requested a further in-depth breakdown of costs and how my plans will conform to the budget and requirements set before me. When first looking at production costs I will plan my budget within 3 stages, Pre-Production, Production and Post Production.

Looking first at the pre-production costs I will take into account the equipment costs, the location, and the prop costs. I will be using the same equipment for each video, lowering costs while making sure I have everything I need for both productions under this one list as to not miss out on vital equipment. Scroll up to see the full equipment list I will be using for both productions. The total costs for my equipment list would be £1,327.50 (Excluding the editing software costs). When researching the prices for each piece of equipment, I had in mind that I would need to search for the best deals possible as to keep to the low budget set to me by the production company, in doing this I found multiple bundles that included pieces of equipment already on my list such as the Camera coming with the 18-55mm Lens, and the Shotgun mic coming with the boom pole and other microphone accessories needed for production. This was just one of the ways I tried to conform to the low budget set before me. When it comes to Location costs I briefly mentioned in my previous notes on production details that the website named "https://ukfilmlocation.com/" would be my best option for safely finding a set location for filming. I could use this site for both productions to help find the ideal shooting location, however, it will also allow me to easily communicate with the owner of the property allowing clear rules to be established when it comes to using someone else's property, thus saving me money in the long run through helping to avoid any legal trouble between me and the property owner. In my previous research, I found that renting a property like the one I had in mind would cost around £500 to £1000 per day, therefore I will set aside £2500 in my budget for location shooting, thus giving me enough for two locations with a little excess as a contingency in case prices go over. Now going onto the Mis-en-Scene, for this, I will assign a budget of around £200, this will cover props such as cutlery at the dinner table and maybe outdoor equipment for the second shoot. In order to keep this section of the budget low, I will ask my actors to use their own clothing, this will keep production costs down while still creating a real feel for this shoot, as the outfits would be that of real-life people. This Mise-en-Scene budget will also cover some clothing for the actors in case their own clothing does not match my needs, however, this will not be for every actor and if shopping for clothes I will look for as cheap as possible. Taking all this into account my pre-production budget for both of these shoots will be at a rounded-up figure of £4,027.50.

Moving onto the second section of my budget management, the Production period, this section of the budget will cover the acting and production team costs. When looking at the costs of actors I went back to my previous research which stated that adult actors would go off of a rate between $50-$400 a day, "In general though, for a smaller, non-broadcast TV level production, you can expect to pay anywhere around $50-400 an hour for an actor. Or you can also think of it as something like $250 per actor per (8 hour day), in a market which is priced at the lower end of the spectrum."(Winograd, 2018). So therefore if the shooting schedule goes to plan and we only have a one day shoot for each promotional video then each actor would be paid £400 a day for 6 actors, totaling my actor cost at around £2400 for shoot 1, however, in shoot 2 child actors would be needed, to make sure that I am paying these child actors fairly I researched what the average rates would be. ."The starting rate for a day’s work on a national commercial is $592.20, and with these types of commercials, which are usually union jobs, actors earn residuals every time they air. However, with non-union commercials, the child actor usually earns one flat fee, with no commissions paid each time the ad airs." (Izea, 2019). Going off of this research it states that the average rate for a child actor is around $592.20 which relates to £475.83, going off of this the 2 child actors will be working at a round number of £475 each. Going off of my previous rates for adult actors I would have two workings at a day rate of £400. This means the overall cost for my actors will be around £1,750 for shoot 2, thus bringing my overall costs for actors at £4,150 (£2,400 for shoot 1 and £1,750 for shoot 2). Moving on to the next stage of production costs, this being the production crew, I already researched into what this would cost me, looking at this research, the average rates for cameramen vary in locations "the five states that employ the most cameramen are California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Illinois, respectively. The hourly mean wage for these states ranges from $17 to $34 per hour."(Manuel, 2019) Although this research comes from American states I can still base my prices around this average, For this project, I will be hiring 3 Cameramen at an hourly rate of £25 per hour for an 8 hour day, totaling at around £600 for a group of men to help in production, if all goes to plan there will only be 2 production days, one for each video, thus totaling my production crew costs to around £1,200. With all this research the overall budget for the production period will settle at around £5,350. In this stage in budgeting, it is important that although I still keep to a low budget I make sure that all my staff (Including the children) get paid fairly to avoid any legal troubles or ethical issues one might run into if this budgeting is not handled with care.

This brings me on to the final stage of my budget, Post-production, this stage will include the editing and publishing costs of these promotional videos. Starting off my chosen editing software for these promotional videos is Adobe Premiere Pro, this is the editing software I am most familiar with, while still being low budget, this software costs £20 per month, The editing process will last nowhere near a month if everything goes to plan, making this one of the cheapest aspects of production. Now that the editing software has been covered I will need to look into hiring an editor to help put the video together, "The average wage for a film and video editor in the United States is around $28.97 per hour."(Sokanu, 2020). Once discovering this wage and calculating that one editor would need around £231 per day of editing, and also being unsure of how long the editing process would take, to save I money I have opted to edit the promotional videos myself, thus keeping to the low budget while ensuring I provide the company with a quality that I am sure of. Now moving on to publishing these promotional videos to be seen I will have to calculate the average cost for my TV spot advert while also going back over my previous research on the costs to advertise on youtube. Video 1 would be published on national television using a standard 30second tv spot, "Businesses pay $5 to $34 per 1,000 viewers for a local TV ad and an average of $115,000 for national 30-second ad airings."(Rudder, 2019), Going off of this research and converting it to GBP I am looking at a cost of around £93,426, at this time it is unclear whether the TV spot that I was told about by the company is prepaid or would come out of the budget. Moving on to Video 2, this will be aired on youtube, "YouTube ads have an average cost-per-view of $0.010 – $0.030, and the views that you generate will count towards your overall YouTube viewer count. The average cost of reaching 100,000 viewers is around $2,000." (Influencer Marketing, 2020). Knowing this information I can set aside at least £6,000 for marketing, gathering at most 300,000 views helping promote the product effectively. This puts my post-production budget at £99,446, including the costs of the TV spot, which at the time I do not know if is prepaid by the production company.

Looking back at these costs I have totaled them to £108,823.50 (£15,397.50 without the TV spot).

Contingency Plan

When planning these promotional videos I have to take into account that not everything may go to plan and sometimes something may come up as to hinder production. To describe how I will plan for events like this I will provide multiple examples. An example of a minor problem that I could encounter during production would be it raining on an outdoor shoot day, to overcome this problem I would plan this shoot day around the weekly weather forecast, choosing the day that has the lowest chance of precipitation while leaving plenty of time in my schedule for reshoots or to completely push back a production day in the case of it was raining all-day. If given no other option and I had to I would have to rethink some elements of my shoot, for example, in my second promotional video which is set nearly entirely outdoors, I would have to move it indoors with my characters sitting on a sofa rather than the bench I had originally planned. An example of another issue that could occur during production is an actor no showing a production day, this could be quite tedious as not only will I be one actor short on the day of the shooting but it will delay my production entirely. To counteract this I will need to have at least one more actor on standby, maybe not on the set as then I would have to pay them however have them know they are a backup option and to keep their schedule clear in case a situation like this occurs. Another example of a problem that could occur during production is a faulty piece of equipment, this could be a problem as a camera that doesn't work or a microphone playing up would completely stop production, to counteract this I would have to gather spare equipment such s microphones, however, with the more expensive equipment this may be more troublesome but this could be avoided through checking of the equipment before production days start so that the I have plenty of time to see if there are any issues and correct them.

Reference List

Winograd, Adam (2018) How much does it cost to hire an actor? [Online]
Available from:
https://www.veed.me/how-much-does-it-cost-to-hire-an-actor/

Manuel, Nicole (2019)The Salary for a Freelance Cameraman [Online]

Available from:

https://work.chron.com/salary-freelance-cameraman-4658.html

Izea (2019) Child Actors: How much do they make? [Online]

Available from:

https://izea.com/2019/02/25/child-actors/