Personal Project - ukbands - Project plan Proposal, Demographics and Competitors.

1.1 - Proposal

I will set up a website for unsigned bands and musicians in the South West. Artists will be able to upload their demo MP3s and set up a profile page where visitors can download or stream music and view information such as gig dates and biographies. In addition to the band pages the website will host a message board which will act as the hub of a new local band community. The service will be free to the artist.

To add incentive for new artists to join and upload their music I will create a media partnership between UKbands and Phonic FM, a community radio station in Exeter. The most popular songs each month will be given airplay on a monthly radio show, which I will produce. The show will also include interviews and features on some of the artists. As the website will represent the whole of the South West I will search for other radio stations in the area to host the show.

I am aiming for a December alpha launch, a February 2010 beta site launch followed by a marketing campaign on local radio and local press to coincide with the main launch in March 2010.

1.2 - Demographics

The website and radio show will be aimed at people between the ages of 14-30 whom listen to Southwest based bands or are involved or interested in the local music scene. The site will lean towards the alternative and indie music scene but will not discourage bands of other genres to sign up.

1.3 – Competitors

http://www.myspace.com

MySpace is the world’s leading website for unsigned band promotion. Although a useful resource, the simple fact that MySpace is a worldwide site with 100 Million users and 8 Million bands on its books doesn’t give much hope for new artists craving exposure. To offer a much smaller locally based site will allow artists to upload music with some hope of being featured on the front page of the site and of radio airplay.

http://www.southwestunderground.net

Southwest Underground is an established Exeter based electronic music site. It has an active forum and an Internet radio station that features some of the region’s top DJs. However they do not offer MP3 hosting nor do they seem interested in bands, as they prefer to focus on DJs and producers.

http://www.lemonrock.com

Lemonrock boasts a large gig listing that expands the entire country. The bands that have signed up to list their events are mainly covers and tribute acts and are charged an annual fee to list gigs. The site does have an MP3 section but the choice and layout of this page is limited and not easy to navigate. Unlike

http://www.soundcloud.com

Soundcloud is a new site aimed at producers and DJ’s. This site will be similar to mine in that artists are allowed to upload and distribute their work. The website is aesthetically pleasing. A particular feature I like is that the uploaded music is shown on the website as a waveform and users can skip parts of the track by clicking on the image along with leaving comments and notes:

Bath Abbey Project update

Myself and Rob visited Bath Abbey to investigate the screens they had and to see if my idea of creating an 'Interactive choir experience' was possible.  The idea was to film the Bass, Tenors, Altos and Sopranos of the Bath Abbey choir singing seperately and play back each part in synch on a different screen in the Abbey. 

Here are some of the photos we took on our recce:

Ukbands project schedule

Rough Timetable for Ukbands project

Approximate dates
December 7th 2009 Start final design - ongoing
December 18th 2009 Confirm project name.
December 19th 2009 Buy domain
January 1st 2010 Alpha site launch
January 28th 2010 Beta site launch - Finalise designs for advertising campaign - Start viral campaign
February 2010 - Week 2 - Finalise site designs.
February 2010 - Week 3 - Final site tests.
February 2010 Advertising Campaign in local press
March 14th 2010 Full site launch
March 31st 2010 Publish first top ten chart
April 2010 - Produce and broadcast first radio show

Sound for Keely

Today I helped Keely out with her personal project as location sound man. Keely is investigating ghost stories from around the region to feature in a documentary.

We visited the Yeovil train station buffet and Keely got the owner of the Cafe to tell the story of "Molly the tea lady", a ghost who lives in the premises moving kitchen utensils and generally causing a bit of mischief!

Read a bit more about Molly here:

http://www.ghosts.org.uk/ghost/2919/haunted/railway-station/yeovil-railway-station-buffet/west-country.html

http://beehive.thisisbristol.com/default.asp?WCI=SiteHome&ID=7542&PageID=40464

Before we arrived I had planned what was needed for sound. I was going to attach the clip microphone to the owner to capture a nice clean, crisp sound of her voice as she told her stories and I would also use the boom mic to record the ambiance of the cafe and also to act as a backup in case of emergencies later in the sound edit!

As soon as we arrived I made sure all the battery's for the sound equipment were replaced and set up the mixer. (Sound Devices 302) This was the first time I had used this mixer for location sound so I asked Rob, my colleague from Arts Work Media, to show me the important aspects of it and that gave me confidence in the equipment before having to use it.



As the owner spoke before our first shot, I adjusted the clip mic levels until I was satisfied with the levels. I set up the boom mic and did the same. The cafe was rather noisy with fans, fridges and all the trains outside and although these sounds are the sounds a boom opp would traditionally try to avoid recording, I felt capturing these sounds would be important in creating a realistic ambiance for the site so I didn't worry too much when a fan would start to whirr or a customer would slam the door.

As we started to film the lady telling the stories I noticed lots of occasions where she might get a bit excited and her voice would get louder, I kept an eye on the meters on the camera and mixer but I don't think the sound peaked above 0dB.

After the main interview we set about filming the cut away shots Keely needed for the edit, I particularly enjoyed recording some of the sounds to accompany these shots such as the sizzling bacon and the tea being poured into a cup. Obviously if these don't come out as well as I would have liked we could always record these later in the post sound mix.

The filming and sound capture went well, nothing seemed to go wrong, everything worked and we got through the shot list rather quickly. Thanks to Keely for asking me to do the sound and I look forward to working on other projects as location sound man.