Major Production: Behind the Scenes First Video & Social Media Proposals

Introduction

As this is our final major project, we thought it would be vital to make sure we include some behind the scenes of DownStage - showing our fans the progression of our show. Not only this, but we will be using the behind the scenes to help boost and promote our major production - we've agreed to constantly keep our fans updated by posting mini videos regarding behind the scenes, as well as adding pictures of our actors. This also enables us to provide constant updates on our progression.

For example, on our Facebook page, we first begun by posting pictures of our actors, which has now led to us to create a behind the scenes video that we created during our rehearsals. The video consists of the following:

   - Actors introducing who they are, and what they're role is for DownStage
   - How they as actors reflect to the role they're acting
   - Montage of footage from our read-throughs, including rehearsal footage.
   - Maintaining this style of a Mockumentary: as if this is actually a documentary crew wanting to
     learn the behind the scenes.
   - The actors themselves acting as they're character, adding some comedy to the video
   - Links to our social media pages (Twitter & Facebook)

Here is our first behind the scenes video:

Future Behind the Scenes Ideas/Proposals

As already mentioned, we want to constantly keep updating our social media so that our fans are kept engaged and don't loose interest, whilst at the same time attempting to constantly promote our production. Below is a list of ideas that Kate and I will be doing to maintain our behind the scenes and social media pages.

Contacting a Photographer

Because we are aiming for our project to be professional, we've decided that we will be arranging a photographer to come down for a couple of shoot dates. Not only will this provide us with professional pictures and content for our behind the scenes, but this will also help to boost and attract a wider audience by providing us with more content to update our social media.

Nonetheless, I got in contact with someone who has a skill in a variety of different elements of photography. His name is Andrew (company called 'Poile Photography) and he works independently focusing on different genres such as wildlife, cars, tourist attractions, and also has a quadcopter which we are aiming to use to gain some establishing shots of the school (our key location) that DownStage is based at. After asking Andrew, he was pleased to be a part of our production as he felt it would also be beneficial for himself - as he will be meeting actors, our actors may then show interest in his work, thus boosting him as a photographer.

Behind the Scenes Mini-videos

As well as the video we've already produced, we are also planning on creating some mini-videos that will hopefully be posted every 2 weeks. The first selection of mini-videos will involve asking our actors 3 questions, which are:

   - What their favourite scene of DownStage is
   - If they could play another character, who would it be
   - What made them show interest in their chosen character and DownStage as a whole

Each video will focus on one question and will hopefully be answered by each actor (dependent on how busy are shoot dates are!)

Teaser Poster

Additionally, I am hoping to create a poster regarding when DownStage's release date is, and where our fans can watch it. This will be created in the later stage of our production and will begin processing once we have finished filming and have a rough cut of our edit completed. Some ideas of this include:

   - Information regarding our social media links
   - The release date (and potentially time) and where to find it
   - Include a montage of our key actors on the poster
   - Having the stage in the background for iconography
   - Showing Seth (playing as Jordan) wearing his Peter Pan costume to hint that it is a comedy.

Funding Page for Downstage

As we are students and have a very minimal budget, Kate and I thought it would be a good idea to create a funding page to share with our fans/audience if they wanted to help us out financially. The main point of this was because our budget was increasing due to having to fund for travel expenses for all of our actors, and because we are an ensemble piece, the budget will soon rise!

Here is a link to our funding page that we posted to 'IndieGoGo':

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/downstage-a-comedy-mockumentary-production#/

General Images/Updates

As well as these elements, we will also be including any general images/updates. For example:

   - Images to show that we have finished filming,
   - Updates on our post-production,
   - Asking our fans/audience to share our social media sites and to stay updated
   - Boosting visitor posts on Facebook. For example, our actor Marc (whom is playing Giles) has sent
     us a couple of videos of him v-logging about DownStage
   - Funny pictures taken from read-through and shoot dates.
   - Updates to links to our funding page.

These elements alone (and the video we've already made) will hopefully help to boost promotion for our major project and provide a clear insight into the behind the scenes of DownStage. Anything else that Kate and I will be posted and updated!