Evaluation
Below is the initial planing document for the promo document. The only element here that we didn't manage to complete was the behind the scenes video, due to us running out of time; although I feel that it wouldn't have helped gain any more traction.
Below is the initial plan for the promo. Our plans later had to be scaled down, mostly due to the fact that we could not use any rehearsal times for filming, as we hoped in the proposal, instead only having a 50 minute lesson.
When we actually got to filming, a few actors forgot about the filming/ or had to be retrieved out of lessons. This led to us reducing our plans for the promo. Instead of the long tracking shot which would require a lot of rehearsal, we decided to film the actors emerging from the curtain, and then have a short tracking shot of Gavroche following them from the other side. We were tight for time even just getting this done and the editor had to work with less than ideal footage.
Even though we had all of these problems, in my opinion the advert turned out well. The editor worked around all of the issues and put together an advert which worked to advertise the cast of the show, and the fact that the show is happening.
In terms of lighting, above is an image of the rig in use while filming. I was up in the lighting desk operating the grand master fader to fade the lights up at the beginning of the video. Below is an image of me de-rigging lamps to make space, and a photo of the small setup of 2 rows of 3 fresnels I rigged for the initial plan. Unfortunately these had to be taken down because of the Christmas Concert, and was part of the reason we had to change our plans.
For the actual filming of the advert I adjusted the the existing rig to better fit filming, and programmed a cuestack with a long fade from 0 to 256 intensity. This worked well, it was simple and reliable.
Survey
Because of how I distributed the survey, on social media and group chats, it means that the demographic is highly biased towards the youth.
Looking at the results, 54% of people who answered the survey were convinced to see the show. In marketing terms that is an incredibly high positive response. For context, the click through rate on YouTube (people who are convinced to click on ads) is 0.33%, a tiny number. (Although a point to note is that people are more likely to say yes given this is a survey compared to an ad)
Digging down into individual responses, people who have seen a staging of Les Mis before are far more likely to be convinced to see the show. This may be because the advert is structured in a way that rewards prior knowledge of the characters.
Above is the general rating of the advert. In general, it seems that respondents liked it. Again, the high ratings seem to correspond to people having seen past versions of Les Mis.
Below are the written responses of what respondents thought was good or could be improved. People seemed to like the editing, lighting, cinematography and actors.
The main things that people didn't like included most of the issues that was created by the tight schedule, including not using all of the stage, the length being cut down, and the sound.
If we had more time all of these issues would have been easily fixable. This complements how well our planning went, but also how we can improve for next time; scheduling more time for filming.
To conclude, I think our campaign was effective. The show was sold out every night, and the responses from the survey were positive.