The client asked for an assessment of the show format, a strategy for tech/ video, a decision on best platform and a visual identity (brand guidelines or a marketing plan). During the meeting with the client, I took notes of the main information and created ideas of my own.
To begin the project, my partner and I had a meeting over Teams and discussed our initial thoughts on the brief. The call was very productive and we managed to brainstorm and develop a brief structure of how we would approach the project. From the beginning we worked well together and had a very clear vision about what we wanted to achieve from the project. Below you can see the separate stages we wanted to cover in the pitch.
Format
- Shorter episodes – maybe 30-35 minutes long; easier to digest and focus on
- Competition-led speed rounds: quizzes -> way to keep the viewers and the guests excited
- Buzz sounds to answer questions instead of speaking over each other; gives the guest time to answer better and not lose focus
- Prizes for winners and punishments for losers: prize could be a coveted cup of candy, punishment sing the jingle (high pitch)
- Ask guests for plain/minimalistic background – doesn’t distract the viewer
Tech / Post Production
- Discord – with discord you can create servers where you can invite guests, and have clear music bots in the background (which will be easier for quizzes), easier to screen share with less lagging, better for playing games together, ability to hop in and out of a conversations, multiple streaming options, open chat during the call.
- Idea of putting the videos on the side of the video
Quiz/Speed Rounds
- ‘’Puppet History’’ by the channel Watcher on YouTube is the perfect example of a great history show
- It’s a different format than Hot Bananas but the element of excitement is beautifully portrayed by all the small quiz-like questions between segments, keeping the guests engaged and focused
- Competition keeps the guests ready and focused on the goal of winning the Banana Cup
- Game shows that have something to lose and something to win, always had a lot more views than a simple talk-like show.
Jingles
- Hot bananas jingle – shouting (with logo)
Inspired by Bohemian Rapsody (Gallaleo) - Punishment ‘You’ve been squashed’
- Sound effects (on sound board) e.g. bananas being squished sound when contestant looses
- Visual of banana being thrown at the camera; red peel
Marketing
- TikTok – bloopers montage ‘when Russell sneezed’ (with photo), punishments
- Instagram – bloopers montage, punishments and advertisement
- Target audience – Gen Z’s and students
During the process we bounced ideas off each other, and built on each idea through conversation. By the end of the meeting we distributed each section, according to our strengths and experience, and decided to meet up two days after to bring our work together.
My ideas in this meeting were:
- Shorter episodes 30-35 minutes long; easier to digest and focus on
- Competition-led speed rounds: quizzes -> way to keep the viewers and the guests excited
- Punishment sing the jingle (high pitch)
- Putting the videos on the side of the video
- Hot bananas jingle – shouting (with logo)
- Bananas being squished when contestant looses
- Target audience – Gen Z’s and students
- Bloopers montage idea of ‘when Russell sneezed’
Creating the Assets and Presentation
The colour palette was taken from the original hot banana logo, and has been used across all of the campaign assets. I used the website freepik.com for the basic phone outlines, and created the content on top. My partner gave positive feedback on the two visuals above, and said she would take the same style and colours for the visuals she would create.
FEEDBACK
A few days before the final hand in, I had a surprise meeting with my lecturer who gave us some valuable feedback on our ideas. He loved the visuals and the over all strategy we created, however he suggested to take the concept of ‘losing’ out of the show as it brings the emphasis of the game away from the discussion and more to the competition. The whole idea of the brief was to increase audience interest to the main concept of getting the 3 contestants to discuss different topics etc. We took this advice, and tweaked our idea accordingly which made the overall concept a lot stronger. I really appreciate straight forward, constructive criticisms as they make me grow and think through my ideas more, so this feedback session was very valued.
The jingle idea was discussed in this session, and how we chose to have a person screaming ‘HOT BANANAS’ with metal music behind, and the lecturer seemed very excited to hear it.
My team mate created the slides above covering ‘Speed rounds’ and ‘Post-production’. The positioning and colours were inspired by the projects’ over all art direction. We made sure each slide wasn’t over crowded and simply demonstrated each concept.
When organising the presentation, we thought through what concepts we needed to cover and distributed the work load between us evenly. Each slide was chosen according to the sections we assigned to each other previously. I presented the projects format and marketing plan and my partner talked about the speed rounds/post production and the jingle. We both has an equal input and worked well together. There was clear communication throughout the project and the ideas we came up with were very entertaining and catchy.
Reflection
Having regular meetings meant we were always keeping a track on progress, understanding of the tasks to do and as a result we learnt new skills techniques along the way. When assigning sections the project, we played to each others strengths and enjoyed collaborating. My partner and I had met during lessons prior to this project, however had never expected to have produced such creative ideas and imagination as a pair.
The most rewarding part of the process was the brainstorming meeting we had at the beginning where we bounced ideas off each other, and came up with a strong concept to present to the client. After having finished the recorded presentation, we checked over our spelling and slides incase of any mistakes and then submitted online.
KatiesBlog 