Sunderland Culture- Research on Client and existing products

This is my research on the client and some existing products that are similar to what I'm hoping to create. Here, I outline the basic values and purpose of Sunderland Culture which relate to the project but also some early risks in the project. I have faced some of these risks before in my previous projects but have managed to find a way around each of them and so they don't cause the whole project to sway too far from what I wanted. 

I also decided to cover some research into videos from previous years both from Sunderland themselves and other successful cities, whether that be winning cities or those that were shortlisted in the competition. I did think this was very worth looking at as it shows what works well and what they are looking for from winning culture bids. The Stoke-on-trent one in particular was great to analyse as it is very similar to what I envision for my own project and it was even shortlisted that year alongside Sunderland. 

Focus: Expand on your client research and evidence of projects they have been involved before

Client research- Sunderland Culture 

 

Sunderland Culture is an organisation founded in 2016 that drive Sunderland as a city to be recognised as being diverse and creative. They have entered into multiple bids to become the UK’s ‘city of culture’ but have not been named winners yet. However, Sunderland was shortlisted in 2021 showing that they are starting to be recognised as an organisation and are partially successful in that. There is another city of culture competition in 2025 which Sunderland Culture and likely to bid for again. 

Sunderland Culture. (n.d.). Home. [online] Available at: https://sunderlandculture.org.uk/.

The clients website shows that the organisation operates in multiple venues in and around Sunderland such as the National Glass centre, Arts centre Washington, the Fire Station etc. They have a lot going on in terms of events for the public. Their website lists things such as classes, courses, craft fairs, exhibitions, theatre events and many more, most of which take place at their operating venues listed above. The website is easy to navigate and packed full of information, links, blogs etc. 

They also operate on social media too, having accounts on websites such as Instagram, Youtube and Facebook. They have gained a decent amount of followers since their founding in 2016, with an instagram follower total of over 2000. Their Facebook has done better still, with almost 11,000 followers of their page. 

There is a sizeable team that helps run Sunderland Culture, including a board of founders and directors. Most of this is available on their website. These are some of the people who plan and create events associated with Sunderland Culture. 

Potential Problems in relation to the brief:

<> Budget could be an issue as I'm not being employed to do this and is a project that I will have to create using resources that I already own or can borrow for free. 

<> Copyright music may also be a problem as I'll have to source or create my own music for the project otherwise I risk copyright law difficulties. 

<> Due to coronavirus, my project may also run the risk of taking place in another lockdown or tighter restrictions than at present. This means that perhaps I cant get some of the shots I would like to or not having a mix of people in my project. 

 

 

Existing products- Sunderland Culture

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBghHSMcskQ

This is a past product from Sunderland Culture themselves, it is a bid for the 2021 competition. On the video they demonstrate the city’s past and present e.g., at the beginning we see old footage of trains etc, and there is a transformation into this new city. The video particularly focuses on performing arts, music, literature, art and Sunderland’s radio ‘Sun FM’. Most of it is set in ‘Keel square’ where there looks to be a stage and performances etc for the culture bid. They even have notable people who have taken part such as BBC presenter Jeff Brown who seems to be hosting the staged performances, showing people from Sunderland who have gone on to be successful in their industry as much as to be recognised from television. 

Research into existing products- Audio/Visual

Coventry- City of culture 2021 winner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIZXcAvoyoY

Further research into this existing product: 

The start of the video seems to portray the video as a sort of day in the life, it fades in from black- metaphorically like opening your eyes in the morning. The setting of the city takes place and starts early morning as seen by things such as cleaners in an empty building, the sun rising, slow and smooth cinematography etc which is accompanied by a coinciding narrative that takes the same tone. It uses natural lighting at this point which benefits the camera work and is amplified by, presumably post-production, lens flares which make it more visually pleasing. It kind of represents Coventry as in the 'waking up' stage. Here it also displays some of its more aesthetically pleasing sights such as Tudor styles houses, its bridge, the stadium etc. which make up the mise en scene at this point. It uses a mix of straight cuts and fades between videos.

The video then slowly involves more and more people, representing the start of the work day (as Coventry is a working class city). These people remain nameless, they are seemingly the everyday man from Coventry. They take this opportunity to show off their Range Rover factory, a more luxurious part of the city's production. It is clear from the video that they take pride in their work and are proud of the companies that operate there, they want to share this with the rest of the UK and show that they stand out as a great city. This is an effective use of time in the video and is used to impress audiences with how far the city has advanced technologically, but is clear that they haven't forgotten their past due to the montage old photos of the city. With this, they also take quotes and short statements from seemingly ordinary people who live there, but have not confined to people who were born and had lived there all their life. 

A woman who was born and grew up elsewhere also has a say on the video, explaining what the likes about living there and its contrast to elsewhere. Furthermore, this greatly relates to Coventrys big statement about diversity and inclusion. There is plenty racial diversity in this video and it purposefully doesn't conform to Gilroys theory of ethnicity. This is a theory relating to ethnic minorities and how they are portrayed in a position of weakness in media, however in this particular video it is quite the opposite. We see people of ethnic and racial minorities that take positions of power- for example the woman using boxing gloves would be seen as strong and courageous. Coventry does this really effectively, as they do include many races and don't value any above another. Everyone is included and they all are shown to have different talents and strengths that are shown throughout the video. There is a section of the video where they take statements and video footage of people who haven't lived there all their life and how welcomed they felt when coming to the city, refugees included. Individuality is a big factor in the video, and the people of the city are all encouraged to express this however they want but especially with creative arts. We see evidence of dance groups, performing arts, fashion, music etc. Uniqueness is obviously important to the city, and has actually evidently encouraged people to step out of societal norms. 

Relative theory: 

-Purposefully renounces Gilroys racial hierarchy and opposes it- they want to present Coventry as being diverse and even start off with a voiceover from a man who is a refugee. This then moves on to a woman who says she is from Shanghai who has moved to Coventry, they express their diversity through her accent too. There are also four other speakers who would not define as white British, furthering their bid for inclusion.

-Furthermore, they also don’t conform to Hall’s Representation theory and have no stereotypes. If anything, they show that they are against stereotypes with a woman boxer (typically a masculine sport).

-In doing this, they also oppose Mulvey’s male gaze theory, the first female speaker casual work clothing and puts her in a position of power by showing her in her job with two men. She isn’t overly dressed up and wears natural makeup, along with the other female speakers. 

-This advert could be a perfect example of 'social interaction' and 'personal identity' rom Katz and Blumlers 'Uses and Gratification' theory. The video is a great talking point with the diversity included, it could encourage talk on why Britain should be more diverse in other cities. For the same reason, a lot of racial and age groups are represented in the video and so could see themselves in the video, hence the 'personal identity' part of the theory being relative to viewers. In particular, encouraging more women to take up boxing as this isn't a 'societal norm'. 

Hull bid 2017- Winner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DMMKXqSR0

This video displays a very wide range of sights, events and attractions in Hull. It is very tailored towards the creative arts, which seems to be a running theme in the campaigns I have looked at so far, mentioning how the city is perfect for poets, writers, musicians etc. It has one singular local narrator who gives a general overview of what is meaningful to the city. He remains faceless and nameless, representing everyone in the city. A lot of the shots at the beginning of the video are very aesthetically pleasing. The camera movement is almost always still in the first 20 second montage of the video and represents Hull as being this picturesque city. This then develops into time lapse's and pans in and around the city, but for the most part remains a very aesthetically pleasing video, as did Coventry. They make full use of different editing techniques and aren't confined to straight cuts, they use multiple dissolve effects to transition etc. This means that for my project, storyboarding and shooting of the video needs to be thorough in order to achieve a similar level of quality and attractiveness. Hull in particular takes advantage of being a seaside city, and relays this thought the video, this is a very big part of the mise en scene in the video. It presents its self as a calm, open minded city. The audio backs this up, remaining as a calm piano piece throughout the entire video. 

As a viewer, some of the better videos in the montage were the ones that were shot on sunny days and were much better to look at than that which contained grey clouding.Though weather is not controllable or changeable for the project, it was nice to see that they haven't completely shown themselves to be a 'perfect' city that is always sunny. 

One thing that I noticed about this video is that they weren't as big on racial diversity as the most recent winner now. This could just be a result of the fact that racial diversity has only been a big concern in the past few years and this video is now 5 years old, but I do think some inclusion of this in my video is definitely necessary. The past couple years is when racial and gender equality has really took a turn, worldwide protests (including those in the UK) have broken out in support of these and so Sunderlands take on the subject may well be worth including. Some similarities between the products I have looked at so far is that the more successful campaigns have titles and have a heavy focus on the creative arts. 

Stoke on Trent 2021 bid- shortlisted city alongside Sunderland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaFwhvJ0kYY

I found this video to be the most interesting out of them all. It has no narration and simply leaves viewers to see everything going on in Stoke and why they deserve City of Culture. There is a lot crammed into this video which is under a minute long and has a fantastic montage which showcases creativity all over the city. Another wide range of activities is demonstrated in the video, particularly that of dance, performance and sport. A lot is portrayed in the video without saying a word of narration. Upbeat music accompanies the visual. 

The music in the video is very upbeat, suggesting Stoke is an energetic city. The local talent in the video certainly supports this too, the performances are daring and impressive to the audience. The music follows a sort of match on beat style with what is playing in a montage style, making it a much better watch for viewers. The colour scheme of the video is also interesting, for example performances on a night time taking one particular colour and using it to create shadows and contrast. There is a wide display of this and showing all kinds of performances. 

It really inspired me with my own work as narrations aren't really my strong point. With this, it shows that they aren't always necessary and I think Stoke culture did a great job of portraying what their city is about without having a speaker. It gives the videos more meaning and lets the production speak for its self, and it was good enough to be shortlisted for the 2021 competition. 

Existing Products- Print 

Coventry 2021 bid- winners

Upon researching, there wasn't many print adverts that were used as a means to promote individual cities of culture bids. Coventry however did have some posters seemly in and around their own city which displayed the tagline 'Coventry moves' which was different to their audio visual campaign ('Our Coventry'). 

The colour scheme is perhaps the first thing that is of note in these posters and its clear that they are related to one another and part of the same campaign. Though the shapes are different or inverted or smaller in some than in others it is obvious that they are from the same camping because of the colour scheme. The rest of the poster is black and white with the royal blue being the only one that stands out- even in portraits. This is perhaps relative to coventry's football team, who play in blue. 

Following on form the portraits, they appear to be ordinary people representing their city (as opposed to celebrities that may have came from there). They are also clearly trying to promote their diversity, like they did in the audio visual campaign. They include people from different races and different religious memorabilia which further shows Coventry to be diverse and accepting of everyone. 

Modern designs are also of note. It isn't very typical to see this kind of design that is full of different shapes on posters, so stands out as a bit different to what a typical poster might include. Because there didn't seem to be many print advertisements for city of culture bids, it looks like my time may be wasted if i do this as most other bidders opt for strictly audio visual. 

To conclude

Doing the research on past winners and runners up has allowed me to see what kind of thing that the bid is looking for. The style of the videos are all more or less montage with some narration or music but the content it different depending on the area, something i will replicate when doing this for Sunderland. I also found it valuable to look at something that Sunderland Culture has made in the past and perhaps some things to keep from that video. I think that their inclusion of creative arts was very valuable. But, I'm hoping to add to that with things such as modern technology, historical factors and more about people and places. Hopefully a wide range of Sunderland related cultures may be more impressive.