Primary and Secondary research

Finding Interviewees

The main focus of the documentary is bands trying to make it 'big' in the industry and the band 'Flowers for Helen' who are supporting Electric Six in December making them a quiet popular and big band whilst they are not signed. We have decided to dedicate alot of the documentary time to them and we wanted to interview them about themselves, the band and making it in the industry.

Here are the questions we have lined up for the interview with the band.

• Introduce yourselves - Your name's and what instruments you play in the band
• What genre would you place your music in?
• What artists influence you as a band?
• How did you come up for the name for your band?
• When did you form your band/How long have you been together?
• Do you write you own songs?
• Do you like to do covers?
• Have you recorded anything in the studio?
• How do you earn your money?
• How do you travel to and from gigs?
• Do you have a manager?
• What is you main goal as a band?
• Do you think your image plays a big part for you band?
• Where do you see yourself in 5/10 years?
• How do you express your individual personalities? - Do you think its important?
• How do you distribute your music?
• Do you have a big fan base?
• Do you use the internet to reach out to your audience?
• Do you have a MySpace account and do you use it to interact with your fans?
• Do you have a target audience?
• Do you interact with your fans?
• Where do you practise?
• What is it like going from being the audience to playing to an audience?
• What are your thoughts on music being downloaded illegally?

Part of the codes and conventions for a documentary is a expert us interviewed relating to the subject that the documentary is about so for our documentary we wanted someone who knew about the music industry and how it works. Rhiannon emailed two university lecturers from Chester university who teach music production. She emailed Russell Dyson and Jim Mason asking them if they would like to be involved in the documentary and there response was good and they set up a time and date for the interview.

Below is the email between Rhiannon and the University lecturers.

Here are the questions will be asking the university lecturers:

• Does a band/artist need to have any knowledge of the music industry and how it works?
• What exactly is popular music?
• Is a bands image important?
• Is downloading music becoming more popular than buying CDs?
• Is downloading music illegally becoming a bigger problem for bands and artists?
• How do bands/artists promote their music?
• How do bands/artists get into the music industry?
• Is it better for a band.artist to have a manager or manage themselves?
• What is Fan Culture?
• What is Music law and what types of laws are there?
• What exactly commercial music making?
• How do record labels work?
• How does the music industry work and what are the latest issues affecting it if there are any?
• What is the cultural politics of music and how is it linked to the music industry?
• What is the relationship between popular music and race/gender?
• How is music talked about and consumed?
• What is the role of music in society as a commodity and a force for social cohesion?
• What is the cultural significance of popular music?
• Is there a realistic outlook on the music industry?

Finding Locations

The Flowers for Helen footage was filmed in Liverpool at the Masque, this location wasn't chosen by us because the band chose to have their gig there. We were going to interview the band backstage but the noise from the other bands playing made it difficult to hear so we went to a quieter area. The lighting however in the new location wasn't great so once we watched back the tape we may need to interview again, maybe at band practise.

For the University lecturers interview we will be filming at Chester University, we may be able some footage of equipment used on the music production course.

Archive Material

The archive material we will be using will come from the band's MySpace, Facebook and Youtube pages. We will also be using other footage from youtube.