Television
Through my research, I have found that there are a lot of live shows now being broadcast online. But I wanted to start my proper research with normal television as that is where I show would be broadcast. We have a target audience of Channel 4 / E4 so I focused on them but found that most live fashion segments where currently on ITV.
The show that seems to be most prominent in broadcasting fashion Live on TV is "This Morning". The show is not based on fashion but touches many subjects in everyday life. They have a recurring segment on the show that revolves around fashion.
This is an example segment that I decided to analyse and try to understand so that I can take tips forward into our own live show.
This show follows the lead of the two main presenters asking the expert a question. The fashion expert takes hold of the piece and really engages the viewer in what is going on. She engages with the main hosts by giving information about the outfit that she is wearing.
It is important that she gives this information to back up the subject which is "Supermarket fashion". I liked the way that she actually got up and showed her outfit off in more detail as it adds to the moment. However, I would say that it would have been useful to have a pop-up card graphic which showed the viewers these details as well. "Graphics are often used to present information in a way that's easy to understand and pleasing to the eye" (BBC, 2018)
It is always good to back up spoken information with graphics on screen and I feel that would have made this opening section better.
When they bring out the model with the next clothing item they add a backing track, I think this works most of the time to add extra energy to the piece. However, in this scenario, I found it offputting in this case as it was quite loud in comparison to the fashion experts voice. I feel that the audio mixing was not the greatest in this scenario.
I like the use of the close up slow pan down which give the viewer more detail about the item, but it did seem like a fast pan down which meant it was hard to capture all the information that the viewer may have wanted. It made the five seconds that it was on screen feel rushed and poorly planned. However, I understand I have not done this myself but understand the pressures of live TV mean sometimes things do not go as planned.
Lastly, they give the model a chance to speak which is a nice touch as it turns the model from just a model to a character in the show. Even though they only get asked about the outfit which is normally "great" in their opinion... It adds another voice for the audience to listen to.
Overall I think this is a well put together piece of live television around fashion. I would not that the music was the main thing that put me off. It was more than it clashed with the presenter as it was too loud, rather than the music being bad. This is something I feel would work in our show, but the audio levels need to be good for it to be a good addition.
Internet Livestreams
The internet is becoming a place where most people go to for their TV and other video content. YouTube has a mass of Livestreamed Fashion content which includes VT's and live video content all in the same show. In a lot of ways, it is more similar to our show than the likes of This Morning even though we would be broadcasting on E4. In fact, searching "Fashion Live Show" creates 21 million results on YouTube.
What is even more surprising is that there is a fashion live stream on as I am writing this article. This shows the "need" for content like this as there are daily fashion live streams from around the world.
I decided to look into one of these live streams and understand how they film them. I went with "Fashion Television Live" which was a 12-hour long live stream - all to do with fashion!
I did not watch all of the show for obvious reasons but I skipped through it and watched specific segments to grasp an idea of why it is so successful. The first thing that hit me was the production value, it is something that you could totally see on TV. The camera quality is crisp and the audio and editing all work really well together. I think this goes to show that the internet has to be taken seriously by everyone as it is producing content which is now as good as TV. The internet has an upside in other ways like it is less strict and also there is more of an audience than TV which sometimes has to be paid for.
The live stream is heavily based on VT inserts that are recorded before the live show. These have a nice production value but you can see they are different to TV as they mostly do not include a presenter. Most of the VT cutaways use music as the audio source to keep the audience's attention. I actually think this works well (better than This Morning) as there are not two audio sources battling against each other.
Most of these VT inserts are very stylish with models posing and laughing with a "behind the scenes" feel to the VT. I noticed that these cutaways while sometimes related to the content which is coming next, is mostly to fill the time between the actually live parts of the show.
Parts of the show are presenter led and include a piece to camera followed by a VT. Once again, however, this is all pre-shot material meaning a lot of this live show is not actually live. I understand that when you do a 12-hour live show it will be hard to be live all the time, but I was disappointed with the lack of actually live parts as that is what it is being broadcast as.
It did include interviews which are presented in a way that it is hard to tell if they are live or not, but I assume once again they are a VT insert. They feel uncut and live because they are not as scripted as normal interviews and lack the professionalism of most VT interviews have. The emphasis on VT's does work in this show as they have obviously spent a lot of time working out a running order and producing the content. If the Vt's where rushed it would bring down the professionalism, however, most of the cutaways are of a good quality.
Finally, looking at the actual live content. The cameras have been set up well and the lighting and sound is perfect meaning this live segment is broadcast very professionally. This is clear evidence of planning and practice runs which is important to note for our shoots. We will have rehearsals but it is clear they are not a time to be laid back. Every moment of those rehearsals will be key to making the actual live show run seamlessly and to plan. I think that was one of the things that stood out to me the most in this research is that planning will be key to this project's success!
References
Supermarket Fashion - Casual | This Morning
Accessed on 28th Feb 2018
BBC, 2018
Accessed on 28th Feb 2018
Fashion Television Live
Accessed on 28th Feb 2018
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