Proactor project

Proactor IP Project Group Report

Webelevate 4.0 Digital Skills Academy – DIT Team 14

Tim O’Sullivan Malcolm Goggin Ryan Dardis

Ray Hyland

Shane Collier

1. Introduction The Proactor website will provide a platform for actors to read scripts, learn, train, practice, create self tapes and hone their acting skills by interacting and sharing skills and knowledge between fellow actors. Both actors and professional coaches will be able to offer the services in an online peer to peer situation with an option to record their interaction. The person offering the coaching can choose the rate they supply their service for in blocks of 15 minutes or offer it for free.

2. Target Audience The main audience for this application will be actors between 18-70 years. It will primarily be used at home on a PC, laptop or smartphone. The aim is to attract actors who are looking for help with simple tasks like running lines with another actor to learning a new skill or even teaching a skill. Seasoned actors and those new to acting will find Proactor a great tool. (see appendix 7 and 10)

3. Research In order to validate a sound business case we were determined to provide third party validation from qualitative research sources.

Therefore, we formed two focus groups: 1. Focused on the Wider Acting Community - we partnered up with the Lorraine Brennan Management Group - one of Ireland's and The UK’s leading acting provision agencies. We compiled a survey (See Appendix) which was sent out to two sets of client’s the first was 100 proven actors, the second was an adhoc source of people involved in the sector (actors and non actors).

Survey questionnaire Survey Questionnaire No.1 Rough outline of questions contained in the survey No.1 1.

Age?

2.

Gender?

3.

Acting experience - (Years)?

4.

Acting qualification?

5.

Do you use acting coaches?

6.

If, yes for what skills? (List)

7.

Where do you go to find coaches? Referrals, Ads, Directories, Online etc

8.

Do you regularly access actor specific websites?

9.

If yes how did you find them? (List)

10. If yes what for ? (List) Reference, find Work, post profiles, Meet other actors etc.

11. Or If yes which is your favorite ? Why? 12. What other acting websites do you like? Why? 13. Tick the following sites you use regularly ?

14. Have you paid money to register with an acting website? How many? How much?

15. Have you used an acting website for coaching?

16. Which one?

17. What type of coaching?

18. How was the experience? What was the outcome 19. If you have used coaching online? If yes how likely would you recommend that website to a friend? 1-5 Why? 20. Did you ever get a part as a result of coaching from an acting website?

21. Have you found work from acting websites?

22. What other benefits from using acting websites?

23. What benefits/services would you like to see from an acting website?

24. What would your major complaint be from the acting websites you have used?

Results https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xKzzrKo1-j5HTUQEI_bZ-CYRapT1F0Aa_kgUSVKemys/edit#responses

2. The second Group was compiled of the most senior people we knew throughout the digital marketing & technology sectors (Amazon, Google, Avonmore & Microsoft), this was organised in a “Google Hangout” to gather opinions on our plan’s for Launching Proactor.

This proprietary research gained valuable insight and delivered the validation the client and their investors will require to grow the idea and the business.

SWOT Analysis Proactor SWOT Analysis Strengths · ·

Great branding ·Solid design ·Researched market ·Scope completed ·Project ready for development stage

Opportunities ○ Customers willingness use the tech given the compelling need. ○ Lots of Early Adopters in focus markets ○ Early mover Advantage ○ Largely untapped market

Weaknesses · Research based on small sample · Team limited experience of market · No budget · UI untested · No prototyping in scope · No MVP due to lack of coders Threats · ·

· ·

Impact of recession Impact of long-term Out of Work Actors with subscriptions Weak customer support Strong Brand recognition of competition

SWOT – Interpretation: Proactor will be focusing on its key strengths: product range, organisational structure and global operations whilst remaining realistic to its lack of financial resources in comparison to the competition

Competitor analysis

COMPANY

Smartactors.com

BACKSTAGE

IMDb CASTCALL CASTWEB FAME STREET

LRNG MEDIAVOLT

UKCASTINGNEWS

SERVICE

Acting coaches

Casting website

Ranking Website

COST

DETAILS

PURPOSE OF COU WEBSITE NTRY NOTES

$250*

Help from coaches Upskill

USA

$139

Articles and castings

AUDITIONS

USA

$150

Ranking and castings

RANKINGS

WW W

Casting website

Castings £120 and news AUDITIONS

UK

Casting website

Castings £159 and news AUDITIONS

UK

Casting website

Castings £160 and news AUDITIONS

WW W

Contact a coach

Search for a teacher Find a near you teacher

varies*

Casting website

Castings £95 and news AUDITIONS

News magazine

News for UK Film & Hear what's £180 TV going on

WW $15 TO W $99/MONTH UK

UK

THEACTORSENTER advice on acting / PRISE careers $80/HOUR

1 woman show

call her for advice

USA

SKYPEACTINGCLAS advice on acting / SES careers $80/HOUR

1 woman show

call her for advice

OZ

MYAUDTIONSTAGE Find participants

€99 Find €999/mont people for To find h reality tv participants

3 types of annual membership $250, $500 and $1500

Probably for agents

WW For casting W professionals

MASTERCLASS.CO M Video Tutorials ACE-YOURAUDTION

Audition help

RODROWLANDCO ACHING Acting technique

ACCENTHELP

$90

video tutorials from the Best

FREE

info on acting

Upskill

WW W

general

WW so generic it's W useless

Acting $100/HOUR technique Upskill

WW W very good

$24 per accent

Closed package accent

Accent learning

Free

Call business expert $/minute

WW To get advice W for business (USA)

Free*

Call a coding expert $/minute

Free

Computer experts Partnering

USA

Computer whizzes Free

Computer experts Help with $/minute computers

USA

Everything

Call anyone about anything

Ended in 2015, WW possibly too W many topics

Accent help

WW W

Website with interesting UX/UI and business models

Clarity.fm

Codementor AIRPAIR

Wizpert

*GOOGLE HELPOUTS

Business advice

Coding help Coding partner

Free

Help with coding

Help and advice

WW You can also W pay $240 or (USA) $400/month

Competitor Analysis (Broad Environment) Our research confirmed · · ·

English Language enjoys the biggest the number of online queries when it comes to acting, In terms of accent rating popularity of enquiry: 1. English, 2. American (US), 3. Irish & Australian.

The largest opportunity is in amongst the acting community is in accent coaching, Hits Per Accent – Data Hits Per Accent Search

US accent

10,000,00 0

24 English accents

25,000,00 0

British Accent

3,000,000

Any Accent

1.7m

Hugh Laurie - UK vs. US

20m

Irish Accents

1.5m

Source: Alicia Gerrard, Proactor Start Up Team, Survey Date: 5 July 2016 at 16:35, Subject: Competitors Proactor

Validating the Need All our validation and research documentation will be gathered by a combination of quantitative research using an online Survey (via Survey Monkey) and qualitative research by means of a focus group. The survey will be distributed to members of the acting community and a focus group will be set up to get some real qualitative insight into the market. The Proactor IP is widely connected in the acting community and will facilitate in collection of the data but all questionnaires will be presented so as not to bias the audience at the same time. .

4. Design Process The structure map The structure map also contains basic user flows to help the designers plan out insite navigation

Wireframes Read-through Request

Video upload wireframe

When the wireframes were approved by the IP, we could start developing more indepth, high fidelity designs based on the alpha UX requirements. To accomplish this, a structure map of the site was created as a blueprint for the final designs:

User Interface Design

Buddypress theme example available at: http://www.buddyboss.com/product/boss-theme/ During this research, we looked at using a royalty-free, open-source UI kit; libraries of pre-made assets and buttons. A UI kit would help us not only increase the design throughput, but also create a professional feel by ensuring that assets stay consistent across pages:

UI kit example

We settled on the “Vertical Infinity� UI kit (available at behance.net/gallery/8430007/Vertical-Infinity-A-Mega-Flat-Style-UI-Kit).

Vertical Infinity UI Kit

Landing page mockup

High fidelity prototypes We drew up the high-fidelity designs from which the MVP could be developed. The majority of assets used were heavy modified and recoloured: Login screen

User profile

Read-through request

Read-through-request Zoomed-in view of Read-through-request, showing some of the UI kit assets used

Once the final designs had been completed, the assets were exported through Photoshops “export assets� to then be handled by the web framework: Example of exported assets

Actual Proactor Explainer Page

Actual Proactor actors/coach Page