Minutes

Carly Rowena

On 8th March I met with Carly Rowena to discuss working with her. This was both for a personal and potential client use. 

Originally I applied to be her 'apprentice' - her business sidekick to help with her social media and YouTube channel. I brought the idea of this also being for my PMP, but this will not be the case.

The content produced will not be anything relevant for this assignment and so there would be no point trying. However, I will go forward with my application to be her business sidekick for work experience.

Proposal

Leaf Care Services

Leaf Care Services

Questions For Interview

• What do you do on a day to day basis? What's a typical 'day in the life' for you as a home care worker?
• What, in your opinion, is the best thing about your job? Would you say it's rewarding?
• Can you describe the job role for me?
• What are the benefits of being a carer?
• How would you recommend Leaf Care Services to someone who may be looking for a home care job?

Pitch & Script

Leaf care services are a home/dom care service. They employ carers who work from a rota tailored to both them and the people they care for. Home care as a service can provide people with the much sought after dignity and freedom they seek while still getting the care they need to go through every day. This can be through the carers helping them get ready in the morning, giving medication, taking those who need it to the toilet, and more. Carers work both independently and in pairs, depending on the call. It’s quite a flexible way of working and can be very rewarding. You can work both as a driver or a ‘walker’, and if you’re on a double up call they tend to pair walkers with a driver. Leaf Care’s office is located on Dereham Road and is easily accessible.

Leaf Care Services are always on the look out for new staff, but now more than ever as they’ve taken on calls from a different company. This means there’s more people to look after, and so they need to recruit more staff.

My idea is to create a recruitment video for Leaf. I’ve researched recruitment videos for other care services, and have planned mine accordingly.

Usually recruitment videos for care services use paid actors to ‘stand in’ for the carers and give a fake account of their job. I’ve decided to use real carers who will give a real account of their day to day. This is to get a real, truthful view on what it really means to be a carer.

I will follow a few carers around on their calls to get the shots I need, such as them arriving at someone’s house.

For privacy reasons, however, I will be having to avoid going in to people’s houses to get shots of the carers working, so I will be getting my mum, or my sister to act as if they were caring for someone round my grandparents house.

 To be a carer, you have to be over the age of 18 or doing an apprenticeship. I will also cover what it is to be an apprentice for Leaf Care in my video. So I will mainly be targeting those aged between 18-40 with my recruitment video. It will be an in depth, but short “educational” video on what a carer does, and why Leaf is a good company to work for. My audience would be both male and female, working class, from different backgrounds. Home care or live in care is a job that you can easily do in your gap year, while travelling around to make sure you have a bit of money before you travel again. Especially live in care, as it gives you a roof over your head. This means this sort of job is great for those who are in or taking a year out before they start university. The lifestyle of my audience would be one where they need a flexible job where they can almost ‘choose’ when they work, such as new parents, young adults, or those looking to work more than one job. My video would be shared online mostly, so would be aimed at those who are already looking online for a job in care, but are still researching what the job entails.

You will see carers doing their jobs, making tea, making beds, arriving, etc.

There will also be interviews so that I can get an account of the job from their perspective, which will be used as both the interview itself and a voice over on the clips of the carers doing their jobs.

It will have music that fits the tone of the video, so soft, gentle tracks.

This does follow the codes and conventions of current practice (play video)

The only difference is, I will be using the carers, not actors, to get a very real video.

This is a rough draft of my storyboards. I’ve included all the cut aways and GVs that I wish to include. Obviously while editing these things may change and Katie from Leaf Care Services will let me know of any changes she wishes, and these will be implemented too.

To get my product ‘out there’ to the audience, I will upload it to the Leaf Care Services YouTube channel (or make them one if they don’t have one already). They can then use this link to share across their social media, or embed in their website or with any vacancies they wish to promote somewhere.

To get feedback from the client I will be sending Leaf Care Services a copy of the finished video, so they can then use it as they wish. Katie from Leaf Care will send me feedback which they have received or from herself, and I will make any improvements necessary.

Storyboards

Leaf Care Services

Leaf Care Services

Katie Gibb is regularly emailing me through contact details for people who have said they are interested in being a part of my recruitment video. 

Above is the email I'm sending across to everyone. Through this we will organise a good time to film at college, and I will book relevant equipment/studios for when I will need them. 

I have interest from three people to do more than just an interview, so with these people I will follow them round while they're working to get shots of them doing what they do best - caring for people. 

Minutes

Leaf Care Services

Today I met with Katie Gibb & Rebecca Stamp from Leaf Care Services to discuss more in depth what the project is, what they want, what my role will be, and anything they wish to add.

We discussed people who could be in our film, and Katie said she'll send me across a list of emails and names of people who may be interested to take part, so I can email them, tell them about the project & work with each other to find our availability.

We talked about the techniques and conventions in usual home care recruitment videos and what the style of this one shall be. 

Katie asked what her role in all this was, and I told her she was my client, it was her say what was to be put in and taken out of the video once I show her an edit. She said I had basically full control over the structure of the production and what I film. 

Form and Style Development

Leaf Care Services

Researching recruitment videos for home-care & live-in care.

This recruitment video features accounts from both staff and customers of the service, explaining what they do, what the role entails, the type of person you have to be. Customers explain how they feel, how to carers make them feel dignified and cared for. The accounts from staff are done interview style in front of a white background (most likely green-screen) and edited to soft, calm music. Interviews with the customers are done in their own home. There's a voice over doing further explaining about how they're looking for new staff, further information about the role, and more. The video ends with a mobile number and website address, alongside the company logo.

This video by Bluebird care is more tailored towards live-in care. The video follows the same pattern as the previous one, with the staff in a more professional interview location. The staff who work are wearing their uniform. This video features more shots of the staff doing their job than the previous, with the video focused on one girl making a bed, making food, helping her customer get ready for the day. This type of recruitment video tends to keep more towards soft, approachable style with their staff, with them explaining how rewarding it is to be a care worker. 

Cross Keys Care went with a different approach to their recruitment video, using more of a 'day in the life' style video. It features shots of the staff working, talking to their customers, visitors, etc. They explain the benefits of working for Cross Keys Care as they do their day to day jobs, making tea, making beds, greeting people all while explaining the role. The video features a clock in some places, to show that time has gone on, fitting with the 'day in the life' style video.

This video uses emotion to play with the viewers feelings. It starts sad, saying that people are sad at 'the end' of their independent living. It picks up after a minute of emotional shots, a voice over explaining how lonely it can be in a care home. This video is more tailored to customers, not staff. It explains that live in care could be the right thing for your mum, your dad, or your loved one. It explains that live-in care could prevent the inevitable 'end' from happening by allowing those who just need a bit of extra care to live in their own home. 

Carly Rowena

Back in December, Carly Rowena tweeted asking if anyone in Norwich would be able to become her 'apprentice' in terms of helping her with her social media, and video production in regards to her YouTube channel. I thought I'd include this on my list of ideas & potentially have Carly as a client as the videos and social media promotion would be really relevant to this assignment and it would also be great work experience to go alongside this course. 

The emails following these had personal information (mobile numbers, addresses at where to meet, etc) so I didn't include them for safety and privacy. 

I'm meeting Carly on the 8th March at lunchtime to discuss the role, and potentially put across this assignment and see where we go from here.

Leaf Care Services

Second stage contact between me & Katie Gibb at Leaf Care Services, organising a meeting to discuss this project further. Meeting scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday 2nd March.