Project Plan

Project Plan:
The fashion show event is held for the both students and staff of Blackheath High School along with parents, other family members and friends. This event is held every year and organised by the art department of the school along with a few volunteers from the students. Along with helping out for the Fashion Show on the fashion show committee, I will also be helping at the Fashion Show Society Club held once every week at a lunchtime for younger students who are making a garment in contribution to the event. I will be there to help anyone who needs it with things like sewing, pinning or using the sewing machine. Most of these students who attend this club are in Years 7 and 8 and alongside helping them, it is really rewarding to see how much confident they become with sewing and in themselves after a couple of weeks at the society club.
The qualities needed to be able to pull off an event in such a large scale with about over a hundred students involved and about twohundred audience members, will definitely to be organised, which I feel is one of my strongest skills but I will be able to improve on my organisation skills and make sure to keep on top of everything. Remaining calm during stressful scenarios is definitely another major quality needed when working on this project, as especially when it will get really close to the show, a lot of models and designers, as well as most people, if not all, whom are involved will be definitely be getting nerves and stressing over details such as if they know the choreography. Another very important quality needed is to have very good communication skills, as that is vital when trying to give instructions to everyone else involved. If you yourself cannot communicate ideas and instructions on what to do, everyone else will not be able to understand and follow through with what is going to happen. Another key quality needed is to be able to take a lead on the workload and in the eye of the students who are involved. Leading those other members of the school who are involved with the show will be very important when trying to make sure everyone turns up to rehearsals and during rehearsals especially.
My role will require a lot of organisation work and also to help lead in rehearsals, but I will mention more specifics of my role below. However the leadership roles I would like to develop, are mainly to be more confident when talking and leading such a large group of students. I will definitely be able to work on bettering this skill as I will have a lot of practice during rehearsals on leading. I would also like to improve my motivational skills as I do know that it is inevitable to get stressed for the event, whether it is about knowing the choreography or fearing tripping over in heels on stage. I will need to motivate those students involved especially and remind them that is mainly about having fun and giving us all experiences to take away from the whole show.
My role relates to other roles by having to work in a team cooperatively, as the fashion show committee are in charge of essentially running the entire event. There will have to be several team discussions over what the next steps are and to delegate and share the workload. Therefore my role massively relates to the other members of the fashion show committee as it is imperative that everyone has a sense of team work and communication skills for the event itself and event planning to work out properly.
I am going to help organise the event, timings, tickets, advertising, fundraising and rehearsals for this fashion show. This will require a lot of planning and organisation skills which are some of my strongest skills. I will also have to do a lot of decision making which is the skill I would like to develop during this project. The tickets will need to be designed and printed, and given to the school office to hold on to and sell. The school office will be in charge of selling the tickets and collecting the money as it is the easiest and most accessible way for students, staff and family members or friends to go to collect and purchase rather than the team to go round selling. There is always someone present at the school office from around 7:30am till about 6:30pm which is convenient for people to go to get these tickets. Fundraising will need to be organised in order for the event to work, as from 4:00pm till 6:00pm there will be rehearsals taking place on the day of the fashion show and the show will start sharply at 7pm till around 8:30pm, so food and dinner will need to be provided for the models, organisers and hair/makeup/tech teams. There will need to be around £200-£300 raised for the food itself but more planning and budgeting on the food will need to be organised. The prices themselves of the tickets will need to be organised in accordance. Also this event is fundraising for the Sixth Form Ball Prom which will be for the sixth form students at the school later on in the year.
I will motivate participants involved in my project through encouragement and helping them with their own work needed to be done in contribution to the event. I will also need to keep all those involved up to date with the actual dates of rehearsals and date of events along with timings. I will be organising my own catwalk in contribution to the event so I will need to organise my own models as well with rehearsals, timings and locations to rehearse.
More specifically, I will be organising mainly the models during rehearsals and making sure that everyone attends these rehearsals (unless of course there is a valid reason as to why they cannot attend) and to make sure rehearsals run smoothly and that everyone knows where to go and when to come on to stage during these rehearsals. I will also be choreographing some of the catwalks so again that is another of my main roles. I will mainly be focusing and running rehearsals and extra sessions alongside these whole department rehearsals for individual catwalk rehearsals, so that we do not waste time in the whole department rehearsals learning the catwalks themselves, as the main point of the main rehearsals are just to run through and present and practice the orders of the walks. These will be my main responsibilities; organising models and tech team, and organising rehearsals. Alongside these main roles, I will also be doing what I have mentioned prior which also extend on to what I have to do in my role. I will also be attending meetings with the team to organise and delegate tasks in preparation for the fashion show.
The main people who are organising the fashion show alongside myself, are of course the art department at my school with Mrs Gilbert (textiles teacher) taking the leading role, alongside her are two more students organising the show; Ana and Eve who are A Level students taking either art or textiles A Level. There are of course so many other people involved with this fashion show, with about 100 students getting involved for this one night event. These students will either be working as the runners, other individual catwalk organisers, on the technician team, makeup team, hair team, models or hosts of the show. Mrs Gilbert (textiles teacher) is the one who will supervise and move everything along in the right direction for the show with myself, Eve and Ana helping out. There will be a model casting organised for catwalk organisers to see and pick out their models for their own walks in contribution to the show. There will be about a team of six runners in the show to make sure everything runs smoothly during rehearsals and in the actual event. This team will need to be very organised and be able to remain calm during stressful situations as they are essentially in charge of the running of the show and managing the time and making sure everyone is where they are meant to be, when they are meant to be there. These runners will be chosen closer to the time of the fashion show. The individual catwalk organisers are the people who make their own collections for their own catwalks to put into the show. These catwalks are the basis of the whole show with two break intervals during them with performers which will need to be organised. I am also one of the individual catwalk organisers for the event with my own collection for my walk in contribution to the show. This role will include the responsibility of selecting and managing the models and organising individual rehearsals for the models. As well as choreographing a walk for their catwalk. This role requires a high level of organisation and communication skills to be able to lead and direct your individual walk in the way you would like it. There will be two hosts which will host on the night of the show. Their roles are to essentially lead the night smoothly and narrate to the audience what will be happening at the show alongside small descriptions of each catwalk and performance.
There are quite a vast number of resources needed for this event such as the money needed to cover the food and refreshments aspect of the show; as both organisers, models and all those involved with organising the show will need their dinners provided, and the guests will need refreshments and nibbles provided too. More resources include the printing of the posters which will serve as the main type of advertising, alongside the printing of tickets which will be needed. The location of the show and rehearsals will need to be booked. This location will be the school's theatre building which has a large stage which can be moved around to have two aisles for walking down with steps in the middle, which will be an excellent set up for the show. Of course materials such as thread, sewing machines and fabric will be provided at school for the designers, but will mostly be organised by the individual catwalk organisers including myself. The theatre will be booked from 4:00pm till around 8:30pm that evening of the show for rehearsals to take place alongside four other afternoons of rehearsals. Aside from these main rehearsals for all involved to run through the show and rehearse their walks, there will also have to be other rehearsals for individual catwalks to rehearse their own choreography.
The plans for the actual event itself is for guests to arrive around 7pm that evening at the school theatre and be inviting to their seats by some of the people manning the door who will also be checking the guests' tickets, whilst giving out the programme for the schedule of that evening. Guests will be able to help themselves to refreshments and nibbles whilst they wait for everyone to settle in and the show to start. When all the guests are inside and ready for the show to start, the hosts will introduce the show and give their introductory speech. After they have done this, they will introduce the first catwalk with the description of the concept behind the walk and other details. The first catwalk will go on stage for about three minutes and after they have walked their choreography to the chosen song, they will leave the stage and the hosts will come on again. This will keep happening until the catwalks and performers have all gone on stage and showed their performances. After all this has happened, the hosts will close the show with their final speeches and there will be a final curtain call to all who are involved to go on stage to take credit for all the hard work and commitment and take their final bow in front of the audience. After this there will be a thanking ceremony in place to thank Mrs Gilbert for leading the fashion show and for all the work behind it given by the Head Teacher along with congratulation everyone for their hard work and determination. After all this has taken place, the guests are free to leave and there will be a further opportunity for mingling of guests and everyone involved to catch up over refreshments and nibbles in another designated room. This will be the structure for the whole public event as of such. Of course there will be a lot of behind the scenes work that will take place before, after and during the event itself.
To advertise and promote the event, there will be announcements made in whole school assemblies regarding the event and letting the whole school aware of the dates and timing of the show. There will also be announcements in form times during school to all the classes from year 7 to 13 of the school. Aside from promoting the event through oral messages, there will also be posters designed and hung around the whole school to publicise the event and encourage all to come and buy tickets for the event. The posters will be designed by Eve Hurst who is a textiles and art student at the school who is currently in year 13 taking her final year in A-Level. The team had a discussion and thought it was best to delegate this task to her as she also has a very keen interest in photoshopping and designing, along with graphic design and advertising, so we all unanimously agreed that she should do the poster and she also kindly offered and volunteered to do so in the first place.
I will know if the event has gone successfully if the event itself runs smoothly on the night of the show, with no major incidents and that everyone enjoys themselves. The key thing is to show off the collections of all the designers during the event and to show off the amazing musical and media talent at the school through the performers who will perform during the intervals. If the guests and all those involved in working in the show have a great experience, that will show that the event has been successful.
To collect feedback at the end, I will create a general questionnaire on SurveyMonkey.com with questions on how the show went, how people found the show, if it was enjoyable and a few other questions. I will also ask them to rate the show out of 5. I will probably be making two sets of questionnaires; one for the people involved in the show and another for the guests, so I can ask more specific questions and receive feedback from both aspects of the show; on both the organisation and all the behind the scenes, alongside how a member of the audience found it. To monitor progress, I will try to write a log after team discussions, team decisions and rehearsals to be able to monitor the events that happen and to evaluate the progress made.
Things such as accidents or injuries could happen either in rehearsals or in the actual event as the majority, if not all models will be walking in heels so that could be a potential trip hazard. The stage itself is also quite high up so falling off the stage could be another hazard, but to avoid these issues there will be certain rules in place for all catwalks. Such as to not choreograph the walk to go to near to the end of the stage or near the corners where someone could potentially fall off. The songs also have to have a clear tempo and beat that is not too fast as rushing the models when walking in heels could potentially be dangerous. However if any accidents like these mentioned above do happen either when rehearsing or on the actual night of the show, the main priority is to see if the model is okay and not hurt, but there will mostly be a first aider present on the night of the show, should this happen.
Some other incidents which could go wrong during the whole process of the show, could be things like the show running over late or starting late. If this was to happen, it would not be such a major issue as there will also be a chance to mingle in another room over more refreshments and nibbles after the event so the audience do know to expect the event and after event to run over the 8:30pm mark. Another thing that could go wrong is that a choreography of a catwalk could go wrong, but if this was to happen the models should just act like there is nothing wrong happening and to carry on with what the walk. However realistically there will be a lot of rehearsals put in place so that models should know what they are doing in the choreography. There will also be extra rehearsals put in place for those catwalks who need a bit more rehearsals, but the individual catwalk organisers should know and will be reminded politely that these extra rehearsals will need to be organised in their own time aside from the major rehearsals held for everyone involved.
What I need to do next is to help organise the model casting for the models needed for the individual catwalks and find about two performers to perform in the two intervals during the show. Next it will be finding a date and time suitable and being able to book the school theatre. Then to finalise and find volunteers to be either runners, on the tech team and hair/makeup team. After all this has been done, it will be time to design and advertise the fashion show and print, sell and distribute the tickets. The messages in assembly will have to be made and the posters that will act as the main part of advertising and promoting the event, will be put up around the school.
The main aim of this fashion show event is to showcase the talent of the art and textiles students in the school, along with the tech team, hair and makeup team, models and performers. The outcome will be that parents and other members of the audience will be able to view this event and recognise all the hard work made by the students. Another aim of this fashion show event is to also publicise the art department and recognise the capability of the department as a whole and to promote taking these creative subjects to younger students watching as members of the audience.
My plan to maintain progress and feedback is to create online questionnaires on SurveyMonkey.com for during and after the project in order to receive instant feedback to know what to improve on whilst working on this project and also to receive an overall reflection on the project from other people working on the project but also audience members. I have attached the questions, links and answers from my online questionaries in the next section, and reflected on the comments and feedback made.
I will be looking in to and exploring health and safety risk later on in the project, but I also have to consider some of the practical risks involved in this project. For example:
-Lighting set up
-Cat walk set up
-Rehearsals
-Everyone being able to attend
-Garments being ready in time
-Hair/make up
For lighting being set up, the school's technician team will mentor some students and will be also working alongside them to work on the lighting. The technician team will teach some students who signed up to be in the technician team on how to use the lights and programme them and also how to use specialist equipment. The technician staff and the student team will be able to rehearse prior to whole department rehearsals but will be rehearsing in the whole department rehearsals as well to experiment with the equipment and also with what light goes best with each walk. The lighting equipment itself; so the spotlights and other lights will be set up with the staff technicians and caretakers prior to rehearsals, alongside with setting up the stage, so when it gets to rehearsals, everything will be set up ready to go. They will begin to set up a week before rehearsals so they can prepare the actual stage and lights, and also it gives some of the catwalks a chance to have a run through before the real rehearsals using the actual staging. These lights and equipment are already bought and owned by the school and are just kept in storage so the staff technicians and caretakers will be able to set these up once taken out of one of the rooms at school. The stage in the theatre is usually set up as a standard stage set up but for the catwalk, we need to have two aisles coming out and we will have steps in the middle for models to walk down closer to the audience for closer ups. The steps are usually always present in the theatre but will have to moved more central stage which will be a very easy job and will not take long at all to do, however the aisles will take slightly longer to set up but the school theatre stage has movable blocks of stage so this again will be about repositioning the blocks to fit the aesthetics of a standard catwalk stage and will take less than a week for the staff technicians and caretakers to se this up.
Another practical issue which I mentioned was about everyone being able to attend. This means models, designers, tech, hair and makeup team specifically being able to attend meetings (where applicable), rehearsals and the actual show. Once the rehearsals dates and times are confirmed, the plan is for a letter to be sent out online but also given out to students to read at home and show parents when rehearsals are so that everyone is aware of the timings and dates. These rehearsals will be compulsory for everyone involved to attend, and if someone cannot make it they will need to email or tell us in person why they won't be able to make it prior to a rehearsal. There a few rehearsals so it is expected that there will be at least one person out of everyone involved who will be sick one day and won't be able to make it. This will not be such a big issue as there are quite a few rehearsals out in place and if anyone's catwalk lacks in practice, extra sessions will be run to rehearse again. However, if someone is not able to make it to the real show due to illness etc, then it will be imperative to be aware of this and find an appropriate substitute. This will not be so big of a disaster if it were to happen as there were a lot of year 7s who signed up and came to model castings who unfortunately were not offered a role as a model due to the high amount of students wanting to do so, so this means that it will most likely be possible to find a substitute for a model who is unable to attend the actual night of the show. There are a lot of people involved so if someone is unable to attend the actual show, then they will receive their credit and mention in the programme, but there so many people getting involved that it is very likely that other members from a specific team will be able to fill their role or find a suitable replacement.
For practical issues regarding garments being ready in time, this should not be a problem as there will be deadlines to give in garments before rehearsals even start so this will put a time pressure element on designers to complete all designs before a certain date but then if this deadline is not met, there will be a while before actual rehearsals start, even before the dress rehearsals where garments will definitely be needed.
Hair and makeup should not have any issues as there will be several volunteers and some catwalks will be doing their own makeup so there should not be a strain on time on getting ready. Participants will also bring in their own makeup and hair styling equipment to get ready so there will be a lot of equipment in case anyone forgets for example.