3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience research is vitally important for any media production. It must be sought at multiple points in the production process in order for it to remain effective throughout the entirety of the project.

The first piece of audience research we looked at was a questionnaire. We created a questionnaire to find out what our audience was looking for in a music video.

From the questionnaire we discovered that most people thought that a successful music video should have the narrative and the performance split of about 30:70. We did however go on to create a video with a much larger narrative focus than this. We did this because we wanted to break typical conventions of music videos, but also because we thought we would be more adapt at creating a more narrative focused video due to my skills at creating narratives as I had proved in the creation of the AS project.

In addition to the questionnaire, we questioned our audience after the video had been created. We did this through the Internet, as it was the easiest way of advertising our video.

One of the ways we did this was through the website ‘Youtube’. The video was uploaded to the website and then we asked for comments. In addition to just thee comments, Youtube also provided us with stats and figures we could use to gauge the age and home country of the viewers. We could see that our video was indeed popular with the people who were the intended audience. Youtube providing these statistics was helpful because a questionnaire is not the best way to get a response due to the large amount of people who do not reply to it, using Youtube we were able to gain information without people having to input it in themselves, using up their own time.

The other method we used was Facebook, using this Lizi asked friends if they would rate various aspects of our video out of 10. This provided us with some extra results in addition to the Youtube comments. Finally we attempted to contact the band to get their views on it but they did not respond.

Section 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The Digipak

A Digipak is the design for the CD case on an album or single. Its roots lie with music being put on records in the past; those records were placed in sleeves that bore the name of the music and the artist who had created it. The same principle lies with the CD Digipak. It serves the purpose of advertising the band and their brand image to their potential audience. When looking for music in a shop, the first thing you will see is the Digipak front cover, it has to draw you to the product in the first place before anything else. Digipak’s do this by showcasing an interesting image on the front cover. Bands have been known to use controversial or unusual images to catch the public’s attention.

Kanye West’s album art for ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ uses a sexually explicit image for its album art work in order to create controversy. Consequently, some music stores refused to stock the album until alternate artwork was provided. iTunes uses a pixelated version of the image.

Our Digipak does not use controversial imagery to grab the audience. Instead it serves the purpose of representing the bands image and style that a potential audience will have come to recognise. Our Digipak uses the white colour scheme with bright colours in the foreground. This corresponds with the colours in our music video.

Magazine Advert

A magazine advert has a number of uses. The main one being a way of advertising a piece of music in paper form for people who are interested in that particular genre of music. Of course, there is no way of physically showing the music to the audience so the magazine advert serves the purpose of providing an interesting image that should grab the attention of the people looking at the magazine sufficiently enough to prompt them into listening to the music online which will further encourage them to buy it.

Similar to the Digipak, a magazine advert also serves the purpose of creating a brand image for the band. The pictures used should bear some relation to the band and when an audience view it, they should instantly be able to make connections to other images that that band may have produced. This is what we attempted to do with our magazine advert. We used a theme that we had taken from an original idea used in the music video and placed it in both the Digipak and the magazine advert. The idea we chose to expand upon to create a band identity was the cards. During pre-production phase when we were deciding how our music video was going to be structured, we decided on using a shower of cards to signify the end of our video. This idea was then taken and incorporated into the ancillary tasks.

In terms of the different pieces of work promoting each other, I think that if someone was to see the magazine advert and then the Digipak, or vice-versa, they would be able to make the connection that the two were products of the same band, I would however say though, that the music video does not have a strong enough link with the card theme because the only use of cards were at two points when the main band member used cards because it was relevant with the mise-en-scene and at the end of the video. The reason we used less of the card theme in the music video was because we did not know what to what extent we would use the card idea. Looking back, we would have been better to simultaneously plan the ancillary tasks and the music video in order to maintain the strongest synergy between the three products.

When researching other bands, I discovered that bands generally try and portray a very strong image through their music videos; they often do this through the clothes they wear. Therefore I delegated costume designing to Lizi and she had to determine what clothes would appeal to an Indy/rock band. She came to the conclusion that the correct clothes to wear would be the skinny tie and cardigan combination, similar to the theme of Mumford and Sons.

Traditional media vs. new media is a topic debated by those knowledgeable in such areas. Traditional media consist of the older types of advertisement of media, which includes music television programs and magazines. These were founded before the internet and as such, provided music in that time period a way to get to there audience. These days, the popularity of the internet has prompted music distributors to showcase there work on the internet. The advantages of more traditional forms of media are that people without access to the internet are still able to access the music that they are looking for. This is, however, becoming increasingly less necessary because more and more people have, not just access to the internet, but access to a high speed internet connection. This is a crucial advantage to new media because now we are now capable of downloading music in a matter of seconds whereas before, if we wanted the latest release, we had to go into a music store and physically buy the cd.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

1. In What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

All 3 pieces of finished work

The Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItgwYGHGK7I

The Digipak

The Magazine Advert

How to get Audience Feeback in an Innovative Way

Media Progress - Editing & Digipak

After working on on the editing of the music video for a few weeks, I can report that it is coming along nicely. We have fully edited just ocver half of the finished product however we only have 5 - 6 hours of editing time left realistically so we are going to have to pick up the pcace somewhat. Early on in the editing phase we desided that we would get more more work done if we split our group into two. Me and Chris would be working on the editing on the the mac, while Lizi would start work on the digipak. We came to the conclusion that this setup would be more beneficial to maximizing effeciency because it appeared that 3 people working on the editing complicated matters whith everyone wanting differant things to put into the video.

In terms of editing, at this point, we have edited up to the point when Kieran enters the pub. Looking back on what we have done we have ended up putting much more performance in to compliment the narrative than we previously concieved. This is a postive change because our original plan possibly did not include enough shots of the band. It does mean, however, that we may in fact run out of time to include everything that we wanted in the finished product. We will just have to wait and see.

The Digipak, being created solely by Lizi at this point, is coming on very well from what I have seen from our quick group meetings at the start of every lesson. It would seem that Lizi, having quite a talent for photography, has been able to create some very interesting takes on the original card digipak we thought up. So far she has photographed and edited quite a few differant shots whith differant filter and colour effects. So, in conclusion, from what we have produced so far, I am very pleased however our editing will have to pick up the pace slightly if we are to finish by the end of next week. The Digipak is coming on brilliantly and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Filming Account

Monday 8th November

The day started with all of us meting in the common room and then finding a room for 2 hours to wait until the stage was free so we could set up our instruments. We had to wait because an English exam was in progress so there was little we could do apart from practice the scenes without instruments. The following 2 hours were spent practicing the shots for the ‘seduction’ scene so we could get it exactly right when it came down to filming it for real. We also had access to a plain white background (A SMART board) so Lizi was able to get changed in to her costume and we could film the ‘hair swishing’ scene there and then, as opposed to waiting till the end of the school day to film it.

All of this was going perfectly to plan until it we discovered that our bass guitar was broken. One of the strings had snapped on it so it was unusable. Chris and Rob had repeatedly tried to mend it in the last hour before we were due to film however it couldn’t be done so I had to make a directorial decision. I decided to scrap the bass guitar all together and change it to a synth keyboard, in addition to this I swapped Ben’s role of drum player around with Rob’s Bass as Ben had stated he could play a keyboard and Rob was at least mildly proficient with the drums. Once this had been decided we ran into yet another problem, The English exam had started slightly late and we hadn’t anticipated the amount of time it would take for them to collect the papers, I asked around and found out that the exam would be finishing 45minutes after we had hoped to start, this would not have given us enough time to film the whole thing before the end of school and, due to the school play, we would not have been able to continue filming after hours.

The situation was starting to look grim for us. We had one last chance to get filming done on time; the drama studio had been a possibility for us but we knew that it wasn’t finished being renovated. In a last ditch attempt to secure a location we went to the studio and luck would have it we ran in to the Head of Drama who suggested that we could use the studio for approximately 90 minutes before he had a class. This gave us just enough time to film everything we needed if we moved quickly.

We started by rearranging the drama studio to suit our needs while the half the team went to collect all the instruments we had booked previously. Once set up we quickly filmed the seduction scene and moved on to the performance. In all it took about 45 minutes to fully film the performance shots and then an added 10 minutes to get the card shower set up and filmed. We finished with, quite literally, 5 minutes before a class was due.

Overall I would say the day was a success because, for one, the weather was appalling so if we had moved the days around to film the outside scenes on the Monday we would have had a massive problem. In addition we filmed all the scenes we wanted within the time limit. It was, however, much more stressful than the Friday. This would have been due to the breakage of the bass guitar and the circumstances of the location; however we were all a little tired by then, so that may have been a cause as well.

Filming Account

Friday 5th November

The day prior to filming we had made sure all our team had been given their correct brief for the next day, they all knew what they were doing and we were sure that all necessary tasks had been carried out. It turned out that we missed one crucial element; we had forgot to collect the camcorder and tripod from school. Therefore, due to this error I had to change my itinerary slightly to accommodate collecting all the equipment at school before heading off to the bus stop with Lizi to go to Morton to meet Chris, Kieran and Rob. When in Morton we had a stroke of good luck, Rob’s mum who happened to be passing us at the time we all met up offered to give us a lift, which meant we arrived at Ben’s house (one of the filming locations) 20 minutes early.

Once set up we made a group decision to film the outside scenes first so as to avoid any potential rain, being as it was currently good shooting conditions. Our filming took place on a fen road and over a small river. Due to our choice of road, we encounter very few cars and even fewer pedestrians so we could be sure filming would not be delayed. All went to plan for the road scenes and we had approximately 1 hour to film the river scenes. This proved somewhat more difficult as the steep incline on the riverside meant that we had to get down very carefully and, adding the problem of us only having working phones to drop off the side of the river, we had to set up a makeshift net in order to catch Chris’s phone. After the initial setting up we did, however, get all the shots we needed and we were able to move on to the Pub to film.

Chris successfully convinced the owner of the pub to allow us to film inside in a small area around a table. It was here that we filmed the poker game. This all went to plan and we finished slightly ahead of time so we were able to leave and have lunch.

After lunch we filmed the remaining scenes in Ben’s house. This included the man leaving, the woman’s reaction and the ‘cheating’ scene, all of which did not prove too difficult to film, with the possible exception of ‘cheating scene’ taking a little longer than anticipated to film as it demanded a heightened level of maturity… from not just the cast but the ones filming it as well. Either way, we successfully filmed all the scenes we needed, with the one exception of the heart in the cappuccino cup, which could not be filmed as it turned out no-one actually knew how to make a cappuccino so we had to leave that shot out. Other than that one blip the whole day went almost exactly to plan.

Storyboarding

When storyboarding we looked at the basic shots we would be needing from our storyline work and then tried to imagine them as differant shots. The storyboard was far from a conclusive look at all the shots that would be in the production, it also didn't include any of the performance work. We had decided at an earlier date that in order to film a natural looking performance we would not officially designate specific shots to the performance, what we did instead is get the actors to mime to the song while we went about and filmed specific areas. We tried to get as many closeups as possible as we had descovered, by looking at earlier attempts to film music videos, the closeups had provided the best footage.

When it came to film the 'more difficult' scenes that would require some form of special acting talent, for example, the 'seduction' scene at the start, we filmed a practice beforehand so when it came to actually filming it, we could get it over and done with as quickly as possible so we could move on to the other shots.

Itinerary - Friday

9:30 Chris Waiting at North St. for
Bus

9:30 Jack, Lizi, Kieran Waiting at Bus stop bay

9:45 Jack, Lizi, Chris, Rob, Meet Rob at Morton bus
Kieran stop.

10:10 All Meet Ben at his house.

10:20 All Start filming marital
House scenes

12:20 All Have lunch at pub +
Review (Carvery)

1:20 All Film outside street scenes

3:20 All Return to pub to film
Mates house scenes

5:20 Jack, Lizi, Chris, Walk to Morton
Rob, Kieran

5:45 Jack, Lizi, Chris, Get bus back to Bourne
Kieran



Itinerary – Monday

8:50 All Meet in Common Room

9:00 All Meeting in A23

11:15 All Go to the stage and
Collect instruments

11:20 All Film performance shots

1:45 All Lunch in Common Room
+ Review

2:05 All Film on stage if possible

3:15 All Film hair swishing shot

4:15 All Finish

PLANNING FOR THE STORY

During the Holiday we spent 2 days working through the storyline until we got a narrative, a basic shot list, a prop list and a few test shots. (See Previous Post)

TESTING FOR POP PROMO

This is a quick video I made showcasing 2 of the more complex shots we are going to attempt.

The first shot shown is the card cascade that will be included at the end of the video. We were not sure of the angle or how best to throw the cards down to achieve the best effect. In the end we looked at several angles and decide that the best way of throwing the cards was to press them with the fingers until they came out.

The second shot is the hair swish. This shot is included at the start of the video. We attempted this shot out to see what kind of lighting would be best used for the video and what motion would be necessary to create the desired 'swishing' effect. The letters and numbers at the bottom of the screen correspond to the different filter effects I used in iMovie.

PROP LIST

After going through the shot list, we wrote up a prop list, of all the props that are needed, we have also given a person a responsibility to get and bring that prop. As they have said they have the prop they are willing to lend or they can get the prop for the music video. The props needed are listed below:

Step Ladder (Ben)

Desk light (Chris)

Suitcase (Lizi)

Playing Cards (All)

Female’s Phone

Males Phone

Dummy phone (Chris)

Cappuccino (Ben)

Cappuccino Cup (Ben)

Chocolate dust (Chris)

Heart Card stencil (Lizi)

Microphone (Lizi)

Guitar (Chris)

Drums (School- Jack)

Microphone Stand (School – Jack)

Drum Sticks (Ben

By Lizi Howard http://www.lizihowarda2advancedproduction.blogspot.com/

BASIC SHOT LIST

Scene 1

(Mid shot - the woman seducing the man (No emotion for the man)

(Fades in and out to the beat with a black screen)

Low angled close shot – a door with the man behind it

The door opens and the woman is with another man, we can see his arm.

Close up of woman’s head – Woman is swishing her hair in slow motion.

Close up of man’s face – lip-syncing ‘to this’ (emotion present)

Split screen – close up shot – woman and man writing notes (Sorry, I’m leaving) (Sorry, forgive me)

Close up shot – man leaving the key behind.

Mid shot – man taking the suitcase away

Door closes and then fades to black

Scene 2

PERFORMANCE

Mid shot - Side shot of the house door (lyrics – ‘I’m better off leaving now’

PERFORMANCE

Long/high Shot – Man running away (away from the camera) (Camera

Moving up) (lyrics – I just keep on running)

PERFORMANCE

Scene 3

Close up – Shot of the key as the woman see’s it and walks over.

Mid shot – Woman gets phone

Close up – Phone over shoulder

Mid shot– Phone next to ear

Long/high shot – running to the camera, stops, gets his phone out.

Close up – Man rejecting the call

Long/high – Continues running under the camera

Close up – Woman’s face (Emotion)

POV shot – Stirring the coffee with the heart in it.

PERFORMANCE (lyrics ‘You should come back, come back, come back and look for more)

Long shot – Man comes to a stop outside the pub and takes a breath (But love that run’s to deep)

Mid shot – Walks into the pub (inside the pub) Man walks in.

Close up shot – Man places the phone on the side.

Over the shoulder – Man walks by and see’s one of the friends with a hand of hearts.

Scene 5

PERFORMANCE

Mid shot – slow zoom to the man playing cards (emotion) (lyrics ‘You are the only reason I want it more’)

PERFORMANCE

Mid shot – the man is playing cards and the woman flickers in and out of the shot behind him. (Lyrics ‘I know I want to be on my own tonight’)

Scene 6

PERFORMANCE

Long/High shot – Running away and past the camera at the side.

PERFORMANCE

Long shot - sitting on a wall overlooking the river

Close Shot – Sitting on a wall overlooking the river

Over shoulder shot – looking at phone

Close shot – phone falling into the river

PERFORMANCE – WITH CARD SHOWER

-END-

STORYLINE/STRUCTURE

1. Woman tempting the man back to her by seducing him as she has the quality to seduce.

2. Man opens door to see his women with another man.

3. Woman turns around, (hair swishing shot) – White Background.

4. Man lip syncs to “To This.” and the pause. Shot of face!

5. Spilt screen, writing notes “I’m sorry, forgive me” “I’m Leaving”

6. Man leaving the house, leaves the key. Fades to black.

-

7. Performance.

8. “I’m better off leaving now” – Man walking by the side of his house

9. Performance.

10. “I just keep on running” – Man running away, down the street

11. Performance.

-

12. Woman finds the key he has left, she goes to ring him. He’s running, rejects the call. He carries on running, her face when he rejects stirs her coffee she made

13. Performance (You should come back, come back, come back and look for more)

14. Long shot of man outside pub taking a breath, and walking in. (But love that runs too deep)

15. Goes into pub to meet his friends, who are sitting down playing poker puts his phone on the side, one friend has a hand the heart suits, we see from over his shoulder. Subconscious object showing heartbreak.

-

16. Performance.

17. Zooms to the man sitting in a chair, showing his emotion via his body language while playing poker. (“You are the only reason I want it more”)

18. Performance.

19. The Woman flickers in and out of shot (“You know I want to be own tonight”)

-

20. Performance.

21. Running across the shot to the river (“I just keep on running”)

22. Performance.

23. Sat on a wall near river, looks at his phone realising he has #’s of missed calls, lets the phone slip out of his hands into the river.

24. Final Performance with card shower.

CASTING

In our Music Video the parts we require actors for are: Vocalist – Narrative and Performance, Guitarist – Performance, Poker Player for the Narrative, Drummer – Performance, Poker Player for the Narrative, Ex-Girlfriend – Narrative Poker Players (4, including Guitarist and Drummer) – Narrative, Mates House/Pub (Location)

AFTER HOLIDAY PLANNING WE DECIDED TO ADD ANOTHER CHARACTER IN:

We will also be including another male character who will be the guy that the woman cheats with. In order to avoid getting any other actor out I have decided to play this small part. It will only be a very quick scene so it should not take my attention away from my directorial duties.

After going through the options we had we decided to ask the following to appear in our music video; Kieran Gabbitus, Rob Slipper and Ben Robinson. And for the female part we thought it would be more beneficial if Lizi Howard was to play that part so we would not have to get another actor out for 2 days.

Cast List

Vocalist – Kieran Gabbitus

Guitarist – Rob Slipper

Drummer – Ben Robinson

Ex-Girlfriend - Lizi Howard

Poker Players – Rob Slipper, Ben Robinson, Chris Tyler

Cheater - Jack Marshall (Me)

COSTUME DECISIONS

In music video the right ‘image’ has on the video, and how it is viewed and the costume for the actors was somewhat important. I felt as the costume was important it had to organised efficiently so the right image could be portrayed. I started by going through the clothes available in local stores such as Asda, Tesco, Burton, Topman and The Officers Club, as I felt these shops would have the clothing that would fit to the look I felt was needed in the music video. By looking at the pictures available online of “The Colours” we felt it was necessary to use the image they have already created for themselves as an unsigned band. The Colours seems to have a smart casual look, so I searched through the shirts, ties, blazers, t-shirts, belts and coats that were available from local stores and fitted the image we wanted to portray.

The clothes below show the ideas for costume in the music video, however when filming we want to make use of the actors own clothes if they are similar and fit to the style.

However if these clothes aren’t available we would have to purchase them for the music video, so that right look was created.

Male:

Male 1 - in the Performance, Vocalist of band
Male 2 - in the Performance, Guitarist of Band
Male 3 - in the Performance, Drummer of Band
Male 1 - in the Narrative, Main Lead
Male 2-5 - in the Narrative, Playing Poker

Male 1 – in the Narrative, Beginning “fade to beat” shots

Clothing Ideas for Males parts -

-BY LIZI HOWARD (COSTUME DESIGNER) http://www.lizihowarda2advancedproduction.blogspot.com/

LOCATIONS

One element needs to be taken into consideration is the location where each of the parts of the video is going to be filmed. There are 5 locations that need to be identified and depends on where they are and what they are; permission needs to be granted to film there.

We need to find a location for each of these parts of the video:
- Performance Setting
- A Martial House- The Mate’s House/Pub
- Places/Streets he’ll run down
- Black Background set for beginning “fade to beat” shots

Performance Setting
The school stage would be used for the performance part. We might not see the stage as an actual stage, we could possibly lower the curtains and make the stage look darker and make it appear to look like a generic darker room

A Martial House A typical home, well cared for…

The Mate’s House/Pub
More messy than the marital house, men around the table playing poker.

Places/Streets he’ll run down
A typical street, near where we are filming for convenience.

Black Background set for beginning “fade to beat” shots
Same as the performance area, although it would be restricted to just showing the black background, we would not be able to tell it was a stage.

The weather also needs to be taken into consideration as it may have a impact on the shooting which we can’t control, although there isn’t many outside shooting, if it’s snowing, it would affect us as they mise-en-scene wouldn’t be right, as well as having take the risk in running down an icy road. Also as it is England the outside shooting, it will most probably be cold. So precautions would have to be made as it gets increasingly difficult to film in the cold weather. So the shooting would have to be planned inside and quickly but efficiently filmed when outdoors, reducing the time spend outside, which is something we learnt from out foundation production filming.

FOLLOWING THE HOLIDAY PLANNING WE HAVE DECIDED TO USE THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS FOR OUR PROMO:

The Performance Setting: We will be using the stage at RMC with a black background. If the stage is only free when we could not use it for whatever reason, we have secured a possible back-up location - we would use the Drama studio at our school. We have been told that black curtains will be being put up in the drama studio for when we wish to film so if, for whatever reason, we could not use the stage, then the studio would be a viable alternative.

A Marital House: One of our actors homes in a small village will be used for a marital house. It is tidy and fairly rural styled inside which will will fit stylistically with the pub and the running scenes. We will be using the kitchen, the hall, the lounge and the bedroom (for the separate 'cheating' scene). Lighting may be an issue in this location due to the dark walls so, to counter this, we will be bringing a very bright desk lamp which hopefully will solve this problem.

The Pub/Mates House: Ideally, we will be using the pub in Haconby, a small neighboring village for this location. If we can get permission to film in the pub then we will be able to create a poker game at a table. If, however, we are not able to film in this location then we will have to change the location to my home. We could use my dining room as it particularly light and I would be able to mess it up.

Street: For the street scenes, we will be filming on the Haconby roads. Due to it being a small village we would be able to film down the middle of the road without having to worry about to many cars. We will be using streets and a country road leading down lane to a river for the water shot when the main character throws their phone into a lake.

Distribution and Exhibition of our Promo

Traditional methods: Magazines, Adverts, Billboards, CD sales

Magazines are paid by the copyright holder of a piece of music to advertise. Certain music magazines will also write articles on bands which have the added benefit of increasing potential publicity as well. Traditionally, music was distributed through CD sales in shops such as ‘HMV’. These days, with the rapid advancement of MP3 sales the CD market has decreased exponentially and very few people buy CD’s. This is why many people have moved on to methods of new media.


New Media: MP3, Social networks, The Internet, Music Channels

These days music is more often than not, distributed through mp3 format over an internet sales. This has had a huge impact on the sales of CDs as MP3 has taken over the music industry as internet speeds have increased.

Social Networks have become increasingly popular, the most popular ‘Facebook’ having in excess of 500 million members. This has become a very important asset for music artists in order to publicise their work. Facebook groups and events allow other user to see what their favourite bands are doing and where they are performing. The internet as a whole has become the main source of publicity for many bands. As an example, you can listen to small sections of the current UK top 40 on BBC chart show website. MP3 distribution has also only become possible thanks to the internet, iTunes being the biggest distributor of single tracks and albums.

Music Channels also play a big part in the publicising of particular types of music. There are many, many music channels that play all genres of music. ‘4Music’ for example plays chart music whereas ‘Kerrang!’ plays metal. If our music promo were really being created to be distributed and exhibited then we would probably choose 4Music to play it primarily because of the large viewing figures for the channel and the variety of music they play.