Audience Feedback

Focus Group
As a part of auidence feedback we held a focus group with our class to see what they thought of our ideas for our video so far. Having doing this give a great idea of what peoples opinions are on our project. We presented our storyboards and out intital ideas to the group to see what they thought and if they could give us any feedback and advice on what we could change to make our video more effective.

When holding out focus group we didn't already know what we would be doing on our editing so we ask the group what they thought would suit our video in terms on editing. Here were some ideas they gave us:

• Hazy effect on the picture when having flash backs of a memory
• Have a more saturated or maybe black and white effect on the memory

Final Screening

Once our music video product was complete we had a final screening to an audience on an interactive white board. We also gave the audience a quick questionnaire to fill in after they had watched the video. By giving them the questionnaire this allowed us to get audience feedback of what they thought of the video.

Questionnaire:

1. What sex are you?
Male Female


2. What is your age?
16- 20
21- 30
31+


3. What music genre do you listen to?
Pop
Rock
R’n’B
Indie
Classical

Other (if so, please state) ____________________


4. What music video has caught your attention in the last year, and why?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


5. Did you like the song in the music video?
Yes No


6. Did you like the music video that you have just watched?
Yes No


7. Did you understand the narrative of the video?
(Please circle your choice)
1: Understood → 4: Didn’t understand

1 2 3 4


8. Did you think the setting complimented the song? And if yes or no, then why?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


9. What elements of the Karima Francis video did you like?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


10. What did you think about the use of special effects in the music video?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


11. Did you understand the use of special effects?
(Please circle your choice)
1: Understood
2: Moderately understood
3: Understood a little
4: Not understood at all

1 2 3 4


12. Do you think there could be improvement to the video, and if yes then what in your opinion?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Changes and Development

During our planning stage of this project, we made a couple of changes to our initial ideas as they didn't happen to work out in the end.

Actresses
One specific change was to do with our actresses used. Initially we had chosen to use Julianna Ehren and Bonnie Collier.

But due to time schedules and lesson clashes with when we needed to film, we had to change actresses in order to start with the film production. In the end we decided to use Liberty Jeffery and Nicola Sands.


Setting
We had to change our filming schedule from time to time, because our video was outside based we had to make sure that the weather outside was apporopriate for the video.

My group couldn't do any filming on days when it was raining hard, as it wasn't the setting and image we neccessarily wanted for our music video. This therefore slowed down the filming process and becomes a problem when having to get it complete.

During days when it was raining, some of the time we changed plans to do parts of the filming that we could do, for example the parts inside. This way we didn't loose as much time due to the weather.


Blog Type
Another change to this project is that I decided to change the type of blog we used. At the beginning of the project I started off with using EDU blogs. This choice wasn't my favourite as it was limited in many ways. I was then advised by an ICT teacher to maybe try blogger. I found this system a lot easier to use than the first.

It was easy to use and much more simply laid out and adjustable. I was very glad to have changed blog type as this made it much easier for me to put all my research and ideas into it rather than struggling with the first type.

Bi- Weekly Log of the production

Week 1- End of October
As a group myself and Libby started planning our ideas from our music video research that we would like to include in our own. We researched different genres to analyse their forms and conventions and then we pulled our research together with some added conventions that we liked the look of.
Start storyboarding and filming as well.

Week 2-
In the second week we started to do all our filming to get that done so that we could see how we would piece together our video and choose the right particular shots.

Week 3-
In this week we carried on filming and started putting the beginning of our video together and figuring out which types of effects looked best. We also chose our shots from the filming that we'd already done that we had decided to use in our final product.

Week 4-
Carried on our editing and putting the music video together. We also had our first viewing of what we had so far and our other ideas from our class focus group. This allowed us to get feedback on what they thought so far and any changes that they felt were needed.

Week 5-
Carrying on editing, making sure that the visuals follow along with the lyrics and that the wasn't any problems with the camera work. Also thinking up new editing ideas along the way.
Does one particular scene work better with saturated colour or not?
And is this reverse motion effective?

Week 6-
Still focusing on getting the editing completed in this week, but also starting to research different cd covers from different and similar genres to ours. By doing this I got a general view of the conventions on each cover held and it gave me ideas as well on the type of things I might like to include in my own.

Week 7-
Particularly focusing on getting to the end of our editing and working on what to put. We shot one last scene just so we could have a little bit more footage for the video.

Week 8-
In this week I moved on to my ancillery tasks. I took various pictures that I could use and chose out of a possible 7 which to have for my front cover and which to have for my back cover. Once having done this I started producing my cd cover on Corel Draw and editiong the picture on Adobe Photoshop.

Week 9-
I carried on with my cd cover design but also started researching various music single advertisements and what kind of magazines advertise my particular genre type?

Week 10-
In week 10 I used Corel Draw again but to design my advert this time. I played around with images and colours until I found the right contrast. I then took a look at the type of wording that is typically found in music advertistments.

Week 11-
I carried on with my ancillery tasks, finishing my cd cover and advertisment. Then showed them to members of my target audience to see what they thought about them. Whether they would see my product, and would it make them want to purchase the cd?

Week 12-
In this last week I touched up and added any finishing touches to my music video, cd cover and the single advertisment, before it was needed to be handed in to be marked. Once all our class had finished their products, we had a focus group within our class and also handed out questionnaires to our target audience and got them to watch the music videos. By doing this we got feedback from our audience as to what they thought.

Planning the filming

Before my group started filming we had to plan our time schedule and mainly the settings of our filming.
We chose our locations:

• The town centre
• Dunorlan Park
• Southborough Common
• Libby's house
• Grounds in the school

We ended up chosing these places either because they were convienient to get to and also if they were aesthetically pleasing places.

During the filming stage of our project we chose numerous days in which we filmed in different locations for different scenes.

Technology

Throughout our production work to produce both our music video and our ancillery tasks; a music cd cover and an advertisement for the cd/release of the song me and Libby will be using many types of technology to assist us.

During our filming we used technology such as a video camera to shoot our underlying film and the core structure of our music video. Once we shoot our film the programme that we will be using to produce our video will be Pinnacle Studio 12. This is where we can get to see our video in the making on a timeline and it allows us to add effects to the film such as colour saturation, slow motion, fades for the next shot.

Producing a cd cover and advertisement, the technology I will be using will be a digital camera to take the photographs. Then to enhance and edit my photographs in order to manipulate them I will be using a programme called Adobe Photoshop. When edited my cd cover pictures and advertistment will be produced in Corel Draw where I can add extra colours and play around with the layout of my pictures and the text.

Planning the music video

We recorded our initial ideas onto a storyboard (pictures below). In doing this it showed us a step-by-step of the camera shots, angles and different settings that we wished to use in our music video. Doing this is allowed us visualise our video before we actually started to film, if we didn't like something or felt that the shots had to go in a different order then it was simple enought to rub it out of the storyboard and draw it into another box.


The story boards below show our ideas at the beginning of the project. We have written notes about the camera angles and shot types we wanted to do and drawn pictures to show what actions we would like to have and what setting we would like our video to be shot in.

Here in our first storyboard is the opening part of the song. We want our first shot to be of the main girl walking in a rural setting and sitting beside a tree. We then wanted a birds eye view shot of the book whilst its being opened to show the audience that the book is a key feature of the storyline and it also links to the lyrics of the song.

In this second storyboard we wanted to show the audience the girls memory of her partner, telling her story. So we chose shots to cut back and forth between different memorys and different parts of a memory with her in the present time with the book as was seen at the beginning of the video.

Camera angles that we thought would be effective was close-ups of the two females holding hands, long shots of the scenery and the couple together, with maybe the use of a slow zoom in to allow the audience to get the feel of emotion from the performer.

This third storyboard shows some more different camera angles that my group wanted to include. Close-ups again, but this time of the book and the words 'the story' being written. Also we liked to include a slightly high tilted angle shot of the girl reading the main book.

Mood Board

Here I have included a mood board of all the things my group would like to include in our video, and also to get a general feel for the type of mood we are going for.

Initital Ideas...

When we had chosen the song we were going to do our music video to, we had to think of ideas that we wanted to do with our video. We noted down some of the initial ideas we had for our video:

• Have our video in an outside scence
• Have flash backs of the two girls together, have it as a memory
• When we have the memory we want to have the sunshine so it adds to the effect that it is a happy memory
• Want to include a book in the video, which is the story she is writing about herself and the girl she is in love with.
• Some memories to be done by handheld camera so that it looks like the girls has videoed them both together.

Having these ideas we wanted to then think about what types of shot we would like to include in our video, as the video is about a realtionship the shot types have to be personal and close so that the audience can get the vibe that they have a close relationship and so also they can relate to the video. Having these ideas we then discussed and wrote down the types of shots we would like to include.

Camerawork ideas:

• Close ups
• Mid shots
• Establishing shots
• Long Shots

Costume ideas:

Being an indie soul song, the costume has to relect the type of genre to reinforce the viewer with the visuals they are seeing. Myself nd libby thought that when filming sunny shots that floral and light colours would be best to use for the costume, this is due to the fact that it automaically makes the viewer think of summer. And generally when we think of summer, its a happy, laidback time.

In the video I used two of my female friends as the actresses; Nicola Sands and Libby Jeffery. The reason I used just to two actresses is because they were the main feature of the song, aas the song is about the love one girl has for the other. But also because it was easier to schedule filming shoots when all three of us were around.

Location/setting ideas:

From our first initial ideas, we wanted to shoot our filming in the outdoors as much as possible, in a sunny setting making it seem like its a memory.

Primary ideas for different locations were places such as:

• School fields
• Playing fields in Pembury
• Southborough common
• My house
• Libby's house
• Dunorlan Park
• Calverly Park
• A little remote coffee shop

Annotations of the lyrics...

As part of our research into Karima Francis and her songs we decided that together we would annotate some of the lyrics from her previous songs that she has recorded. The lyrics we have anotated are Karima Francis- The Author. We have looked in depth as to what this song is about and have written what we think the song is trying to say.

From this song and reading the lyrics we found that she is clearly singing about another girl who she is having a realtionship with. She is expressing how she feels about her and that she has written a book of the memories they have shared together. This song is definatly love orientated and passionate about how she feels for another person in her life.


Initially our idea was to have male and female actors for our music video, but seeing as the song is really about the love between two females we then changed our mind. When annotating the lyrics we picked out cetain words that we felt was important to portray in the song. Such as 'sun, the story, smile' The reason for doing this was so we could get initial ideas of parts that we thought were important to include in the song.

As part of our research we had to analyse other music video by our chosen artist, seeing as Karima Francis didnt have any music we vidoes we had to annotate other lyrics from her songs. We chosen the song Again to annotate as it is one of the only songs she has released, here are the annotated lyric: (to see them in big just scroll over the image and they will appear in a different windows to view)