After doing our audience research we changed our concept. We found that our original idea was quite boring and repetitive and this is what we didn't want. Therefore, we decided to add a narrative element into our piece and we chose to get rid of one of the performance sections. We wanted to keep the black background so we could experiment with strong lighting so we decided on dropping the white performance scene. We also wanted to keep the walking scene as this was our original concept.
For our narrative, we have decided to do flashbacks of the artist and a male before they split up. This allows the audience to have an insight into what the song is about. We have chosen to do three different flashbacks...
1. In a pub where they are playing pool.
2.In a living room where they are watching tv.
3.In a kitchen where they are eating dinner.
We wanted the performance of our piece to be the strongest part and therefore the chorus of the piece is mainly the performance parts.
This feedback was positive. They once again like the faced past changing of the shots as other audience members told us. They liked the overall concept of the music video and thought that it fitted well with the lyrics and feel of the song. With costume, they said they would like to see it simple rather than constantly changing throughout. This is as it would make it easier for them to follow and not make the audience disorientated.
After listening to what our target audience has to say we have decided that we need to make some changes to our original idea to make it more appealing to our demography. Changes we need to make include...
changing the pace
adding narrative
more movement of the artist
However, there are some parts we are going to keep the same such as the fast paced shot changes.
The video above shows both our Animatic storyboard and some negative comments on the work. We asked a group of young girls from our target audience what they thought and these were their views.
We asked them to be honest with us to ensure that our video could progress. Overall the comments were negative, they did not like the length of many shots as they were too long and not varied enough. Another issue was the lack of narrative scene as it was prominently performance based. They thought with the use of a narrative the longer shots would be better but not for performance. They also said that the pace of the video was tiresome. It was one pace the entire way through compared to other music videos where the pace alters between chorus and verse. But, they did like the section before the chorus where the shots changed quickly. They thought it made the video more interesting. Something else that they mention was that they enjoyed it more when the actress was more involved with the music which leads to to think that we still need to have performance based sections in our revised video.
As our music video is also aimed at young men as well as women we asked two boys to help us with our feedback. Overall, their feedback was neutral. They commented more on the technical elements of thew video such as the editing on the beat and the previously mentioned quick changing shots. Some negative feedback was that their was nothing interesting about it and was rather boring for them to watch. They found it repetitive and long.
To help us decide on the music for our our project we decided to do some audience research into what they thought was important when it came to artists, genres and other things...
We handed the questionnaire to 27 people (14 female and 13 male) all between the age of 12 and 20.
These are our results...
From the results we have found firstly that our audience prefer solo artist more than bands. I think this is because they can become personally attached to an artist more than all band members. One participant also identified with this by by saying they could relate to a single artist better and see their personality.
Also, we found that the most popular music genre is pop which is closely followed by R'n'B. These are the more mainstream genres of music which would explain why they are the most upbeat. Metal and drum & bass were the two least popular with 4% each. This music is usually preferred by certain niche groups rather than a whole mainstream audience and this is why it is least popular.
We found that audiences prefer upbeat music to mellow slow music. This fits with the previous results of pop and R'n'B as these are classically known to be upbeat and loud genres.
When asking whether they preferred the music video to be more vocal or instrumental we found that those who had previously answered band answered instrumental here and those that chose solo chose vocal here. Having instrument solos is very typical of a band and vocal more a solo artist.
We have had previous experience with cameras similar to this at AS level. We found they were fine for this but at A2 we wanted something with better quality and a higher resolution. When testing our lighting with this camera we found that the strong lighting didn't work very well with the low resolution of these cameras and became pixelated and unproffessional. Therefore, we decided not to go with this camera.
This camera is a Flip HD camera. We found that this camera was quite good quality and it is easy to upload to the computer as it has a built in USB stick. This lightweight camera is very simple to use with just basic controls. However, there is a limited memory on the camera and it only allows you to record footage for an hour and we did not think this would be enough when we had planned to film for a few hours. Therefore, we decided not to use this camera.
This is the camera which we eventually chose. Although it is not a typical filming camera and is used to take pictures we decided that that the high resolution and amazing quality from this camera was what we wanted for our music video. When using this camera along with the strong lighting there was very little disturbance and we found it worked perfectly with the powerful lighting we wanted. Also, as the camera recorded onto an SD card we are able to choose what memory we want and therefore film for as long as possible and change the SD cards if we need to.
For our music video, we wanted our artist to have a very defined look as this is often what singers have,
For example, Kesha has a vert defined rock chic style with a hint of girly. She is well known for her style and quirky taste and Taylor Swift goes for a more girly and simplistic look for daytime and a very glamorous look for evening.
For our artist we wanted a girly but edgy look so we looked at looks that combined the two.
This idea combines dark colours with girly clothing, The one shoulder sequin dress is girly but with the red blazer thrown over it, it creates a modern look. Also, the detailing on the shoes adds that element of glitter but the shoes are overall very edgy.
We think this look is perfect for the performance section of our piece as the red would show well with the black background.
This look is definitely more girly. The sweetheart neckline floral dress and the light pink heels are the perfect combination. The natural and light makeup is perfect for the look also as it concentrates on natural beauty. The navy blue blazer adds a pop of colour to the look and also makes the look a little more edgy. We think this look would work for the outside scene however we are filming in the winter and this may not fit with the weather in the piece.
This look concentrate on the colour blue. It takes a basic black and white look and adds blue to make it a little more interesting. A dark lipstick and a smokey eye also makes the look edgy. This would be a great outfit for the outside scene but once again the outfit doesn't really fit the winter weather.
This outfit takes a laid back approach. This outfit would be perfect for the outside scene as it takes jeans and a t-shirt and glams it up subtly. The wedged boots make the look that little more edgy but still wearable. The neutral pastel colours work well to create a girly look but it is still very fashionable.
This look is more of a night time look which would work for the performance section of our music video. The black and red work perfectly together to create a great look. The only issue is that the black may not work well with the black background.
As we are not be able to use the original artist for our music video, we faced with the challenge of finding somebody who we feel fits with the genre of the song and how we want the song to look and feel. We asked a large sample of our target audience who they think would suit the part after they had listened to the song and there were a few names that were common...
Alice Dale
Caris Iliffe
Holly George
Mollie Bramley
Charlie Springthorpe
All these girls had both positive and negatives and we narrowed it down to just two girls...
Charlie Springthorpe and Holly George.
We had short casting auditions with each girl to see who worked better on camera and who fit the part. The video below includes the auditions. The girls had only heard the song a couple of time and therefore were unsure about the lyrics however, we only want to see how the girls moved and how confident they were so we didn't think it was 100% necessary for them to know the lyrics.
[insert video]
Charlie Springthorpe...
Charlie was a possibility for the part as we thought she had the right look for the video. Although Charlie's own style is quite feminine and girly we thought that with a costume and the right makeup we could create the look we wished for. Charlie also looks quite like the artist Jessica Drake with her tall figure and long blond hair. She also looks like another singer who was mention a lot during out, Avril Lavinge. We think that Avril Lavigne would be a perfect match for our song and Charlie has a similar look. However, Charlie is not that confident in front of a camera. She was very cautious about her movements and this meant that she was less energetic and comfortable. We thought this may affect the upbeat tempo of the song as the movement and song would not fit. Also, Charlie is a member of our group so having Charlie performing would mean we would loose a member of our group for filming but also it would mean Charlie would have a clear understanding about what we would want.
Holly George...
Holly George was a possibility as she has a very pop star look. She has also a girly style but has a more of an edgy look which we think is perfect for our video. She was very confident in the audition and she moved energetically and was comfortable with the music. Although she is not part of our group she is a friend of the group and therefore she would be comfortable working with us. Holly is also a drama and theatre student which means she has lots of experience performing so would understand the expectations. The only issue with Holly is that she does not look like the original artist Jessica Drake. She does not really represent the artist at all but has some similarities to other young American artists such as Selena Gomez and Katy Perry.
After casting Holly as our actress, we had to recast as she was not available for filming and we were near our deadline. Therefore, Charlie became our actress. It turned out that using a member of our group worked better as we knew they were reliable.
This is just a photographic storyboard of the structure for our music video. The next step is to create an animatic one and then gain audience feedback.
