3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Preliminary Feedback

Due to it being our first time filming and editing a music video in our preliminary, we thought that it was necessary to get feedback on the piece so that we knew what was aspects of our music video were effective and what we could improve on for next time in our main production. We carried out this audience feedback just before we began the planning process for our final music video production, the reason for this was so that we could understand what various potential audience members’ views were on music videos and in their eyes what makes them effective. In order to receive this feedback, we filmed a vox pop which entailed interviewing various members of the public and asking them questions about the preliminary. Overall, Vox pops proved to be a very effective method of gaining feedback because we had the ability to ask the same questions with various different people and they could explain their answers in as much as much detail as they needed. The main question that we asked the audience members was what they thought of the preliminary and how it could be improved in any way. Out of the three people interviewed the answers were that the positives included the Mise-en-Scene and the narrative, while the possible improvements were that the cutting to the beat could have been sharper and acting could have been better and more professional. This feedback definitely helped us in preparation for our production, with the feedback we knew exactly what aspects of a music video appealed to our audience members it overall gave us an insight on how we can make our future final production as good as it could possibly be. From this we obviously discovered that cutting to the beat is vital for the success of the music video alongside good acting, what we found out we can maintain in our final production is a good Mise-en-Scene and narrative.

Research

We also took advantage of receiving audience feedback in regards to our research work. We again made a Vox Pop and held a focus group, the use of a focus group again proved to be very effective because it entailed us choosing various members of the public, all of similar ages and we were able to be more specific with our questions in the process, for example we played our potential song for our music video and gave the applicants questionnaires and they could give their opinions. This was more effective than a vox pop because we had the factor of letting the audience members listen to the song as a group which would not be as achievable in a vox pop. The purpose of the Vox Pop was to find out audience members’ favourite genres and why, their preferred narrative in a music video and what makes a music video memorable. With the question in which we asked what participants thought made a music video memorable, we discovered that originality could be key, this originality could be present in the narrative, as one answer stated that an ‘interesting’ narrative made a music video memorable. On top of this, we learnt that originality could also be vital in terms of mise-en-scene as another answer stated good mise-en-scene makes music videos memorable. As another participant stated, the music video can simply just be fun and enjoyable to watch. This could influence our ideas for our music video production as we have now learnt that originality can definitely be effectively and in our production we plan to be as original as possible in as many aspects as possible. In the question in which we asked for the participants’ preference on narrative type, we learned further that people really enjoy a story in a music video. Out of the five answers we received, 4 out of the 5 chose either amplification or illustration, from this we learnt that people like to be able to associate the lyrics of the song visually in the video, whether this is an illustration where the video almost reflects the video exactly, or if its amplification where the key concepts or ideas are visually reflected on the video. With the final question, we intended to find out what type of performance to narrative ratio people prefer. From the Vox Pop, we did learn that people do in fact enjoy the presence of both, as we discovered that people would ‘get bored’ if there was too much performance or too much narrative therefore a 50/50 ratio would possibly be more effective.

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

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

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

 

 

Production

In our production we again used various types of media technology in order to be successful. To begin with, for music video we again used the same camera and tripod as we did in the preliminary, however in our main music video production we filmed in spacious outdoor locations therefore we were allowed many more opportunities to experiment with the camera positions using the tripod, I explored the capabilities of the tripod and learnt it could tilted and arced in order to achieve more low angle shots and tilt shots. On the other hand, we did face some challenges throughout the filming process, for example due to the fact that we filmed in the same location with very similar shots on two separate days it was very important that we maintained some sense of continuity for the music video therefore we had to know the exact position of where we placed the tripod and where we positioned the actor for the shots. In order to overcome this challenge, we marked out crosses in the grass where we had placed the tripod and positioned the actor on the first so when we returned on the second day it we knew where to pick up where we had left off. Furthermore, another challenge we had to overcome during the filming process was setting up the tripod correctly  With regards to editing, we also decided to keep the same editing software as in the preliminary which was Pinnacle 19 Studios as I can use it to a high standard and I am very familiar with it due to past work. For the process of creating our other two pieces of promotional material; the digipak and the music poster, it was necessary to again use new technology in order to be successful. For example, I used Adobe Photoshop 2016 to produce both of these and I learnt a great deal about the overall software, prior to designing the digipak and music advert on Photoshop I had little to no knowledge on how to operate Adobe Photoshop effectively, I had a basic idea of how the tools worked but I had to learn how to use more advanced techniques. For my music advert especially, I wanted to make it so that the model was the object of the advert and then there were two images in the background blended together, to be able to do this I used YouTube which proved to be a very useful media technology since I was able to find a tutorial which led me through step by step on how to use opacity in Photoshop which I was the method I needed to create what I wanted.

How I improved from AS to A2

From AS all the way through to A2 I have learnt so much and improved on so much from my use of technologies in my preliminaries, research/planning and final productions and all the techniques that I used in these processes in order to be successful. First of all, prior to my AS Preliminary for a thriller opening I had no experience whatsoever with filming or editing in post-production therefore it was my experience in the AS preliminary that aided me in my following pieces of work such as my actual production. Through the filming process of my AS preliminary I learnt how to use a camera effectively and put into practice what I had planned through storyboards and shot lists, the fact that I had access to a tripod allowed me to experiment with different shot types and I could see which shots I could actually achieve. In terms of editing, I was also completely new to the editing process and how to use an editing software all together, in order to be successful and edit my preliminary I needed to find a software to use and ultimately I decided to use Pinnacle 19 Studios. Since this software was also completely new to me it was up to me to learn all of its different features, these included importing files and placing them onto the timeline, I also had to discover how to adjust timings of certain shots and add specific visual effects, again in order to do this I researched on YouTube on various tutorials for the software to be able to use these different techniques.

 

Moving forward to my A2 Preliminary and A2 final production, thanks to my AS work I had a great deal of knowledge and experience in creating a media from the planning and research process all the way to filming and editing. First of all, a new technology that I used was Adobe Photoshop, as I mentioned I was completely new to this technology therefore It was up to me to explore how it functioned and I did this by watching various tutorials via YouTube which has aided me in the past with my editing software. Furthermore, following my experience in my AS production, I again used Pinnacle 19 Studios as the form of editing the music video, obviously due to my experience in my AS production this seemed like the best route to take and this time around I did not need to go through the learning process of a new piece of technology.

Vox Pop - Rough Cut

Vox Pop - Preliminary and Ancillary draft

Final Digipak