Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 3

• 1.
  Evaluation Question 3
• 2.
  The Big Picture Atthe start of our planning for the New Man music video, we decided that we would base majority of our decisions solely on our target audience’s response from our questionnaires. This is due to our questionnaire being solely of our target audience of aged 16-20 years old. If we conformed to the majority of their preferences we would make a successful music video. Firstly, a way in which we targeted our audience was by the locations we chose, as stereotypically the locations of Pop and RnB genre music videos are in popular and touristic cities such as London or Miami, we decided to develop this and use a more of a famous location with a very picture-esque area – which was the preference of our teenagers from one of our questionnaires. A place around us that has this was Chatham Dockyard. Furthermore, this location is home to loads of teenage ‘hang outs’ so this further supports the reason of picking this location. An example of this would be ‘TruGym’ at the start of our music video which is a place that teenagers in our area mostly go to for exercise and leisure activities Secondly, another way which we incorporated our target audience’s views and opinions into our music video was through our choices of mise-en-scene costumes. We wanted Jacob (Our Ed Sheeran) to look innocent and more relatable rather than the materialistic Josh (Our New Man). We decided against the questionnaires saying they wanted our artist to wear high-end clothing as we believed that it was not as effective for being related. Moreover, as we had two genres that our song fell into, we decided to contrast these two against each other by using Jacob to represent the innocent side of Pop and Josh to represent the materialistic side of the RnB genre.
• 3.
  The Big Picture Additionally,our song choice was made solely from our first questionnaire as we wanted to have a song which firstly, did not have a music video and secondly teenagers loved the artist, this is why New Man was a perfect choice for us as it came out in both of our questionnaire questions that they loved Ed Sheeran and loved the song New Man. Moreover, as well as costume choice, our target audience feedback also aided in our decision of putting shots of literal shots and a narrative as in later audience questionnaires we found out that 50% of teenagers we questioned believe for a music video to be repeatable there needs to be a narrative. We decided for this while conforming to Todorov’s Narrative theory which emphasises the 3 main stages as stated in my previous evaluation question. Arguably the most important question we asked was for the teenager’s favourite genre was. The results were that 40% preferred Pop with a close second of 30% preferring RnB of the teenager that we questioned. These are the reasons why we incorporated both pop and RnB conventions such as a mixture of high and low key lighting. The song New Man is a quite literal song, so this is why we had a high level of continuity with our lyrics and visuals, conforming to how other pop music videos have; in order to attract their target audiences. Majority of our parcipiants stated they preferred male artist over female artists, and this is why we used a male as the artist, however we also used female artists in the music video as 30% stated they preferred female artists so we tried to accommodate for them as well
• 4.
  The Big Picture Ourediting was a main part of our us that we needed influence for as if this was not intriguing enough we would lose a high number of views and possible revenue. When asking our friends and other experts in media we know, they specified that it helped synergise between the music video and the lyrics, which is something that Andrew Goodwin really emphasised in his theory.
• 5.
  Planning Our chosen targetaudience was between ages of 16 and 22 years of age. As we are within this age group we thought it would be the best age group to target as we believe that we would know what our age group would find appealing. But to be on the safe side we participated in a few questionnaire, with making a few mood boards, as shown in my blogs. I united many popular pop and RnB artists in one mood board and what our audience would enjoy in another, furthermore, the questionnaire we did enticed us to stick with the song New Man by Ed Sheeran as it is a song with almost everything and as the song has a clear story line with room for creativity we decided this was the best for us to pick this song. Deciding whether or not to stick to the typical RnB and Pop genre conventions was an easy choice at some parts for example keeping the artist as the good person in the narrative but other times hard for example whether or not to have the artists get the girl back at the end of the music video, this was what our audience research proved conclusive in making this decision for us as they told us they love a happy ending for the protagonist. As we wanted the audience to feel like they can related too the artist we deceived on a narrative that almost everyone has been in once in their life, liking someone that they can not have for one reason or another, this helped with the iconography of the artist and the viewability of our music video. Our artist was portrayed as an ‘Average Joe’ as he did not have much other than his love in comparison to the New Man which was obvious he had a lot of money.
• 6.
  Planning In our moodboards research, it was prominent that our target audience loved branded clothing such as Versace and Armani, but we decided against this for our artist as we did not believe it would be the most effective for his ‘Average Joe’ persona. However, we did go for these brands with our New Man’s Costumes. Furthermore, one other aspect of our research was for our ancillary texts, It was clear that people love simplistic digipaks and Magazenes, with deep meaning that is not obvious at first glance, this is why we went for a snake for continuity as the ouroboros shows a new beginning and the colour scheme of black, white and green to show envy and how the artist can only see one side of the ex’s new personality showing it is only a 2D view.
• 7.
  Filming and Editing Whenin the filming process, we had done all the audience research we needed so we knew what our audience liked and disliked which we tried to follow in the best ways, however, this was not always the case as some shots looked poor or tacky, this is why we had to rush and get filler shots. An example of this would be when we had shots of our artist singing but some parts was not lip syncing to a high standard so we had to quickly film a new lip syncing area which was in school and it looked okay but could have looked a lot more professional if we had more time to thing about it. We verbally asked feedback about if they liked still shots but they stated that it gets boring, this is why we only had these shots in between the story which was discovered to be very effective in keeping the audience’s attention Additionally, we asked about lip syncing and if we needed more or we had sufficient amount, they stated we had too little at the start so some filler shots we took out and decided to get more shots that either had a key role in the narrative or lip-syncing. Our artist seemed to be a natural at lip-syncing in front of the camera, giving him a great vibe which was good as it kept our target audience engaged and this is what some experts were saying that helped our music video a lot.
• 8.
  Filming and Editing Inregards to camera shots and angles, we decided a mixture of shots at different heights and distances. For example we used a CCTV overlay on a birds-eye view shot to help with the illusion that it was the CCTV that saw them together and help with the music video seem more natural and as if this was happening in the audience’s world. We would have the lip syncing seem as more of a performance for the camera as we believed it helped further and the target audience seemed to enjoy this most. We further used a few close ups however to help with Andrew Goodwin’s theory that suggest that it is a goof way in creating connections between artists and the audiences, as it makes them feel as if they are being addressed personally, this is another reason for the performance-type lip syncing. The iconography of Ed Sheeran is average and normal. Therefore, being a role model for young people as they will see that anyone, even from normal backgrounds can be successful. We achieved this by using a lot of mid-level shots to seem as if they was at on the same level in the social hierarchy and with some high angle shots at points to make our target audience feel superior over our artist which helped them feel empowered after watching the video. With editing, our target audience helped very little as we knew they loved continuity and this was all we really needed to know what they liked and it was up to our personal preference so we could keep our music video being unique and to not conform to too many stereotypes which we did in our foundation portfolio.
• 9.
  Filming and Editing Wewanted most cuts to be on the every second snare of the drum as we wanted it to be snappy giving us a 2.4-2.6 second slot to put in certain shots and if we wanted longer we can carry on for a further 2.4-2.6 seconds. This was very effective as the cuts would be less choppy and in awkward places so that the audience got confused and bored from our music video. Our high-key lighting helped with supporting Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music video as he suggested to demonstrate genre characteristics which is a characteristic of the pop genre. Initially we had our artist playing a guitar however, after a lot of shots and retries we decided against it as the areas we was filming looked too clique and was not effective for our music video.
• 10.
  Feedback Our main sourceof feedback was YouTube and Vocal from people who watched our music video with us. YouTube is a media platform that lets anyone to watch and share the music video for free, while also letting people uploading anything of their liking, providing that it follows YouTube’s rules and guidelines. It is a great way for our audience to watch our content as our target audience uses this platform almost everyday and in our questionnaire we discovered that 70% of people watch music videos on YouTube. This is why we decided to upload the music video on here. YouTube feedback lets us know how successful our music video was and where to improve
• 11.
  Feedback Here is aYoutube comment. As you can see this dedicated fan has stated that we have a great overall music video and listed all things that we did well in the music video. They said our overall creativity was goof and everything looked professional this is what we was trying to achieve. Within a few weeks we had accumulated 154 views with 5 likes gained this might not be the greatest but the likes suggest that nobody really disliked the music video which we believe to be a bonus. Furthermore, as we are unknown these videos are high and our advertising worked efficiently.