This blogpost will be explaining on how we showed a rough draft of our music video, album cover, and social media page to some members of our target audience in order to receive helpful feedback.
The purpose of a screen test is to gain audience feedback about our work and see if their are any improvements that can be made. We decided to use google forms to create a survey to share with our audience because we are trying to reach for their opinion and asking them some question to find out whether we're reaching the right target audience. As a student, we're used to interview our friends, teachers or other people in the community using google forms. Because with google forms, it is simple to arrange the forums, we're able to monitor how many responses do we gain, and after everything is done it can be made into a chart/table. Here are our questions:
Social Media Questions:
Gender
Age
How often do you listen to Indie genre music?
If you were a part of our band, what would you do to make our social page more engaging?
Do you find our social media page engaging? How and why?
What are the three words you can think of that describe the vibe/looks/atmosphere of an Indie album? And does it match our's?
How does our artist's persona relate to you?
We shaped this question to be more personalized to get the audience's positive yet genuine opinion, by doing this we will hope to get some ideal image of an Indie social media page according to what the audience intended/demanded to see. Asking the demographics could be crucial so that we can consider the visual of the social page or how are we going to represent ourselves in it. Here are the drafts that we showed audiences for the social media page:
Here are the results from the audience feedback:
From the feedback we learned that our social media page should be a little bit more refined or make it a little more formal. Although we want to be known for the humble imagery and casual atmosphere, but we also not forgetting our status as an idol; an influencer who influenced a lot of people in the future.
We are going to change some pictures here, as this is our first draft maybe we can take out some pictures so that we have some "music or a band" vibes in this social page. And also, maybe we could make a tour poster which we hope will reinforce our group to be an actual band in our social media page; in other words, we don't want our social media page to heavily appear like some average personal-Instagram users posts.
This screen test was a useful part of our process because we can get testimonies from real life music enjoyer. From those testimonies, opinions, critics, and tips, we can improve and add something to our music video, social media, and digipak/album.
Music Video Questions:
Age
Gender
How often do you watch music videos?
How can you relate with the protagonist?
What words would you use to describe the emotions felt in the sample video?
How good was the overall quality, writing & message of the music video?
How well do you think the visuals matched the mood and message of the song? Please explain your thoughts.
What do you think the story or message the sample video is trying to convey?
What were your favorite parts of the sample video?
How would you improve on the scenes in the sample video?
We chose these questions because they were short enough where it wouldn't take up too much of the person's time, and we get as much results as we can in a short amount of time. We included members of our target demographic in the screen test to ensure that the feedback we receive is appropriate. Finding people for the screen test was somewhat easy, since i had a handful of friends that were inclined to participate in the small feedback form. Here are the drafts that we showed audiences for the screen test:
Here are the results from the audience feedback:
From the feedback we learned that our video is somewhat relatable with teenage 17 year old audiences and that they seem to grasp the story of the music video quite well. We also noticed that some aspects of the video are a little blurry
We are going to change some closeups to be less blurry by reshooting some scenes so that it can be clearer in the final outcome. We're also going to reshoot some performance scenes, as I feel they look a little bland and too stationary.
This screen test was a useful part of our process because it helps us grow towards are target audience and make us to create a proper artist with realistic aims and views. This also allows us to better connect with the target audience and make our product tick the right boxes to appeal to the target audience
This blogpost will include clips of our group shooting behind the scenes and our roles during the shooting. Beside from that, it will also include problems that we encounter during the shooting process and how we overcome it. [THIS BLOG IS MADE Haresha and Ata]
Members and Our Roles
Nathan - Cameraman and Actor
Louis - Actor
Ata - Actor
Haresha - Actor
Non-Members and Their Roles
Saka - Lighting & Gofer
Behind the Scenes
Problems and The Solutions
Rain at the beach
Solution: Rather than waiting for the rain and run out of time, instead, we shoot indoors in the basement parking lot of Living World Mall
No permission to shoot in Living World Mall Basement
Solution: we switch to another alternatives and we decide to shoot in our friend's neighborhood.
Dark Video Clip
Solution: We find position with better lighting.
Solution 2: We borrowed our friend's motorcycle for its headlights
Late for sunrise shooting
Solution: We decide to reschedule the day.
Limited cameraman to shoot the whole group (only one cameraman, Nathan)
In this blogpost, my group decided on the social media presence for our star to be reflected in our products (social media posts, music video, etc)
RESEARCH #1: VACATIONS
What do they post on their social media page? Can you group the different posts into categories (eg Personal, promotional etc)
Judging from their instagram page, we can see that Vacation's social page feels more personalised, which that further explains why their page contains some of their personal life outside their singing career; feels more like normal people having the time of their life with their contemporaries. They also appear to post memes about themselves, eventually this lead to the shaping of their persona as a goofy-dorky and outgoing band in their social pages, which is the total opposite to what they've shown in their music persona (chill and relaxed).
They don't only post their personals life, they also post promotional posts, which mainly about their tours schedule that includes the date and where will the tour concert will be held.
Does it feel personal or is someone else creating content for them?
Their social pages feels more personalised rather than a team of social media filtering the content of what will be posted in their official social media accounts. I feel like they seek closure to the audience by trying to be related to them, which they choose to be known as a humble and silly bands rather than a glamorous-superstars.
Do fans have the chance to interact and engage with a. The artist b. Other fans
Fans of VACATIONS is possible to interact with the artist (a) through the instagram comment sections, but it seems that the band choose did not make any interaction with the fans throughout their social pages. It seems that instagram acts as an update of what are they up to and an announcement of tours; basically, an update of their activity in general. But, fans can still interact with the other fans (b) through the comment sections, and it is most likely to discuss and share their thoughts about the band's posts.
How does the artist promote their music?
They promote their music/bands through funny memes; it is to maintain a relaxed engagement of the band, which makes it less tense. They also announce and promote their tours in the social pages.
How has this soc media influenced you?
We would like to conform their meme posting behaviour.
In this blog you can find the work I did on how to edit with multiple cameras. My group filmed the footage, but I edited it together. My teacher provided a template for the blog post.
What is Multicam Editing?
Multicam editing is the process of editing footage of a single scene or subject recorded from different cameras and angles. Showing the same scene or subject from different angles helps make the video more dynamic and visually captivating for your audience
Shooting
Our subject , a classmate, stood in the centre of the room and did a short performance. My group stood around the subject to record the performance from different angles. You can also see members from other groups because we did this lesson as a class. To make it easier to synchronise our cameras, the teacher clapped at the start of the scene. This allowed us to line up the video in the editing process and ensure that the transitions would be smooth. Without this simple action it would have taken a lot longer to sync the videos.
Upload the videos to the editing software (CAPCUT)
Detach the audio of the clip you wish to use in the final video.
Find the ‘clap’ marker on the audio.
Line up the video files together.
Cut where I want the edit to happen
Don’t delete the clip, just lower the opacity. This way it can be used again later.
Mute all clips except for the one you want to use.
Here is some clips of my editing processes, where to match a scene with another scene I lowered the opacity and then edited them by cutting or removing some durations.
Here is my edited videos prototypes:
1) videos i made in class
In my opinion this is a bad editing as I don't have enough preparations to export the raw videos, which this process really
Reflection: How will this help your project? What did you find challenging? What is there anyway to simplify this process?
This post contains a mini project that helped us learn how to shoot a music video. We shot our verse as a group and then created this post together.
Lesson Description: My teacher gave each group a verse from THE BEATLE - Here Comes the Sun. We had to plan a scene which included various camera work and edits. The goal was to improve our lip syncing skills, which it later on will be use for our MV project.
PRE PRODUCTION
This post contains a mini project that helped us learn how to shoot a music video. We shot our verse as a group and then created this post together.
Lesson Description: My teacher gave each group a verse from THE BEATLE - Here Comes the Sun. We had to plan a scene which included various camera work and edits. The goal was to improve our lip syncing skills, which it later on will be use for our MV project.
PRODUCTION
POST PRODUCTION
PROBLEM:
- Camera did not focus for a couple of our shots which then we had to retake more shots than we expected.
- Bad whether which blows the whole meaning of this music
SOLUTION:
- Bring proper camera next time
- Choose a better time to record our scenes, or wait out the rain
Here is our filming schedule that may help us organise the plans of recording and what agenda do we have on that day to keep us in track.
Self Reflections: In my opinion, the filming schedule doesn't really effective at the moment as we're still in the pre-production stages of the music videos, however Ata and Nathan did plan on shooting videos at 9/11/24 so we fill it in. I expect it will be more effective as a reminder/schedule for us next term, where we'll be entering our production and shooting process.
Here is my Location Scouts as well as how am I going to assess the problem that might occurs and how are we going to overcome it.
Self Reflections: This scout and risk assessment helps us consider some hazards and challenges that we might encounter. It can be useful for us to prepare contingency plan in case something happen or we want to add stock shot of videos to be added later in the music videos, which we already prepare the alternative locations that is similar to the previous locations. That's what I am expecting, but so far the shooting of our team still runs smoothly and we encounter little to almost no challenges in the process.
In this blogpost, I will be including most of the media knowledges we as a class have learnt since we're Grade 11. In my opinion, these are the pioneer to our media product that we have created for the past year because these elements help us create broader variety of meaning in our product. By understanding it, we can implicit a meaning through colours and the setting of props, or explicitly express that meaning through the sound of dialogue and edits. Here are the elements we have learned.
Here is my song researches and we will look my group's song choices, which is Telephones by Vacations (2020)
Song Background
Telephones were made by an Australian indie band called Vacations, where the song was uploaded to Youtube on 2020, and is a part of the album Changes. The song is telling us about the power of connection that exists between two individuals. Even when they are apart from each other, they can still feel for each other's presence in their mind.
Why we chose it
My team have decided to choose this song because not only it is an Indie song where it could be created by independent artist with limited budgets, but we're also familiar with the implicit meaning behind this song. To which this leads us to be more familiar on what kind of scenes that are needed to be shooted, how is it going to be modeled, what are the techniques needed, and how is it going to be edited.
How our music video will be different
There is no music video for this song, however they are some fans of this band that creating their own music videos for this music. Most of them have static camera shots, which we'll be using less static shots as it may feels monotone and less appealing for the audience to watch. To challenge the existing conventions of static shots, we will use less static shots and encourage more camera movements and edits to the song.
Self Reflection: I don't feel any regrets choosing this song, as I am completely understand what the vibe of the song would be for the music video. More importantly, listening to this song really match my persona, so I am expecting to perform well here. Since it's an indie song, also known as the genre that requires minimum of budget, we can choose to perform lip-syncing of the singer or slow band playing, matching the pace of the song. But either way, both of them is correct.
Here is our storyboard made by Nathan as a guideline for our videos.
Here is our storyboard draft
Self Reflections: We still have more ideas for our scenes, to which this storyboard might increase in number in the future, there will be revisions and additional scenes whenever we come up with new ideas. But overall, we already have the main idea for the storyline of the music video and I think that's what matter first to be able to visualise all the scenes.
Self Reflections: I am very satisfied with the song, as it only has a short lyrics, this mean less performance and music ensemble needed, which means we can focuses on the progression of the storyline through making clips of cinematic. Currently, our lyric sheets is not completed because our group has some personal issue to deal with, making it to be a little bit delayed. But, our teacher is very kind and generous to give us an extension for it.
To find a star for our music video we need to conduct a screen test. Here is a video for our class's group audition. We did as a class
Song: Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
The goal for this screen test is to find someone who is capable and talented for the singer actor. We decided to do it all together as a class because:
More efficient compared to do a one-on-one auditions
Faster as we can clip everyone in one take
Saves so much time
Looks fun (in my POV)
Even it brings more merit, it also has some demerits:
Some students might be shy to go all out in singing, leading to minimals result
Not all student remember the lyrics to the song we as a class agreed on, making their lips appear not in sync.
Self Reflections: This is a fun activity for me as I can go blast my voices to maximum while singing the song to which I remember most of the lyrics, and we also have some giggles/laughs for having such good times. Although, we don't think we can use this screen test to find a suitable star for our music videos because it is a complete different genres from us, but it was worth it having to sing on top of your lungs with some friends.
Self Reflections: By far the easiest task to be done, as we already know what kind of mood that we want in the music video. For the first slide, the vibe seems to be a cool-nighttime types of aesthetic accompanied by the rays of street lamps and store's neon lights, this creates an effect of chill and relaxed atmosphere as if it like times goes slower in this scene. The second slide of mudbort is the opposite atmosphere, a warm-sunrise types of aesthetic where the scene is lighten up by natural lighting from the sun rays. This gives an effect of "new beginning" atmosphere, as our storyline revolves around a guy reminiscing his old memories with his now separated friends, but as he gets older he needs to progress into a new version of himself; a new chapter of life.
Here is my Statement of Intent/proposal for my Music Videos Project
Self Reflections: In my opinion the work distribution has been divided fairly for everyone. Since I am the same team like last time, we already know what are we capable for in the specific fields. Although in the future there might be some slight changes to the role, but as of now I couldn't think any best combinations for now.
My group and I have decided to create a film opening in the genre of RnB. Here is my research into the codes and conventions that are used used in the openings of texts from this genre.
First, let's take a more in depth explanation of what this music genre is. After some research, here is what I found. R&B is a genre born from the combination of an already existing genres, these genres are Jazz, Blues, and Gospel Musics. R&B took their strong and slow beats and rhythms from Jazz, the deep emotions and storytelling from Blues, and the soulful singing style from Gospel music. The lyrics in R&B songs often explore themes of a person's feeling, especially love,which it may have make you feel relax, euphoric, or sad.
Notes: Big Research 2 Small research 6
IN-DEPTH RESEARCH #1
Name Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic - Leave the Door Open (2021)
Production Company Bruno Mars and D' Mile
Distribution Company Aftermath Entertainment and Atlantic Records
Genre / Sub genre Philadelphia soul, R&B, and Pop Song.
What conventions does it conform to?
Leave the Door Open can be classified as a slow-paced R&B, with a slower rhythm and beats. Not only this conforms the general convention of R&B to be in a slower tempo, but it also helps enhance the feeling of romantic intimacy, as slower tempo tend to bring more emotional impact compared to a faster tempo. Because slower tempo tend to relaxed your brain, which makes it better to think, feel, and understand the intimacy words that are being said. More importantly, the song directly fluttering out lyrics that are related to the topic of love and intimate relationships, this can be proven by one phrase of "And you want me like I want you tonight baby", this lyrics implies that both couple have the same strong desire or feeling of love and desperation for each other's attention at that moment. Hence, conforming the conventional of R&B songs that discusses the topic about love. Other than that, this music video conforms another convention, where R&B song would have a mini performance shown in the music video clips, for example singing or dancing. In the video it showed us clips of Bruno's band playing their own instrument while he lip-sync (pretending that he was singing the song) as the camera pans.
What conventions does it subvert? Although Bruno Mars seems to be into conforming this conventions, but he is also subverting some elements. Usually, an R&B songs would revolve in storytelling, especially when it comes about love song. Bruno Mars decide to focus more on the emotion rather than telling a narrative approaches, this allowed the music and lyrics to convey more of the emotion rather than relying on a visual story. Another thing that I've notice is the quality of the video seems less-retro'ish or like any other 70s music video song I know, I've seen it to be more modern and polished. In which, it subverts the convention of the old-retro songs that is targeted for the older audiences. The reason for this is to try to relate an older love-relationship topic or intimacy into the modern society, which is currently dominated by younger-adults demographics.
What representations are there? (people/places/events) Gender & Romance: The lyrics tells us about a man expressing his feelings of desirement and affectionate towards his woman, in a way that it is a little bit leaning to be naughty yet smooth but is still respectful to the woman, which really suits the R&B’s typical romantic and intimate portrayal of relationships.
Specific Events: Instead of showing us any events, there are nothing more than the entire music videos are covered with group-band performance. Yet, the performance and overall clips are described very well by using energetic-expression and clear body language. The events help us as an audience to decode the feeling or message the singer trying to tell us.
People: The video represents a positive-joyful black male artists in the clips. They're also dressed in an easy-going tone, which it depicts a happy and colorful atmosphere for the male and female.
What technical elements are used to give meaning? Camera - Long Shots, shown almost frequently in the video which it highlights and shows us the enthusiasm of both the male actors playing the instrument and the female actors following along while singing. It gives us enough view of their facial expression which are filled with joy and smiling. - Panning, from the drummer to the keyboard player. It is to give us as an audience who is currently singing. The camera starts panning to the keyboard player from the dummer as soon as he stops singing to the mic.
MeS - Simple yet colorful clothes, indicate a happy atmosphere - Warm lighting, it can indicates comfortness, coziness and intimacy, in this context intimacy about love relationships.
Edit - Quick Cuts, it is shown when the tempo of the song gets progressively faster. It is to imply a rush of energy, like when someone is excited whenever their partner is around or is it just simply telling us more information of what is currently happening.
Sound - The music initially in a slow tempo, then it gets progressively faster. The tone of the singer gets deeper. This is to show a build up intimacy in a relationship where it stars slower, and gets faster yet exciting.
GENERAL RESEARCH #1
Title Popular - The Weeknd (2023)
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
The primary target audience for this song is young adults and teenagers around the Gen Z (18-35 years old) generation, specifically for The Weeknd fans and music enjoyers. How they appeal to this target audience is by raising the topic of celebrity as people in this age range are more engaged by celebrity cultures, thus they want to be more related and wanting to be a part of the discussion with their friends, making it fundamental for Social Relationships according to Uses and Gratification. The prop of martini glasses and the USA infamous red cup also makes it more relatable to the young adults, as they tend to be known for their party-goers lifestyle.
What would you like to use in your opening from this?
A random-choreography movement of interacting with surroundings and objects performed by Rihanna and The Weeknd seems like a good alternatives if we don't have any ideas on what kind of performance we would want to perform. I like this idea because it also make the clips feels more "alive" and adds more narrative to the video if you compare it to lip-syncing or "out-of-nowhere" band performance, it feels more natural and less staged in my opinion.
What would you like to avoid in your opening from this?
The choice of clothing for the male actor is very dull and monotone. As a teenager myself, his clothes doesn't appeals to my liking. Although I understand he wants to make a formal-popular clothing style, but he can instead add more variations of dark tone colors to his outfits.
GENERAL RESEARCH #2
Title Agora Hills - Doja Cat (2023)
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
This song primarily targets young and matured female teenagers (18-25) who understand to depicts implicit meanings and connotation presented by Doja Cat. The way she appeals to this target audience is through her choice of fashions that can be said to be unique and revealing, in this way she challenged clothing norms in order for her to express her feelings and emotions of dominance and confidences for being proud of herself by revealing oneself. Other than that, one of her line catches my attention, saying "I am so lonely in my Mansion". Reason why she says mansion is because to imply that she is a woman living alone in her own mansion, indicating her independencies to afford the mansion alone without the help of men, which this engaged her audiences even more as young females want to be more independent and encourages feminism more.
What would you like to use in your opening from this?
I like her props and clothing the most, it is very brave of her to use it in a music video while also making it a unique and attractive costumes. In a way that it heavily challenges traditional retro clothings that I stereotypically imagine before (less revealings with an element of jeans and leather jackets). Maybe for my MV, I'll try to use a more colorful and unique clothing that no one or less people have seen in the industry to make my media product stands out among the other MVs.
What would you like to avoid in your opening from this? Too much random movements in this video makes me confused about what narrative are being told in this music videos. Without the song describing clearly of what was happening, some people might get the wrong message and idea of what the artist intended to say in the music video.
GENERAL RESEARCH #3
Title Heartbreak Anniversary - Giveon (2020)
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
Although this song represent an adult couple in the music videos, but it's primary target audience are most likely to be young adults ranging 18-30 years old. Especially, the lyrics of the music directly leans to the topic of heartbroken man, which it can be easily acceptable for this targeted audience, especially male audience as the song speaks from the perspective from a men.
What would you like to use in your opening from this?
I like the narration elements that Giveon presented in his song. It directly explain to his audiences the story and what is going on in the video, the straightforward lyrics also support his narration which it clearly denotes a man going through a heartbreak, making him sad and full of regrets about it. I admit that I am simple minded person, so this song really just makes me wanting to enjoy it instead of depicting the implicit meanings they offered on my own.
What would you like to avoid in your opening from this?
GENERAL RESEARCH #4
Title Girls Like Me Don't Cry - Thủy (2022)
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
What would you like to use in your opening from this?
What would you like to avoid in your opening from this?
GENERAL RESEARCH #5
Title Freek'n You - Jodeci (1995 // REMASTERED 2009)
Notes: yes, I do realized this song is way too old for my research. But for me it is a great example of an R&B songs. After my research on the definition of R&B genre, this is the first song that came up to my mind and in my opinion the lyrics of this song really fits the R&B conventionals topic. I've known this song from an animated shows called Jojo Bizarre Adventure Part 5, where this song plays as the outros of every episodes of the show.
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
Obviously this song is more suitable for the older audiences (20-35), specifically man, as this song tells us a perspective of a man that is very desperate for love that he does not care about anything other than to be with his girl. Revealing clothes is a way of engaging and stating firmly that this song is prioritized for the senior audiences, this type of clothing makes women appear more beautiful and sexually-attractive for men. Additionally, they attract this audience by using more adult-alluring languages, like what is stated in one of the line "Tonight, I need you baby" and an erotic-slow rhythm and beats, which adding the romantic and intimacy atmosphere to the song.
What would you like to use in your opening from this? A
What would you like to avoid in your opening from this? The clips were the same template of switching to a guy singing and a shot of girl singing seducingly, less variations were added. Which it doesn't clearly state any narratives in the song.
GENERAL RESEARCH #6
Title
Target audience, and how are they appealed to?
What would you like to use in your opening from this?
What would you like to avoid in your opening from this?
Here is some additional research that helped me with some ideas
Self Reflections: I wasn't able to finish this on time, but pretty much I've figure out what to expect in my music videos. I've carefully watch all the music videos relating to RnB in this blogpost and decided that they have 2 things in common, those are slow rhythm/tempo and lyrics discussing about relationship/love. Most teenagers like me had already experience this phase, to which we can still relate to this topic a little bit.
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