Flaws in the focus group.

After assessing our focus group, we realised that a few flaws limited us from gaining more effective and diverse information.
We found that the limitation in the age-group we had chosen for focus group, had also limited range of information we could take from it. Also, the lack of equal gender seen in the focus group kept our differentiation of both genders vague and unhelpful because there were only two opinions from the female perspective. The last thing our group wanted to do was fall into a niche category. Therefore, we will take the information we recieved; vague in the female perspective, and build on it to balance out our stance on the music video's connection with our target audience.

My 3 webpage designs

web design 1

Here is my first web page design; I’ve experimented with a metallic silver background and colour-scheme to enhance our rock genre, and also to give the page an official, ‘solid’ look. Also, to support the ‘release’ of the band’s new music video the silver effect can indicate and cross reference the narrative of our music video, as a band member plays a silver statue. I’ve then extended this colour-scheme by tinting the YouTube, Facebook and Twitter logos to a silver colour also – this suggests that this band is modernised and spread among popular social networking sites. The Apple logo’s particularly will highlight the band’s modernity and will support diversity of accessing music – for example ‘Download on iTunes’ encourages the audience to use other software to access their music. Below the main image and the optional links, I’ve posted an up-to-date video from YouTube, I’ve done this to show where our music video will go once we’ve finished it – the video will be accessible straight away, and the fact that it’s on the home page will rectify its importance.

Re-group after Christmas

Filming update.

We've set a date of which to get the filming for our performance done. We have organised all instruments that we will use, props, our location and our band members. Other elements that need to be arranged are the costume, any possible make-up and prepping lessons (to prepare our cast for what we expect from them, how to act etc)
We plan to accomplish this filming by week, Tuesday 15th of January.
We do not want to rush this process as we think that preparation and taking time to complete this footage will make the quality even better, however - we realise that we are under a lot of pressure concerning time. The sooner we finish filming, the sooner we can start editing.

Group meeting 1 - discussing narrative.

In this session we were discussing;

- whether or not it should be a comical or serious band.

- which narrative we must chose

- which idea's of performance we must plan

- should we follow folk music video's or rock music videos
- who to select for our cast

We've decided to make our narrative a stalking idea;

1. Band (performance) - The band are shown performing in a music studio, where close-ups of both the band member's expressions and their instruments will be common. These shots will jump cut through the narrative piece and will relate in that whenever the tension rises in the narrative, the close-up shot will transform into a long distance shot to infer movement in the story as well as the isolation that his character may be feeling.

   Narrative - Picture a London rush-hour morning with a a faceless sea of people in suits and work clothes on their way to their nine hour shifts. Its a stressful surreal blur, and no face in particular is highlighted from the crowd, because its all blurred away. Then, a beautiful woman emerges from the crowd to cross the street and the camera comes to a mid shot to draw the audience's attention to her. Following shortly behind her, the lead singer disengages himself from the bustling crowd and follows her with intent. The audience will assume that the two people know each other, as the man stares after the woman and stays within a few feet from her, as if following her. Simultaneously singing the lyrics and following the woman, the man pushes through the crowds to catch up to her, while the woman shows no means of seeing him or even knowing he's there. Suspense is built when the man suddenly catches up to her and is singing directly at her, but only the woman looks past him as if he isn't even there. This continues for most of the video, the man singing passionately and in some parts of the song, viciously - while the woman fails to even acknowledge him, and the crowd bustles on. Before the end, the man suddenly stops and the woman walks out of the camera view, and the audience is suddenly shown a shed that's full of photos of the woman. Close-ups of the pinned up photographs tell us that she is unaware that the photo's were taken, and is therefore being stalked. We end with a backwards creep of the man, standing among the crowd staring lifelessly behind the camera (we assume after the woman)

But to suit all members of our group, we have to reform and adjust this idea.

Questionnaire results

Questionnaire Results Analysis

Our second group meeting.

Today we met up again as a group and discussed topics that concerned us and that were related to the music video. Previously, I had drawn up a few sketches of our narrative and structured them in a storyboard, with description, shot, angle, location, movement and shot duration and number. We then drew upon the rough storyboard and made alterations to it.
From my narrative original storyboard, we have reformed the narrative and have decided to make the storyline slightly comical, with the introduction of the 'living statues' from London. From this, I'll revise our new narrative and create a few versions of the new story, and then produce a final copy of the storyboard.

My first designs for our narrative storyboard. 

The same applies for our performance storyboard as we've decided to select location shots such as the school music studio as well as the school hall where performances are usually based.
Here is our second video where we discuss our preparations and aims.

Creating a schedule for planning/filming

Here we've structured a plan of times and dates in which we'll regroup, film, re-assess our footage and improve. This plan is scheduled in the period of 13 days, and Tuesday 18th December being our filming deadline. We've acknowledged that this is an extremely tight amount of time to prepare and film our music video; and therefore we've set in place 'safety net' days, to ensure that if we do not stick to what was required, or we re-assess our current footage and find that we need to reshoot some scenes, then we have 2 days to fall back on and get those tasks done.We've taken into consideration the busy time schedule of others (cast) and even ourselves, and have thus constructed a plan around these times and dates, we've also dedicated any available weekend to meet up and film.

We've spaced our days out wisely, and have planned the first 4 days to finalise the narrative, location idea, cast organisation and props - so that the upcoming days are organised and well planned for. Throughout these days (lightly scheduled for) we've added that each day we must create individual, as well as group feedback and analysation on what we've achieved and what we aim to achieve. This gives constant feedback and thus generates a clearer visual of our goal and what we aim to achieve.

 To extend our group feedback and to strengthen our understanding and dedication to the plan that we've made, we have created a group feedback video, in which we announce what we've done, and thereby aim to do in the plan. This video demonstrates the groups unity and co-orperation, and how we're stronger in communication as well as preparation.