Analysis of Questionnaire results

We conducted this questionnaire in order to get a better understanding of what audience we were selling our artist to and what they wanted to see in our music video. The questionnaire also helped us to establish what kind of age range we were looking at, this then contributed to us conducting our focus group interviews accordingly. We managed to get 19 respondents all together which gave us quite a range of opinions. This helped us in steering us in the right direction, thinking about the representations that we would portray in our music video.
These are the results: Survey monkey questionnaire results

Question 1: Do you like R&B/hip hop music?
We chose to start with this question because we wanted to establish if it was worth doing a music video centred around the R&B/ hip hop genre. This question helped to notice how much our generation was interested in R&B music. We already assumed that we would get most of  the votes in favour of doing R&B because of popular, current artists such as Drake and Beyonce. This reflected in the results: where 80% (15 people) said that they did like R&B/hip hop music and only 20% (3 people) saying they didn't. The people that didn't like R&B music could still answer the questions objectively.

Question 2&3: What is your gender/age?
We then went on to ask these personal questions about the respondents because we wanted to get an idea of who we were targeting our music video at. For gender, it didn't really matter if there were more boys or more girls, this would just determine how we would represent our R&B (female) artist, in regards to would we make her look more provocative, like some of the music videos we analysed, or more like a strong, independent woman. Overall we found that more women answered the questionnaire than men but only by 10% or so, this wasn't much of a 'game changer' in influencing what way we would go in representing our artist. In regards to age, from previous experience, we assumed that there wasn't a set age of people that were interested in R&B music but we found that the age group that had most interest in the music industry and were most active in watching music videos and following artists, were aged 16 - 21. However we did get responses from people who were over the age of 30 and under 16 which made us consider making it more age appropriate.

Question 4: What is your ethnicity? 
We found that from this question the majority of people who answered were white/caucasian. This contributed to the representations within our music video because, without stereotyping too much, we needed to know whether we would include more 'gang' type scenes or parties at houses. We would consider this when we are looking at the locations and constructing our story line.

Question 5: what would you expect to see in a R&B/hip hop music video? 
This question was probably one of the main influences in the construction of our music video. This question provided us with ideas about casting, costumes, location and props. The most popular theme that came through about R&B music videos was the idea of having dancing from the artist and back up dancers. We have made sure to incorporate this into our music video as it was the most popular response. The answers also valued a narrative story line and multiple locations and costumes, which we also saw was consistent in the R&B music videos we looked at such as Rihanna ft Drake:What's my name? We found that a range of costumes and locations added to the production value thus making the music video more lucrative, which seemed fitting for a R&B artist.  

Question 6: What is your current favourite music video?
We decided to include this question to get inspiration and a visual of what our audience saw was the perfect representation of a R&B artist. This guided our ideas in how we were going to show of the artist and where we were going to put them in the music industry. This question came back with answers such as J Cole, Nikki Minaj and Ciara which was perfect for the theme of the typical R&B artist. This question confirmed what we already assumed about what our audience saw as perfect for including and representing our music video and artist. 

Question 7: Do you recognise the artist Fergie?
This was closely related to our first question, because we got the same split of results 80:20. 80% knew who Fergie was and obviously these were the people who said that they were interested in the R&B music industry. We included this question to give our audience an idea of what we were going for with the artist and also whether they recognised her as a R&B artist. We used this question to give an overall summary of what the questions were aimed at when we were trying to represent different aspects. 

Question 8: What comes to mind when you listen to the song 'Glamorous' by Fergie? what would you like to see in a music video promoting this single? Glamorous - Fergie (audio)
The general connotations of glamour were big writing lit up and attractive, stylish people in a variety of locations. The feedback indicated that the attention is always kept on Fergie and she was idealised by men around her. This feeds into the idea of emphasising the artist and representing them as the main focus in the music video at all times by using camera and staging techniques. The respondents also said that they wanted to see a connection to the GTA V video game in regards to the sexualisation of women in this game such as lingerie and 'sassy' dance moves. 

Interviewing the Focus Group

We interviewed, what we thought, the age groups that gave the most attention to the music video 'Glamorous' and the R&B genre as a whole. The people that we interviewed were around the ages 16 - 18 years old. We felt like this age bracket were most active in their interest for the music industry and the songs link to the famous video game GTA V. Part of making this assumption came from the comments left under the music video on youtube:



We came to the conclusion that the people commenting were mainly teenagers because they used 'slang' words such as 'lol', 'yooo' and 'tha'. There are also several references, throughout the comments, to GTA V; which has obviously peaked the teen generations' interest in the song.

From this we conducted two interviews from this age bracket. The first interview was with Lexy and Megan who expressed their interest in music beforehand and said about their interest in Pop/R&B.
The second interview was with Matt, Tom, Josh and Neetesh, who gave different perspectives on their views of the representations and ideologies associated with different types of genres.

This is the interview we conducted: Interview with focus groups

Analysis of the music video '1 Thing' by Amerie

Padlet: music video analysis

Research into the Music Industry

This is my Research into Music Industry

Research and Planning

1. Research into genre helped me with production because it gave me a feel of the style that is represented throughout the R&B music industry. Once I had established this, it was easier for me to choose my colour scheme and the house style that I thought best represented the artists and music within the genre.
2. My research into audience contributed to my production because it helped me to pin point areas of my magazine that I wanted to make unique to appeal to my audience. It also gave me an overall opinion on what they wanted to get out of an R&B magazine so that I could ensure that they would want to buy it.
3. I pre-planned the production of my magazine by ensuring that I had all the shot types that I needed for every section of my magazine. I tried to get as many pictures as possible to be confident that I could fill my magazine up nicely. I also created mood boards for mise en scene and font types to get an idea of how I wanted my magazine to look. 
4. At the start of my planning I found it hard to meet some of the deadlines set because I underestimated the volume of the tasks that I had to do. But as I got more confident in how I wanted my magazine to look, it made it easier to produce the actual magazine.
5. I have learnt that with my second planning, I will get a head start and use more of the time I have been given. I think I fell behind which didn't necessarily lesser the quality of my work, but made it a bit of a rush to get things done.
6. I tried to incorporate the audiences feedback as much as possible throughout my production process. It was very useful in showing me sections of my work that perhaps needed improving that I couldn't see before, but had a feeling something wasn't right. 

Question 5

What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing your advanced portfolio, do you think?

From completing this task, I think I will carry the importance of research and planning onto my advanced portfolio. By ensuring that I have thoroughly planned and researched everything I need to, it will make the filming process much smoother and quicker. I also think from completing this task it has given me a realistic idea of the task at hand and the time it takes to complete each section and if necessary to have a back up plan.

I have also developed an understanding of how to use final cut pro which will be useful in creating and editing my music video, as it will help me to deliver a professional quality of editing techniques. I have learnt that the filming process probably has to take up the most time in the schedule as I will need to do several run- throughs to get it right for filming.

Question 4

How successful was your music video? Please identify what worked well, and with hind sight, what would you improve/ do differently?
Our research and planning was probably our strongest part of the music video making process. We had fully planned how we were going to execute each little part of the music video, from who and what was in each cut to what costumes we were going for and where to locate them. By looking at all these aspects made our music video replica, certainly look similar to the original.

However our research and planning did not account for how much time we would need for filming and how many cast members we would need, as we did not think about the blank spaces in scenes. This is why we joined as a larger group. To improve next time I would definitely factor in how much time it takes to film each section and what exactly I want from each scene.

As a result of poor time management and poor coordination between the two groups our music video wasn't fully completed. We definitely needed more time for editing which was made harder by the lack of communication we had with the other big group. I have learnt from this that making a final schedule of when and how we are going to do everything by would be the most effective solution.

Question 3

Did you encounter any difficulties? If so, what were they and how did you over come them?

We had quite a lot of difficulties in the operation of the video camera, because we were not familiar with using such advanced technology we hit a few bumps. Once we had filmed a section, we tried to use the 'playback' option but this ended in it deleting some of our footage. To overcome this difficulty we re-filmed the footage that was deleted on a simpler device but tried not to compromise on the quality of the shot. I would fully examine and get to know how to use the camera and always have a back up when filming next time.

Another issue was when we tried converting the footage onto the IMac the file format wasn't correct. This was because we were saving them into the wrong area so all we had to so was re upload them and save them onto final cut pro to make the files valid to use.

The Final issue that we encountered was that we did not account for how much time we needed for each section (filming and editing). Because we had not had a lot of experience in filming scenes before we did not realise the measurable amount of time it would take to get all the cast members together and shoot each scene. In order to allow time for editing we joined with the other group to split the work load but also gain more cast members to fill gaps in the scene. By working collaboratively with the other group, it was much easier to get shooting done quicker and understand what needed editing and who would do what.

Question 2

What technology did you use to complete the task and how did you use it?
Video camera:
This was the main piece of technology that we used to film our actual music video. It was a useful device as it allowed us to capture content and transfer it onto the computer to then edit. It also made us consider how we would use it, in regards to how well did we actually know the camera.
Once we had established how to use the camera it was easier to use different camera shots and movements such as zoom. Mostly we just used steady cam but on occasion we moved around with it to get different angles.

IPhone:
The IPhone aided us when we had difficulties with the video camera. Although the video camera would've been the more suitable option to film some our scenes, the IPhones' camera quality and zoom maintained the quality of each shot.
We used it for our last, tennis court, scene. With it being a hand held devise it made it easier to move around more freely but made the risk of a wobbly camera higher. We tried to make the filming process as similar to that of the video cameras in that we decided what we wanted the scene to look like.

IMac:
The IMac was used for the final, editing section of finishing our music video. We used this for editing as it has the editing software 'final cut pro'.
Cutting the videos and aligning each section was fairly simple, however matching the lip syncing within the video with the music was very difficult and we had to render a lot of sections which took up a lot of time.

Question 1

What have you learnt about the importance of research and planning?
Research and planning was very important in the execution of our music video. It helped us, as a group, to decide what genre of music we wanted to do and how we would build our replica of the music video. We did this by examining various music videos by looking at the pace of cuts and mise en scene to make our final decision . We also made sure that we only looked at music videos shot in schools because this was the easiest location for us but slightly challenging as well because of the various scene locations.

We finally agreed on the song 'Fancy' by Iggy Azalea and Charlie XCX as it was appropriate casting wise and had fairly similar locations to what we already had. This made it easier for us to try and make it as similar to the original as possible. To do this we were limited to 1 minute and 30 seconds, therefore we divided up into pairs to look at a 30 second section each. This was very effective as it was time efficient and it also meant that we would get more precise recordings of each camera angle and movement and what is happening in the scene at different times; regarding mise en scene and body language. This was a very important stage of making the music video as it allowed us to set up everything that was going into the music video such as giving us time to find cast and practice.

The final stage was planning. This was useful process as it gave the whole group more confidence about the organisation of filming time and what everyone was doing and when. When we planned we probably should've considered a few more things such as an extra camera as ours didn't charge overnight. I will carry this kind of planning experience and factors that we did not plan for when I produce my music video.

Dolby

I need to see a DPS please and reflect on my comments for the other sections.

Dolby

Start posting some drafts of your construction soon so you can get feedback.

Dolby

The posts you have show excellent understanding of both the purpose, conventions and audiences for magazines. Start to now upload some ideas for your own magazine and a summary of what the research has taught you and therefore what you purpose to create for your magazine