Long Road Applied Media Diploma

This is a written evaluation that should be posted to your blog by the first lesson back. You have some feedback already - however, PLEASE get more feedback from family and friends to help you with the evaluation.

When answering these questions you MUST MAKE REFERENCE TO THE FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK. Also write full sentences - uses images, video to illustrate your points. Make it shine and look lovely.
Mention the focus group - you organised for a group of 17-18 year old music fans to look at your music video and produce construction criticism in terms of Performance, Editing, Mise-en-scene, Cinematography. Here are the photos - 

1) Evaluate the technical quality of the video
WITH REFERENCE TO THE FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK
Mention the strengths and weakness of the following:
Lip synching, composition of the shots, lighting, camera movement, editing (to the beat), variety of shots types.
What do you believe could be improved and how?

2) Evaluate the creative quality of the video
WITH REFERENCE TO THE FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK
How does it hold the audiences attention? Does the video work well with the track? What aspects help visualise the tone and content of the track? 
What do you believe could be improved and how?

3) Compare your video with the original nine key frames and pitch that you did
How have your ideas changed? What parts got better or lost in the production process? How do you feel about the outcome?

4) How does your video compare with existing music videos from the same genre?
Refer to the codes and conventions you analysed - how does your video conform or conflict with these codes and conventions? Do you believe this would meet your target audience expectations.
MAKE SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO EXISTING VIDEOS - TAKE SCREEN SHOTS TO ILLUSTRATE THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES.

5) Evaluate your work as team in the production and post production process.
(Those who worked on your own (Tom/Jack) talk about how you got on with organising actors, working with friends etc.)
What went well and why? What could have been improved and why?
MAKE REFERENCE TO ORGANISATION, PRODUCTION ROLES, COMMUNICATION, PROBLEM SOLVING AND WORKING CREATIVELY.

6) Evaluate you OWN contribution to team in the production and post production process.
What went well and why? What could have been improved and why?
MAKE REFERENCE TO ORGANISATION, DELEGATING, LEADERSHIP, DECISION MAKING AND SOFTWARE SKILLS.

Mark scheme
Candidates present the video to a client or focus group. They make an objective and detailed evaluation of the video that refers to feedback. There is an in-depth evaluation of their work and the work of the team that suggests improvements. There is a comprehensive evaluation of all areas of the production process and some potential amendments are described.

During your production - you MUST keep on updating you blog charting the your process and progress. You get marks for showing your creative process. Call this a PRODUCTION DIARY

Start a blog post.
Call it 'Production Diary' and then the date.
Write about how the project is going:
What you have achieved that day/lesson.
What still needs to be done and when you plan to do it.
What test footage you have done.
What influences your process.
What tutorials and advice you have found online.
What problems you anticipate and how you hope to over come them.
Post videos and pictures of the shoot/your documents to help illustrate the process.

AT THE VERY LEAST YOU MUST WRITE UP HOW EACH SHOOT WENT. IF THIS MEANS BACK DATING A POST, THEN DO SO.
These should be individual and there should be 3 minimum.

Have look at this post from Dave - it could do with more reflection and more detail about the shoot - but the examiner can get an idea of what he's up to.

GENRE RESEARCH TASK

FIRSTLY IDENTIFY THE GENRE OF MUSIC TRACK YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO DO FOR YOUR VIDEO:

The objective of this research is two-fold:
To show to the examiners that you understand the genre you are working to the extent that you can clearly identify its codes and conventions
To show that you have researched the genre in order to have a comprehensive knowledge of who is the potential audience.

 Here’s a few tips and activities

ORIGINS
All music genres grow and develop from other types of music genres as musicians blend different styles and influences together. So where does your genre come from – which styles is it melding?

Who is seen as the main practitioner? Who are the main influences? Does the genre come from a certain scene/place/time? 

When you’re researching this think about how all these influences work together – do the various musical influences affect the style/fashion/iconography of the genre? Does it influence what sort of audience it attracts?

Tips: Start at Wikipedia – use the references down below

Look on google videos – are there any relevant documentaries about the genre?

Have a look at this amazing Guardian Music Timeline. Or at this great music history documentary. It's from the 90s so stops at that point but goes from Rock'n'Roll to dance and hip hop - with each genre of music having it's own episode.

FASHION

Is there a certain look to the genre in terms of clothes? How can you describe it? Why do they dress this way? Are there any key influences? Are there any key labels? Is it a DIY culture? Is the music used to advertise certain brands?

Tips: collect images of fans and bands of the genre – line them up and look for common threads and themes?

COMMUNITIES

Are there any key scenes for the music (for instance is there an acknowledge capital of the genre (think Seattle for Grunge, London for grime etc). Why do you think this is the case?

How do fans communicate – is it a local scene? Is it a global scene – do fans have specific websites? Which ones are they What makes them different?

Are there Facebook and Myspace pages? What sort of people are fans of this?

Tips: Look at the Myspace pages for the bands – look at the sort of people who are fans of this – what do their myspaces look like? Are there key colours, images, interests? Is there a certain language that they use? Are there common references? Are there any clues to types of films/comic/books/tv they are into?

TV AND FILM
Are there any films that use this type of music as its soundtrack? Are there any practitioners of the genre that act? Find them – look at the trailers and clips – is there a theme/content/style that is relevant to the genre?

Where are fans of the this genre represented on TV and film? (for instance, the main characters of Juno all like folky-indie stuff, is there film where they all are like R’n’B or Britpop or Pop Punk)? What do they look like? What are the stories about?

Tips: look for the key artists on imdb.com where do they show up? Is this any use? Is the film influenced by the style of music? Is it a mainstream film? Is the film designed to attract fans of the genre?

RADIO AND TV STATIONS
If you want to hear the genre of music, where do you go? Where is it visible? Are there key radio shows or stations, or TV channels? If so look them up – how are they marketed? What images/fonts/iconography are used? What colours? What sounds? What references?
Who are the key personalities promoting this music? How do they represent themselves? What interests do they have?

MAGAZINES & FANZINES
Where do you read about this genre or find out about new artists?
Tips: look for links off fansites? Type in specific searches in google – search creatively.

CLUB NIGHTS & GIGS
Are there key (or even local) club nights that play this music? How are they marketed? What are the called? What sort of venue do they use? What sort of people go? What sort of stuff do they wear/drink/talk about?

Are there key festivals? How are they promoted?
Tips: Look for official sites – take screen shots of the web pages – look at the images and the set lists.

 LABELS
Are there key brands associated with the genre?  Clothes, shoes, drinks, snacks, hair products, hats, anything?

ACTIVITIES & LIFESTYLE
Is the genre all about good living? Partying? Being political? Angst? Productive? Silly? Creative? Being active? Being rich? Being poor? Being angry? (A lot this can be seen in the videos)

TECHNOLOGIES
Are there key technologies – either in the music (electronic instruments – think autotune for current r’n’b and pop) or related to the lifestyle.

Tips: Read reviews about music, look for tutorials about how to replicate the sound, look at the videos and at the mise-en-scene.)

To produce a good, well-rounded blog you MUST have thorough Target Audience research.

This is important for the following reasons:

- One of the evaluations question is around audience feedback
- Having an strong idea of who your target audience is will help in terms of creative process in the construction of the video: references, intertextuality, style, fashion etc.
- You can gauge whether you meeting audiences expectations or not.

1. Ideal audience type
From research into the genre of your music choice you should have an idea of your perfect audience type will be – in terms of what they wear, what media they consume, festival, radio, technology etc.
Using this create a visual depiction of you ideal target audience. Use Photoshop if you’re comfortable with it or Prezi.

A that will help you understand different demographics and audience types is this:
http://www.uktribes.com/
To access the site fully you will need the following password: Qspfntut
If you use this take screenshots of the part of the site you used.

Tag all your genre research posts and hyperlink them to this blog post pointing the moderator to where this information has come from.

FOR EXAMPLE

Identify the music genre of the track that you have chosen for your music video.
Next research into similar bands – look on wikipedia for associated acts, looks on the record label for institutional info, use Spotify and Last FM for recommendations, reviews for mentions of similar acts.
Make a list of bands that are similar:
Look at the videos of these bands and try to identify patterns and similarities in terms of the following:

Use this table (download, make your own, or ask me for the original) and, as a team, decide on who is going to take on the specific role.

There are five roles so you will have to have one person taking on multiple roles.

Create your own version of this chart and EVIDENCE your decision as to which idea you have decided to develop further.

Write up a personal SKILLS AUDIT assessing your ability in the following criteria. 
(Write it on a Word document so it can be printed out and then either cut and paste the text onto the blog or upload the word doc.)

Creativity - Researching for new ideas, problem solving, being able to realise and fulfil ideas.

Organisation - meeting deadlines, punctuality, instructing others, creating the necessary paper trail.

Technical - What software skills do you have - what are you confident using? How skilled are you with camera, lighting etc. Also any music video specific skills (dancing, guitar playing etc).

Persistance - do you get things done?

WHEN WRITING THIS UP - GIVE A CLEAR EXAMPLE TO BACK UP YOUR ASSESSMENT. e.g. "I believe I am particularly skilled with editing using Final Cut, for instance the editing I did for the short film Trapped had sophisticate keyframing and use of transitions."

TO PASS AO1 YOU MUST ANALYSE TWO MUSIC VIDEOS. AS A CLASS WE WILL ANALYSE MILEY CYRUS - BUT YOU MUST CARRY OUT AN ANALYSIS OF A VIDEO OF YOUR OWN CHOICE USING THE SAME HEADINGS.

"I think the video is much more, if people get past the point that I'm naked and you actually look at me you can tell that I actually look more broken than even the song sounds. The song is a pop ballad. It's one of these songs that everyone is going to relate to, everyone has felt that feeling at one point. If people can take their minds out of the obvious and go into their imagination a little bit and see kind of what the video really means and the way it's so vulnerable and actually if you look in my eyes I look more sad than my voice sounds on the record it was a lot harder to do the video than it was to record the songs. It was much more of an emotional experience."

1) Intentions - explain what you believe are the intentions of the artist and director - why does this video exist. It could be as simple as 'to promote the single' but think about how the video may shape the idea of the artist for the viewer - does it build on their star persona?

2) Relationship between the lyrics and visuals

3) Relationship between the music and visuals

4) Voyeurism - We often see activities in music videos of an intimate nature - tender moments between lovers, people getting ready for a night out, episodes of reflection etc. - basically a private activity that people don't usually invite the audience of MTV to spectate.
Is there any content of a voyeuristic nature? Describe it. What effect does it have on the video/representation of the artist?

5) Intertextuality - shaping of texts meaning by the other texts that may include an authors borrowing and transformation OR a reader's referencing. What references are there in the video? What does it remind you off? Have you seen similar treatments before - where? How does this all influence the effect and impact of the video?

6) Representations of the artist - how is the singer/band portrayed? How they lit, what are they doing, what is their performance like, what clothes are they wearing, are they happy/sad/moody/energetic/soulful/scary?

7) Typical of the Genre - identify the genre of the music - be as specific as you can. Is this video typical of that genre in terms of performance, imagery, mise-en-scene, narrative and representations. Back up each point with reference to the video and other videos from the genre.

8) Who is the target audience - obviously fans of this artist and genre, but can you expand on this? What does this audience expect? What else are they into (alternative culture, mainstream).

9) Why would this appeal to the target audience - which aspects of the video do you believe the target audience would enjoy - the performance, imagery, narrative etc