Target Audience

To find out how to target the right audience, I created a survey with specific questions on surveymonkey.com.

Here is the link to my survey. 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7FVLLX8

After promoting my survey on blog and facebook, I analyzed my results to find out my target audience. 

The majority of people that took my survey were female and between the ages of 10-25.

The preferred genre of music is indie, pop, and acoustic.

Here are the results for ideas for conventions of an indie video.

The most popular locations were forest, beach and sand dunes.

The most popular prop was a guitar, but all the results were a bit vague so i think it would be better not to have any props.

Most people think that it would be better to have both performance and narrative in the video, or just performance. 

Most people who took the survey thought it would be better not to have any special effects in the video

There wasn't much difference between whether people wanted extended footage or not but slightly more people didn't want it.

Most people wanted to have some instruments being played at some point.

After collecting this data, I have found that Chelsea is an example of my target audience. She is an 17 year old student, studying English, Finance and Business Studies. She likes shopping at such shops like topshop, urban outfitters, new look and HMV. She likes indie music from Ellie Goulding, Mumford and Sons, The Kinks and Florence and the Machine. Her favourite films are Twilight, The Hunger Games, Dear John and The Notebook. These are more main stream.

Working with Photoshop

To get a better understanding of photoshop that I would need for my poster and digi-pack, I did a tutorial as an introduction.

I imported an image of a book into photoshop and used the quick select tool to select just the book and deleted the background of the image. I then created an other layer and imported the images of the sky and the table to create the background. I used the burn tool to create shadow and contrast on the table. Next, I used the quick select tool to delete the pages of the book and imported an image of grass into the place of them. I change the shape and size of the image to fit the template of the book. Next, I used the brush tool to creat shadow on the book. I changed the opacity on the layer to make the brush seem lighter so it looked more like shadow.

I then added some more of the burn tool accentuate the shadow effect. 

I imported an image of a road, i edited the scale by going on 'edit, then 'transform' then 'scale'. I then used the 'warp' key to adjust the shape of the road to fit the book.

I then imported an image of the lamp post and changed the scale to fit the book, I used the burn tool to create shadow under the lamp post on the road layer. I continued the burn tool around the road to creat shadow on the road.

I imported two images of the trees and resized them to fit in with the locations. I used the burn tool to create shadow.

To remove the white bits in the back ground of the tree, I changed the layer options so that they blended in.

I wrote my name in a text box and changed the font.

This is my final result. 

Story Board and Animatic

I drew a story board to get down my initial ideas what I wanted to film. I have a very clear idea of the location of my video and the style it will be in.



As you can see by this video, I want a lot of location shots among the footage of my singer as my main theme is nature.


Feedback


Megan- Nice setting and location but I think more shots of this is needed. I think a variety of close ups would work really well.

Josie- a difference of locations would work better. I like the close ups and more of these would be good.

Chelsea- Good use of setting, more shots of it would be great. And I would like to see more of the artist singing.

Ruby- The shots of her of the cliff work really well, i think you should her more involved with the location.

Lottie- The shots of the beach aren't very clear, you should include some connecting shots to make it more obvious of it's involvement. I think the addition of some depth of field shots work make this more effective.

Emily- Location is really effective, I would like more close ups of it.

Location

I have noticed that most of the indie genre music videos are very naturalistic and simple and have similar locations. In my research, my favorite locations for music videos were Ellie Goulding, who used a forest for her video and The Horrors, who used a wide open landscape. Bearing this in mind, I wanted to use a similar location.

After looking at several locations, I chose the sand dunes next to a beach, as I thought it was a good backdrop for my video. I wanted to make the meaning of the song lyrics more applicable to my video by having it in a beautiful and sunny location.


One of the advantages of filming in a large location is that there are lots of area where you can film.

i liked the paths ways of this location and would like to use them in my video.

It is very near the beach so it would be a picturesque background.

There are really atmospheric steps leading up to the sand dunes that i think would work really well.

Time Management

This month was mostly an introduction and starting the research for our course; including posters, music videos and CDs.

For this month it was mostly doing the planning criteria with staring using Indesign for creating posters and Digi packs and creating my story board. This month as also interrupted by half term.

For this month. I learnt basic skills in photoshop and worked more towards my documentaries,

For this month I focused on my construction documentary and filming my target audience interview. Unfortunately, the christmas holidays made this months work rather short. 

Actress

I have chosen Charlotte to be my actress as I really liked her audition. She was clearly able to lip-sync and look comfortable infront of a camera. Through my research, I noted that she also fits in with the indie genre of music I want to use and was of a similar style to artists I looked at, like Marina and the Diamonds or Lissie.

Outfit


Through out my research, I noticed that the artists i looked at wore very casual clothes in their videos. For example, Ellie Goulding, who wore jeans and a shirt for her video.

I wanted to keep to this, but also add my own take for my video. My song is very much about nature and i wanted that to be apparent in my out fit. I want my singers out fit to be a white, loose dress as i think this is within keeping of that. I also want to keep the look minimalist, by her having little jewellery. Here are some of my ideas.

Auditions

I decided for my final song I would use "Diamond Days" by Vashti Bunyan. It was in the similar style to the songs i had looked at in my research but quite an old song and relatively unknown, so i'd be able to put my own impression on it in my video, without my audience still thinking of the original.

I auditioned Charlotte using my chosen song in a studio environment. 

indesign Poster Research 4

For this poster, i tired to emulate a hmv poster by using the same format they would used. The white background and simple picture highlights the writing advertising the album. The use of the stark back ground also allows the logos and album not to interfere with the picture too much.

indesign Poster Research 3

For this poster, i wanted to make the background more interesting and colourful than i had seen on typical posters, so i used a photo from a still of Florence and the Machine's music video. This incorporates more of her music into the photo as it relates back to it and is also a very picturesque and eye catching image. I included all typical formats of a poster in this, such as logos and CD.

Indesign Poster Research 2

I tried to make this poster look like a typical hmv poster, sticking to the main format of one of their posters. I picked a very basic picture as the background as i noticed most of hmv's poster are quite plain. I used the same sort of font and layout for this poster as one would see in any other hmv poster.

Indesign Poster Research 1

For this post i wanted to make it seem more indie, so i made the background picture very bright and naturalistic. i made the writing for the main title and artist name's font flowery and like calligraphy. The other writing i made bolder and clearer. I added the basic logos for HMV, with the simple lettered one for the bottom right and the dog symbol for the top right. From my research, i saw that it was customary to add a smaller version of the front cover of the album in the poster so i added my own version of the artists album in the bottom left. 

 To create the logo for my poster i found an image of the HMV logo and changed the level of the layer so that the image didn't have a white background.

Initial Song Ideas

For my music video, I want to use a song like the artists I've researched, so more indie with a female singer. I also wanted to use a song that wasn't so well know so i could do my own version of a video without people thinking of the previous artist's video. These are my initial ideas for songs.


Nico- These Days


I've been out walking
I don't do too much talking
These days, these days.
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to.

I've stopped my rambling,
I don't do too much gambling
These days, these days.
These days I seem to think about
How all the changes came about my ways
And I wonder if I'll see another highway.

I had a lover,
I don't think I'll risk another
These days, these days.
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It's just that I've been losing so long.
La la la la la, la la.

I've stopped my dreaming,
I won't do too much scheming
These days, these days.
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten.
Please don't confront me with my failures,
I had not forgotten them.




Vashti Bunyan- Diamond Day


Just another diamond day
Just a blade of grass
Just another bale of hay
And the horses pass.

Just another field to plough
Just a grain of wheat
Just a sack of seed to sow
And the children eat.

Just another life to live
Just a word to say
Just another love to give
And a diamond day


Emma's Imagination- Focus 


Focus on my face.
Let everything else fade away.
Slowly breathe.
There's only you and me.

And hold this moment softly in your arms.

My bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-baby.
My bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-baby.

Now I'm staring in the fire.
Flickers just like my insides.
And I know you're right behind me.
In everything I do.
So I'll hold this moment forever in my heart.

My bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-baby.
My bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-baby.

And I'll hold this moment forever in my heart.

Indesign Research Pack 4

Robyn's music is electro pop so i wanted a futuristic, robotic feel to this CD.

I didn't think that the photo of the leaflet cover worked too well, so i changed it to the back cover and replaced that with a picture that worked better with the futuristic tone.