Audience Feedback

This post explains 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. This blogpost is written by all of us (Chelsea, Kalista, Rara, and Audrey).

The purpose of a screen test is to gain audience feedback about our work and see if there are any improvements that can be made. We decided to use Google Forms to create a survey to share with our audience because of the platform’s availability to collaborate online and allow sharing to others which made it easy for production and distribution. This online platform utilisation is also quick so audiences are more encouraged to engage with our survey.

We divided our questions into sections in relation to different components of our product. 

Here are our questions: 

Section ‘Music Video’:

(Several short snippets from our music video are shown) 

1. Do you relate to some of the elements in our product? 

2. What message do you think we are trying to convey from our concept?

3. What is the most memorable scene from our music video to you? 

Section ‘Digipak’:

(Images of our digipak cover and inspiration pictures are shown) 

1. Which digipak are you attracted to the most? (1/2/3)

2. What is the most appealing feature from our digipak?

3. How likely would you purchase our digipak from its cover design? (On a scale from 1-5) 

4. What do you want us to include in our digipak? (Lyric book/Artist personal story/Posters/Stickers/Other)

Section ‘Social Media’:

(An image of our star’s Instagram profile is shown) 

1. Choose 3 words to describe our star “CINTA”

2. Do you prefer our social media to be professional or intimate? (All intimate/Mostly intimate/Mix of both/Mostly professional/All professional)

3. How would you like to communicate with the artist on social media? (Instagram live/Interactive Instagram stories & posts/Online meet & greet/Responsive towards comments/Responsive towards DMs/Reposting mentions/Other) 

We chose these questions because these servers will lead us to knowing our target audiences better and if our concepts align with what they are expecting and engaging with. 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 easy because we had lots of connections and people who were already anticipating and enthusiastic on our project. We specifically chose our audience to be non-media students in order for us to grasp more feedback from a wider perspective of consumers rather than other producers. We want to understand how our music video appeals to the actual target audience hence we tested it out to other seniors. We had incorporated feedback from previous media students (alumni) on our screen test.

Here are the drafts that we showed audiences for the screen test: 

Google form link: (insert later) 

Here are the results from the audience feedback:

Screenshots/copy and paste etc (just make sure that it is clear) 

From the feedback we learned…..

We are going to change….

This screen test was a useful part of our process because….

 

My Artist Persona & Brand Identity

My group decided on a persona for our star to be reflected in our products.

Digipak: Research & Development

Here is the digipak research & development for our artist. This blogpost is made by me and my teammate (Audrey) 

Social Media: Research & Development

Here is the social media research and development for our main artist. This blog post is written Chelsea and Kalista

Branding Research

Choose an artist from your genre

Find examples of their; 

• Social media 

• Music albums

• Music videos

• (Magazine shoots/interviews)

What brand identity are they giving off?

What is their personality? 

What image are they creating for themselves, how?

How do they speak to their fans?

What visuals link all of the media products together?

How could this artist influence you?

Classwork: Multicam Editing

Here is the work I did on how to edit with multiple cameras. My group filmed the footage, but I edited it myself. My teacher provided a template for the blog post. This blog post is completed by me (Rara).

Shooting practice: Music Video

The 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. Verse 3 

Lesson Description: My teacher gave each group a verse from the song "Here comes the sun" we had to plan a scene which included various camera work and edits. As the goal was for us as to learn how to properly shoot certain angles and edit them seamlessly together, this will allow us to prevent casualties happening when doing our actual final music video.  

Pre production 

- Lyrics & rehersal 

Storyboard (Audrey) 

Production 

Our actress was members of our own team (Kalista and Rara) Rara being the lead and Kalista being the side character. With Audrey being the camera man 

Behind the scenes footage of our production 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19OHN2Td7YwuSd0v_Fox0XdjzRIBKDHTg?usp=sharing

Here is the Google Drive file link of RAW video clips which included camera tests, shoot attempts (failed and others), and bloopers. 

Post production 

Editing (Audrey) 

I had edited the clips together and made sure that the song matches the scenes along with the lipsyncing of the actors. I utilised the application Capcut as it was a free, easy, and fast platform to edit videos. It only took a while to finish the project in one period of Media Studies class which was advantageous for the group. We were also familiar with the application which made it efficient.

Our idea was simple which does not include any special effects or color-grading as we decided to keep it natural. This was due to convenience and we wouldn't be applying this editing technique for our music video project as we want to create a visual appeal for the audience.

Here are the few steps that I did for editing:

1. Compile final shots

2. Add the song (download the audio from Mr Nick's file)

3. Cut, crop, and adjust the video clips according to the correct time frame

4. Make sure the lipsync matches the song

5. Turn down the audio volume of the clips

(include screenshots)

Final Result

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QL79spi1wMVfoor6xfZ8K2CtwvXWsqQW/view?usp=sharing

Here is the Google Drive file link

Problem: 

- Weather 

- Short amount of time 

- 

Solution 

- 

Future plan

- 

Self Reflection: 

Filming Schedule

Here is our groups filming schedule  

Location Scout & Risk Assessment

 Here is our teams location scout & risk assessment. This blogpost is made by me (Rara) & Kalista

Link: locations scout & risk assessment

Self Reflection: This was pretty easy for me to do as we've done this multiple times for other projects. 

However I hated the part where I had to figure out what could go wrong cause its so unexpected and usually might not even happen which is why we repeated some points as most of the hazards that might happen will always come out of no where, but this does ensure our whole production team to be safe as this case we will more more actors & actresses. Then again I quickly got it done with kalista and it just helped us predict any problems and also helped us manage the locations on where to go so we don't spend too much time surveying different places. 

Song Research

Here we will look in detail at our song choice "The Weekend" by BIBI & 88rising released in 2021. This blogpost is created by me (Rara)

The Weekend - BIBI

1. Song Background

"The Weekend" by 88rising & BIBI seems to be about a relationship in which one person is not fully committed. The first verse describes a woman who parties all night and is only interested in being with the singer when it benefits her. She expects special treatment just because she is with him. The chorus suggests that she only contacts him on the weekends when she wants to be intimate, and he feels used. He is jumping off the deep end to be with her, but then she disappears until the next weekend. The second verse implies that this behavior breaks the speaker's heart. The bridge indicates that the singer is willing to be available for the woman when she is lonely but knows that she is not a good fit for something long-term. The outro is a repetition of the earlier lyrics and perhaps a reflection of the singer's feelings of being used and wanting more from the relationship. In sum, the song is a critique of a partner who only wants a casual relationship and does not want to invest in a genuine connection.

resource: https://www.songtell.com/88rising-bibi/the-weekend#google_vignette 

2. Why we choose it

When I initially heard this song, I was surprised by how intimate and sexual the music video was. And at first I wasn't really into how dark and neon the MV's aesthetic was, but me and my group decided to subvert the whole music video, as we all were only fans of the song itself, not the MV. We enjoyed how the music wasn't too slow-paced but also not as fast-paced as others; in my perspective, it was quite neutral. With parts that were empty, leaving room for us to add scenes that we believe would fit our target audience and keep it engaging. As we wanted to evoke a more bold response toward our audience, we believed that having a strong and complex narrative would make the audience think of how each scene would portray our artist to be 'bad' in the end. 

3. How your music video will be different 

As we can see from the music video, it's quite graphic and sexual for our target audience (teenagers), which is why we will subvert the whole MV by adding a narrative throughout our whole music video, as in this MV it just depicts the artist being the bad guy due to her only contacting the guy on the 'weekend.' Thus, we will mainly focus on our artist having a soft girl vibe during the beginning half of the MV, which will be shown through mise-en-scene (e.g., hair, location, clothes, and makeup), and then slowly nearing the end of the MV, she will have a whole different vibe, which is going to focus on her being a playgirl depicted through mise-en-scene and our whole narrative. Due to us wanting our visual elements to fit the upbeat melody this song has, by adding a strong narrative, it keeps the audience engaged due to it having a twist of the artist being a soft girl -> playgirl. 

Additional Research 

Grease (1978) this is what narrative we will most likely follow as it showcases the girl mc being a soft girl -> cool girl and the boy mc being a cool boy -> soft boy. But in our MV we will only showcase the girls perspective as she is our star and we want to focus the limelight on her, having our boy mc in the MV only being shown for a couple scenes to indicate how our artists feeling has changed for the boy mc overtime. The use of outfits of the girl in this movie is also similar to the approach were trying to go for, for our artist once her playgirl side gets shown. 

Self Reflection: Creating this song research was actually quite tedious in my opinion as we have so many  different scenes and I wanted to show each scene with clear descriptions but it was quite hard to compile everything to 1 paragraph. Our group also decided on this song for quite a while because we started off with many slow pace romantic songs but we ended up wanting to go for a more fun and creative narrative while still having romantic aspects to it as from the beginning we still want our MV to have some type of love scene because our group was more drawn to that concept. Because according to the binary opposites theory it is the conflict of these opposites that drives a narrative forward, so by having the artist being in love to not caring at all creates a conflict between her 2 personalities this then allows the audience to understand that she became cold hearted due to her being heartbroken by her situationship. 

Classwork: Stardom

Here is a summary of a theory we learnt at class today with our Media Studies teacher (Mr Nick).

It’s about the Theory of Stardom by Richard Dyer which helped us build our star’s image for our music video project. This blogpost is summarized by Rara and Audrey, however some of the celebrity research was done by Kalista and Chelsea as well.

Richard Dyer’s theory suggests that celebrities are constructed by media institutions to attract their target audience and promote their product. The celebrities are portrayed as a mix of relatable qualities (to appear ordinary) and unique traits (to appeal to fans). It focuses on how the image of the star is vital to the marketing to build both commercial success and a deep emotional connection with fans.

Celebrities are appealing due to 5 main reasons: 

1. Love: We are fascinated with the love lives of the stars, can also feel a romantic affiliation with them

2. Ordinariness: We like to see them doing routine things, living normal lives just like our own

3. Success: We like the idea of overnight success, and failure before success. This appeals to our

4. sense of fair play. (Why we like reality TV so much)

5. Consumption: We are fascinated by the huge material wealth brought by media success. Not just

6. luxury homes and cars, but also strict dietary regimes set by expensive nutritionists, holidays etc.

7. Dream turned sour (downfall): fascination with the exploitation of their misery

Self Reflection: This theory lesson allowed me to delve deep onto what I want my artists persona to be as Each star's identity was purposefully designed to appeal to and drive audience engagement by creating a recognizable brand with which viewers may emotionally identify with. This will then allow me to effectively promote my artist towards the target audience were aiming for. Overall me and my teammate enjoyed doing this classwork as we admire the chosen celebrity and believe that her work is admirable as she is one of the most famous kpop idols to exist. Through this classwork it will be easier to find our stars persona because I want to make sure that our star has a strong public image and confidence so that she stands out and can be easily recognisable towards any audience.