Treatment Feedback

Today we presented our treatment for our music video to the class and received feedback from all the other groups. As a group, we were told what the other groups liked about our music video ideas but also what we could improve on and some questions which overall was really helpful. 

Here's what the other groups liked out our music video ideas:

- They liked the idea of the split screen 

- They liked the idea of the contrast in the characters between happy and sad

- They thought our overall narrative was unique and well thought through 

- Good location planning

- Good application of theory

- Good consideration of characters and their impact upon the storyline 

- Good idea with the ending (the bench idea)

- Post-production ideas of colour grading should work well

- Good connection between song meaning and narrative idea

Here are the suggested things that we could improve on:

- It could be difficult to get a good focus on the camera if it is steamy inside the shower?

- Lip Syncing may be hard

- Come up with a plan for the lighting outside

- Think about the specific shots and editing techniques you will use

- Think about your target audience

- Consider how you will incorporate genre characteristics into the music video

- Try to have a variety of shots, not just all at home 

- Make sure you film all footage bright and colour grade into dark to prevent grain 

Questions we were asked concerning the treatment:

- How are you going to ensure that the narrative is clear? We will ensure that the narrative is clear to the audience through the use of props such as the Polaroid pictures that will show the audience that the two girls were once friends. 

- Are you going to do the whole song? The song that goes with the music video is around 8 minutes long but obviously we wouldn't want our music video to be this long and the brief would not allow it anyway. We will use the original version of the song which is around 4 minutes long. 

- What are your inspirations? 

- What costumes will the characters be wearing? Our characters will be wearing casual clothes so their costumes link with the narrative but also relate to the audience. 

- How do you plan to make sure you've tried a bunch of techniques such as playing with focus, varied angles. editing effects beyond split screen? We will most probably book the camera and equipment out before we start filming to we can get to grips with using the cameras and equipment whilst also playing around with the focus, camera angles and we will experiment with special effects after filming the footage. 

What we need to improve on:

- We need to do a recce of the park around sunset with the equipment to have a look at what the lighting and quality of the footage will look like to ensure there is no problems with lighting when it comes to production

- We also need to rent out all the equipment to play around with it and understand how to use it (during this we will also test out using the go-pro in the shower)

-  Most of our other feedback of what to improve on we have spoken about on our treatment but we didn't have time explain everything during the treatment presentation

Conclusion

This treatment feedback session was really useful in terms of giving us things to improve on so that our music video is a good as it could be. We were also able to find out more about everyone else's music video ideas. 

Treatment

Treatment Outline

We have chosen to use the song 1-800 by Logic feat. Alessia Cara and Khalid and the genre is R&B. Our target audience is teenagers and young adults and our main characters will be two teenage girls played by Becky and Allanah. Since we have decided to produce a narrative style music video, it will be linear as we will start at the beginning of their day and follow it to the evening. It will be an illustrative narrative as there is a obvious link between the lyrics and the visuals. The main themes that will be present in the music video are: friendship, happiness, sadness and nostalgia. We will be using the original song off YouTube which before using we will attempt to contact the artist/s asking for permission to avoid copyright issues. 

Synopsis

Becky and Allanah will be playing our two main characters who are both teenage girls who live very different lives from each other. Becky's character has an unhappy home life, relationships with her parents, isn't getting good grades and has recently lost her closest friend leaving her with no one. In comparison, Allanah's character has happy home life, good relationships with her parents, good grades and a supportive group of friends. The narrative will be presented using a split screen showing a day in their lives and how different they are however, near to the end of the narrative they experience similar problems and these problems are what leads them to cross paths and become friends. A key piece of information concerning the development of the narrative is that both girls were once close friends but this will only be revealed to the audience in the middle/towards the end of the music video. 

Characters

As I mentioned previously, we have two main characters who will be played by Becky and Allanah. Other characters may include Allanah's character's friends who will probably be played by our friends Sara and Tyreke and also family members of the characters so Becky's mum will feature in the opening sequence and Allanah's. Richard dyers star theory apply's to our music video as he states that 'stars are constructed to represent "real people" and "real emotions". This relates to our music video because we made the main character with the intention of making her relatable to the audience through her emotions. 

Location

Our main filming location will be: Allanah's house, Becky's House, school, various roads and a nearby park (possibly Richmond Park). Our main aim is to film the house scenes in the daytime so we have automatic good lighting whereas we will aim to film the scenes in the park in the evening, specifically just before sunset so that it will be clear to the audience that it is towards the end of the day. For the scenes inside the houses, to be specific we will be using the bathroom for the beginning/opening scene and perhaps a bedroom for another scene. 

Visual Elements/Mise-En-Scene/Style Choices

All of our footage will be shot in colour and we aren't 100% sure what we will want the footage to look like in terms of colour - for example, for some scenes we may want the lighting to be a bit darker to reflect the mood. As we are filming the majority of the footage in the day, lighting will not be a problem, filming at sunset might be difficult so we will need to film quickly but mostly importantly experiment beforehand to see if this would work in terms of how the footage will look on camera as we still need it to be good quality. Possible props that will be involved in the music video include: Polaroid pictures, headphones which will overall contribute to the feel of the music video and make it realistic to the audience. In terms of costume, all of our actors and actresses will be wearing casual clothes like t-shirts, trainers and jeans) which will link in with the narrative. We will be using elements of performance, to show our skills and add transitions to the piece. 

Equipment and Resources

In terms of equipment and resources, we will be needing a camcorder from school along with an SD card and the charger for the camera and a tripod. We will also need our costumes which shouldn't be hard to get a hold of as they are basically our everyday clothes anyway so we will already have them. As for our props, we will need a Polaroid camera which we have access to and a pair of headphones which are easy to get as we all have a pair anyway. After getting all of our footage, we will then need Adobe Premier Pro to edit. 

Possible Struggles and how we will overcome them

A possible struggle that we could come across would be lighting in the case of filming at the park at sunset. Since it is the park, we wouldn't be able to use the lighting kit as there would be no sockets available. To overcome this issue, early on in production (as soon as possible) we will do a recce of the location and see what the footage would look like at sunset - based on our findings from doing this recce we can either go along with production assuming that there is no problem or decide to film this scene in the middle of the day so lighting isn't a problem. Another big problem that we could come across would be if the camera ran out of battery whilst we were out in the park because it would be a waste of time to go home and charge it up again - to prevent this issue we will make sure that the camera is fully charged before taking it out of the house.

Blog Update

All of the following documents for my Planning Portfolio can be found on my group's blog which I will link down below or here: ABA Group Blog

• Song Choice
• Lip-sync and Green Screen Task
• Moodboard
• Location Research
• Costume Research
• Treatment
• Storyboard and Shot List
• Production Schedule
• Risk Assessments and Contingency Plans 

Link to Group Blog!

Target Audience Research

For my target audience research, I decided to make a set of 10 questions which I will ask people that fit into my target audience to answer, I will do this using Google forms. I chose to use a questionnaire because I think the data will be easy to gather and summarise. The purpose of this target audience research is for me to find out more information about my target audience's likes and dislikes so I can aim to create a music video that will appeal to my audience and therefore be successful. My chosen genre is R&B so the majority of my questions are related to this genre. I also decided to ask a mixture of both open and closed questions in order to gather a wide range of information about my target audience. 

Demographics and Psychographics

The target audience for our opening sequence is mostly the younger generation so teenagers and young adults of any gender. Our target audience will be Generation Y and Generation Z. According to the Socio-Economic model, our music video will appeal to Group E (students) in particular and the other groups as young adults are in many different jobs. As for psychographics, our music video will be aimed at Explorers, Strugglers and Reformers. 

Questionnaire Questions

Closed Questions

1. How familiar are you with the genre of R&B? 
2. How often do you listen to R&B?
3. How old are you?
4. How often do you watch music videos?
5. What genre of music is your least favourite?

Open Questions

1. If narrative, what kind of narrative would you like to see in a music video?
2. What are you're top three favourite R&B music videos?
3. What makes a good music video?
4. What kinds of things do you expect to see in an R&B music video?
5. What is your favourite style of music video and why? (Performance, Narrative, Concept, Intertextuality or In Concert/Live Performance)

Questionnaire Results

Overall, I got a total of  12 responses for both questionnaires (the one with open questions and the one with closed questions) and I decided to summarise the results using a range of pie charts and graphs to accurately present my findings and how they will influence the planning of my final product. 

Results for Open Questions 

In the case of my Open Questions, the data I collected was qualitative meaning that it would be hard to represent using pie charts or graphs so instead I will just provide screenshots of the responses from my Google Form. 

1. If narrative, what kind of narrative would you like to see in a music video? 

2. What are your top 3 favourite music videos?

3. What makes a good music video? 

4. What kinds of things do you expect to see in an R&B music video? 

5. What is your favourite style of music video and why? (Performance, Intertextuality, Narrative, Concept or In Concert/Live Performance)













Results for Closed Questions 

The data that I gathered from my closed questions was quantitative and therefore easier to summarise using pie charts and graphs. 

1. 

2.

3. 

4. 

5. 

I have concluded that from the results of my open questions, R&B is a popular genre within my target audience as 4/5 people said that was their favourite genre as it was more interesting than other styles of music video which also allows for important messages to be communicated through the video. Referring to our music video, this important message being communicated would be mental health. This is really important as we want to be producing a music video that our audience will enjoy and be interested in. When asked what they expected in an R&B music video most of my target audience said that they would expect expensive cars, celebrities and women (meaning the male gaze would be present). This was an important finding in the sense that our music video will go against the typical conventions of the genre which we hope will make our video unique and interesting to watch. Another question about audience's favourite music videos showed that most of their chosen videos were by mostly R&B artists similar to Logic meaning that our music video will be watched by our audience.  Many of our target audience also said that they would enjoy and look for a narrative music video with a thought provoking and emotional story behind it; this is really important as these are elements that we are including in our music video which ensures that it will be successful. My closed questions didn't allow for much detail in terms of answers but what I did gain from the closed questions was that it would  be correct to assume that my audience are very familiar with the genre of R&B and will like our music video and what it consists of. 

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