Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

As outlined in the audience post in our Group blog (see this post here), the primary target audience for our band are teenage girls aged 13-20. The secondary audiences for our band are teenage boys aged 13-20, young girls aged 10-13 and young adult girls aged 20-25. In order to target our audience through our video, website and album we used our research into these age groups.
Throughout the video, the lead singer is shown as a strong female role model, as she stands up for herself and punishes the boyfriend for cheating on her. This strong attitude (and the fact her costumes aren't too provocative) promote 'girl power' and directly appeal to our audience.

Our website and album cover also appeal to our audience through their designs, as they both show the rock theme. Our website has the rock/grunge theme throughout, with the brick wall background and the handwritten font.

Our album cover also targets our audience throughout. The front of the album cover is a 'mugshot' style photo of the lead singer with the album name on the chalkboard she is holding. This rebellious theme appeals to our target audience as they are of an age where they begin to rebel against their parents and other authorities.

We exhibited our music video to a large group of our target audience originally, and then again to a 'focus group' of 11 people. The focus group filled out questionnaires and we recorded some of their thoughts after their viewing:



The questionnaires which we asked our focus group to fill in gave us some good feedback, as well as points on which we needed to improve. All of the focus group members recognised that the genre of the music and the video was Rock, which was our original intention. They also thought that the video fitted well with the song, as the it had good energy and a convincing performance. However, the group also thought that there should be a greater variety of camera angles and settings throughout the video, as it looked too similar between set-ups.
They thought that the video was likely to be shown on MTV and Viva and that it was suitable for a debut video as it established the artist well with it's close ups of the band.
The group gave the video and average score of 7.7 out of 10
Here is the questionnaire we asked the focus group to fill in:


As well as exhibiting it publicly to our audience, we also released the video online to our audience via social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. We then asked them for feedback via an online survey, as our research showed our target audience spend a lot of time online.

Our online survey

From our audience feedback, I have learned that I should have input more variation on the camera angles when shooting the performance. Also, some of the shots should have had more movement and been framed closer to the actors in shot. I have also learned that the audience thought our shots were too similar and that we needed to differentiate the set-ups more, maybe with lighting or setting changes.
I am pleased that the genre of music came across well and that the audience thought the video was a good fit for the song.

Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used new media technologies throughout our project, from planning to the construction and editing of our video. We used a range of technologies, from Web 2.0 in our website construction and audience feedback to the lighting and sound systems in the studio for our filming.

Web 2.0:
We used Web 2.0 a lot in our project, as not only did we create our own band website, we also exhibited our music video online through social networking websites and got feedback through an online survey.

As well as making an online website, we also made a mobile version as our target audience is very technologically minded

Making our website on Wix was challenging to begin with, as I wasn't sure of how to properly use it in order to get the website to look how we wanted it to. However I soon got the hang of it and started to add photos and widgets. Here is a short video of some of the features I used when making our website:



Here is our finished website:

Click here for theDropouts OFFICIAL SITE

Adobe Photoshop/ Premiere Pro:

Adobe Photoshop CS5.5 was another very useful tool for our project, and I used it a lot with the construction of the album cover and editing photos for the website.

Whilst editing the photos for the album and the website, I found some useful tools which I hadn't used before. The spot healing tool was especially useful, as it meant I could fix small parts of the photo (such as blemishes on the band member's faces) easily and get them looking professional. Here is an example of some pf the editing I carried out during this project:


To edit our video we used Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5. For my AS project I used Premiere Pro CS3 and the newer version for this project was much better for me to use, even though it was largely the same. I used the 'Brightness and Contrast' and 'Three-way colour corrector' tools a lot to colour grade the video, as we had to make sure the band members (especially the lead singer) were the same colour in the consecutive shots.

Colour Correcting

As you can see, the colour grading made a noticeable change to the outcome of
the shot, although it is more obvious with the band shots

Camera:

We shot the entirety of this project on a HDRV1E camera in 1080p HD. I had not used the camera before and one particular aspect which it took me a little while to get used to was the exposure and the focus settings. As we were in the studio, Ihad to set the exposure to the right level so that you couldn't see the white walls around the curtains behind the performance. However, if I put the exposure levels too low I couldn't properly see the performance and if they were too high, it picked up gain and this lowered the picture quality.

The picture on the left is a still from the footage on the first day. You can see that the exposure is
set too high and this lowers the picture quality. The picture on the right is a still from the footage on the last day.
Here you can see the exposure is much better and so the picture quality is too.

Thankfully, the stills camera was much easier to use for the band photos so I was able to take high quality photos during the photoshoot with no real problems. 

We used the Canon 550D for our Photoshoot and  Behind the Scenes photos

Studio:

We shot our entire video in our school's Seward Studio, which has new light and sound systems which I had to learn in order for us to properly shoot the video.
It didn't take me too long to learn how to use the lighting in the studio, as it was quite straight forward. After being taught how to move the lights, I was able to position them so that they gave the look we wanted for our video. I had to make sure that all the band members were properly lit and that you could easily see them on the camera.

Positioning the lights

The new sound system in the studio was also very useful, although originally we didn't use it. For the shoots where we only had one band member in the shot we used and iPod and speakers to play the song (though the iPod version was full length and for our video we had cut some of the lyrics). This was a practical solution, but it didn't work for the full band shots as the drums were too loud and so the band couldn't properly hear the track.
To solve this problem, we used the new sound system in the studio during the band shots. This meant we could play the cut down version of the song loudly through the surround system for the whole band to hear.

Production Log: Week 5

So here it is, the final week of production...

Sequence:
From the feedback we had gathered on our rough edit, I then started to alter the sequence accordingly.
Firstly, the pulpit shots were replaced with shots of the Boyfriend and the Mattress. This worked better than the pulpit shots did and also helped to establish the boyfriend motif a bit better at the start. I also input more close ups of the lead singer during the verses, so that they provided a 'visual hook' for the audience. I cross cut the drums at the start with the lead singer walking to the microphone at the start, which added pace to the introduction and matched the pace of the song.
Finally, I replaced some of the shots which had too much black space with similar shots that had less space and took away the guitar close ups during the breakdown of the song.
Now that the shots were in order, I began to colour grade. The main thing I did was to alter the brightness and contrast of the shots so that you couldn't see the curtain in the background or any of the white walls around the curtains. Some of the shots had differing lighting so I also needed to use the 'Three-way Colour Correct' tool and edit the shots where the band members were the wrong colour.
Here is our finished sequence:



Album Cover:
From our feedback we knew that we needed to change the back cover, so I tried to create a 'pencil sketch' effect on the photo. However, this didn't work out as I'd planned and so instead I tried to create a 'spray paint' effect. This effect worked for the background of the photo and tied in well with the rock genre so it was placed in our final edit.
We also needed to change the inside cover eye picture, so we put the pictures into black and white, except for the eyes. We made each band member's eyes a different colour so that they were each individual and stood out within the picture.
Here is our final album cover:

Website:
From the feedback we got, we knew that the Gallery page needed re-organising and so I put the Behind the Scene photos and the Photoshoot photos on separate pages and created visual buttons to each page.

We also needed to add more photos to other pages so that there was less space. We added photos of the individual band members onto the competition page, and also moved some of the features around on the News page.
The carousel we had placed with a feed to our Band Twitter didn't look very good in the corner of the page, so we changed it to a HTML Live Feed from the Band Twitter instead. This looked much better and we also changed the colours so that it fitted into the website.
Here is a link to our finished website:

CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE

Production Log: Week 4

This week was the same as last week, as we continued to edit our sequence, album cover and website and then get feedback

Sequence: We finished our rough edit on Monday:


We the received feedback on our rough edit:

• The start is a bit loose, try to add more shots of Boyfriend and Candles
• Show progression of narrative more
• Pulpit shots don't seem to work at the start
• Some shots need to be closer, stay a long way out too often
• Change intro band shot, not so much black space
• Include more of the Olivia CU, especially on first verse
• Only show Olivia on the breakdown - don't have guitar close ups

Album Cover:

We received feedback on our album cover:

• Add an effect to the back cover as it currently looks too dull
• Add an effect to the inside cover as it currently looks too dull
• Add white background to the behind disc cover, extend heightboard to the edge of the cover template
• Add barcode and institutional information on the back cover (We also inputted a QR code here)

Website:
We received feedback on our website:

• Check your links work, the banner to buy the single couldn't be clicked on
• Input a link to the record label's website
• Organise the gallery page properly, doesn't look like it is quite finished
• Input more visuals on the News, Gallery and Competition pages as there is too much white space on them at the moment.

Production Log: Week 3

Throughout this week we edited our sequence, album cover and website.

Sequence: By the end of the week we planned to have a rough edit of the sequence, so that we could see the order of our video and decide as a group what shots needed changing and where other shots need to be placed instead. Editing the sequence was quite easy to start with as we had a timeline of our sequence already planned from a pre-production meeting. This meant I could copy and paste the different shots from our original individual motif sequences and see how they matched up. We could also now input the new shots we had taken, such as the band shots and the indivual performances.
Unfortunately, we didn't quite finish our rough edit by the end of the week, so we hope to finish the edit on Monday and get feedback and edit our footage accordingly.

Album Cover: After taking our photoshoot pictures, we could start to edit them and begin our rough edit of our album cover. As Olivia had sketched a plan we knew which photos we needed to edit and place on the cover.
For the front cover of the album we decided to have the photo of Olivia holding the chalk board with the title of the cover on the front whilst standing in front of a heightboard. We finally placed 'theDropouts' text along the top of the cover to finish our rough edit of the front cover.
For the back cover we decided to put a full band picture on the back. Originally we wanted a photo of the band in their 'smart' outfits, although after editing and placing it on the back cover I didn't think it looked right and so we decided to put one of the band pictures in their video outfits on instead as it looked better. We then placed the song titles in a handwritten font along the top of the back cover, ready for feedback.
For the inside covers, we decided to have our band logo behind the CD and a picture of the band member's eyes on the inside cover. I edited the inside cover so that the faces were separated by purple strips, in order to tie in with the band identity.

Website: We started editing our website by choosing our template. We decided to use a template where the information is placed in a square in the middle of the page with a brick wall picture behind, as this fitted in with the genre of the band's music. I then created our navigation bar and designed our pages. Our pages were as follows: Home, About Us, News, Events, Gallery, Videos, Competition, Shop
On every page we had the title written in the same font in the same colour, as well as our band logo. Along the bottom of the website I put links to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, as these social networking sites were part of our online marketing campaign.

Production Log: Week 2

Monday: I started the week by filming the shots for the boyfriend motif. We asked Michael to come in and be the boyfriend for us, and he was enthusiastic for the shoot.
We were happy with the shots we took, and there was even a little bit of time at the end for me to film some of the Voodoo Doll motif, although after filming and watching back our footage I don't think we will use it in our actual sequence as it doesn't seem to fit.
After school we stayed to edit our shots with the boyfriend, as well as shooting our pulpit motif shots. Again, we were pleased with the shots we had taken and so will incorporate them into our sequence.

Tuesday: Today we filmed Frank's solo shots with his bass guitar. After the original band filming from the previous week we knew what we needed to improve on with the band members shots. We took numerous takes from different angles and distances, with long shots of Frank in the spotlight to close ups of his hands as he plucked the strings.

Wednesday: On Wednesday we edited the footage we had so far into individual sequences, so that when it came to our final sequence we could input the individual sections where we wanted. Now that we had the majority of our footage we could start edited our final sequence

Thursday: On Thursday we did our photoshoot. At lunchtime I photographed the band together and individually in their band outfits in a variety of poses. I then photographed them after school in a 'smart' outfi. The photoshoot went well and we took a lot of photos. We will start editing the good ones next week to use on our website and for our album cover.

Friday: On Friday we turned up to school at 7am to start the set-up and shoot for our band performance day, as the shots we took in the first week weren't as good as we'd hoped. We started our filming at 8:15am and went right through to 11am. In this time we filmed our band performance shots, Ben's solo (now that he had all his strings) and Ming's solo. We were tired by the end of the filming, although at the same time we felt fulfilled that we had completed all the main filming for our video.

Production Log: Week 1

Monday: We learnt how to use the website www.wix.com effectively to create a website for our band. I found this fascinating as there was so much to customise so that your band's page could look exactly how you wanted it to.
We then met as a group and finalised the schedule for the filming in the studio, making sure we had everything we needed for each day

Tuesday: Our first day of filming. We set aside today for filming the coffin set-up shots. Although to begin with we were behind schedule, we soon managed to get back on track and completed all the shots we needed with enough time to spare so that we could also film the candle/seance shots.I filmed the majority of the shots in the Seward Studio and Frank helped with the playback of the song. Later on Frank filmed the candle shots and the moving camera for the coffin set-up whilst I sorted the playback.
Using this footage, we could then start to roughly edit to our track and therefore see what we needed to do differently with other set-ups

Wednesday/Thursday: On Wednesday and Thursday we edited the footage we had taken from Tuesday into a rough edit (although unfortunately we were meant to film some more on Thursday but we had been double booked and needed to cancel)
From editing our footage I saw that we needed to frame our shots at a closer distance so that we could see more of Olivia's face whilst she was lip-syncing.

Friday: Our schedule for Friday was probably the busiest compared to the rest of the week. In the morning we shot the solo performance set-up for Olivia. We managed to film the majority of shots for the solo performance before we then moved on to Ben's solo performance. This started well, until two of the guitar strings snapped and we had to abandon the rest of the shots as we couldn't do any close ups of Ben.
Finally, we got the whole band together and shot the entire band performance shots. This was a lot more time consuming than I had first thought, and we didn't manage to get as many takes as we would have liked. However, we still have bookings for the whole band so we aim to shoot the whole band performance shots next week.