Audience Research: Feedback on Pitch

Using a microsoft offfice form, i put together a few questions to ask my peers and friends as feedback on my initial pitch and moodboard. The results were mainly positive although, there was some critism which has been really helpful in suggesting ideas i need to develop/incorporate into the video and website. This includes having a older looking talent to appeal to the 16-25 target audience and having a range of social groups presented to appeal to this demographic too.

 

Planning - Moodboard.

This is my moodboard. It consists of locations and shot types id like to include in my video. on top of this i will do further research to get inspiration for a themed website to create a brand identity.

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Planning - Pitch

Brief - 3 minute music video for a protest song by a fictional band/artist signed to Warner Music group and two pages of a working website for the band/artist.

I have a few ideas of what i would want for my music video and i will finalise these ideas through matching them to the brief and doing research into similar videos. My rough ideas include a linear narrative video to the song 'British Bombs' by Declan McKenna. The narrative could start off with a young girl making her way to a protest in London (if possible). She has made a sign with one of the lyrics from the song on (matching lyrics to visuals as Andrew Goodwin suggested and an intertextual reference to Bob Dylans music video - Subterranean homesick) to take to the protest. Lyrics to visuals is something i want to incorporate a lot into the video as they are quite politically charged which means the 'socially conscious' demographic will understand the message the artist is trying to portray. the lyrics are also contrast how upbeat the song is which is more engaging for the audience who can almost 'shout' the lyrics - like at a protest. The fact it is upbeat will also appeal to the 16-25 age demographic.  Shots from the protest will be included in the chorus to emphasise the theme. shots in between (during verses) will mostly be shot in London doing typical 'British' things. such as visiting Buckingham Palace, eating fish and chips (shot locally - on beach), having afternoon tea and visiting classic 'British rock' landmarks perhaps somewhere like Abbey Road (Beatles).
As more than one character has to be represented i had the idea of having a performance montage mixed in with the narrative - perhaps if i can find a group of boys to represent the band i will create to also put on my website. This will also be the way the audience will be able to engage with the artist as it will offer personal information about the artist and exclusive features. digital convergence will be applied through links to social media pages such as Instagram and Twitter.

Planning - Reflection on moderators report

10 points i found useful from last years report:

1. Several centres failed to submit research/ planning despite this also being a requirement. 
2. It was to be hoped that a comparable amount of time would be spent developing both. Websites in particular seemed to suffer here, with some seemingly created in a short amount of time and being overly reliant on platform-provided templates with limited extra content from candidates. 
3. The weakest statements tended to repeat the brief without explaining how the requirements and production details were to be achieved while others had clearly been based on a centre-devised model leading to virtually identical documents. 
4. Music videos - The best products demonstrated that candidates had understood the specific requirements of the brief relating to genre, representation and industrial context and clearly researched this before planning their own pieces. 
5. The best work emphasised the performance aspect, filming the artist performing the track a number of times in different locations with different mise-en-scene and utilising a variety of camera shots and movement; which was then effectively edited with accurate lip-synching throughout. 
6. General missed key elemens. - Failure to mention the name of the band/ artist/ track at the start or end of the video and editing which did not match the pace/ BPM of the track 
7. Some videos demonstrated very well-performed lip-synching, although this was more often a weaker element.  
8. Videos where some sort of simplistic narrative, e.g. a chase or use of a candidate’s holiday footage (a huge number of airplane windows were filmed through this session!), was imposed with little or no consideration of the content/ mood/ tone of the track. 
9. Lots of videos this year which shot actors from behind walking away from camera, sometimes holding hands, sometimes not. This is not a convention but seems to be very popular and should be avoided and vertical mobile phone footage should be avoided at all costs. 
10. In general, less successful websites either demonstrated a lack of attention to detail or missed key elements of the brief/ codes and conventions of the form.