Focus Group Of Music Video Pitch Session

 

This is just a video example of past focus group we have had about our music video planning. In these focus groups you're able to see that we each spend a certain amount of time explaining and presenting our ideas for what we plan to create for our music video. When explaining this, some people had visual representation/ inspiration from other music video or album covers or even movie designs.

These focus groups allow all of us to receive feedback on our ideas from multiple different viewpoints, which then allows us to take that feedback and use it in whichever way we want to improve out ideas. These groups also allow the chance for others to discuss strengths and weaknesses of ideas if a person is indecisive in which way they want to go with there ideas to begin with, this allows the decision to be a little easier to decide one you get opinions from others. These groups are key to the beginning of research and planning as it can change your original idea all together for the better with the help of others around you, going through a similar situation.

Evaluation

My Evaluation:

For this unit's brief I was given the task to create the pre production of a promotional video for a new app launching called 'AncesTree'. The clients intentions were 'We have a new product, a web and mobile based app for families that allow collaboration across the globe in a shared, global family tree network, that allows relatives and families to share stories, pictures, documents and chat allowing new avenues of communication to open up all around the world and a greater appreciation of heritage and ancestry.  If the app is successful, we expect a global, intertwined network of families. A Facebook of the past. The sunny future of family history'.  Throughout a series of weeks, i provided evidence of the pre production plan happening.

I first started off with analysis of multiple examples of promotional videos that were easily accessible on youtube. This analysis was key to research because it gave me insight on how promotional videos should be laid out, how they should be edited and how different each one can be. Overall this first research was key into knowing what to do and how to start this unit.

Moving on from this and starting the project, I had to start with a pitch to the client a few initial brief ideas for the first time. I believe in this step, I could thought harder about my ideas as I received a lot of feedback which changed my idea entirely. With these ideas, we created a visual board as well which allowed the ideas to come to life more and become more easily visual when describing them which was really handy when pitching in the meeting. 

After this meeting, i began sketching out a storyboard so it gave the promotional video more structure of how the video would be laid out physically. This storyboard then gives the ideas of location searching and GAANT charts which I then started to create. However if i was to do this process again, I would have continued to create more GAANT charts as we continued through the process of creating the promotional video to show progress of what's being done and when more accurately. Overall I believe my initial research and planning at this point was going good, however it could have been better if i had created a proper schedule to work around and show what i'm working on, at certain points. 

All of my documents created for the production were very professional and included everything that was needed to be as professional as possible. I gave a brief description of why each document is important to the production process and what would happen if they were not included. I have given all the right document that would be needed to start the filming process and to have full access to all footage filmed, even on specific locations scouted out earlier on.

Therefore from all of this evidence, I believe that I have created a promotional video that is a great representation of the improved pitch idea that I presented to the client at the beginning of this whole journey. This promotional video will be successful towards it's targeted audience because the research at the beginning, allowed me to target certain topics, and people related to similar ages to the targeted audience which allows them to relate and be intrigued in the promotional video, then promoting the app. I believe I had points in which I could have improved my promotional video and the pre production as well. These improvements would be to focus more on scheduling to keep myself and everyone involved on track and what's happening when, this would have been helpful. As well as this, I believe my budget records could have been improved massively as i feel like that part of my pre production is the weakest, I should have put more research and thought into that part. I'm happy that I was able to find copyright free music to feature in the promotional video though as it prevented any copyright issues to occur, this can be a crucial step if not avoided.

I showed evidence of keeping in touch with the client with teams meetings, this was a good way to make sure the client was happy and it allowed me to adjust parts of the production if needed to, before any serious plans were put in place. So communication with the client was key for this production. The client was able to observe what type of production I was doing in their own time as well, this is possible because I updated my blogpost as much as possible, making sure everything was labelled properly so they could access any information they wanted to at any point in time.

Next time I do more training on this promotional video i want to provide more research as I believe the GAANT chart may not have been enough so adding more research such as Time Schedules for everyone involved to make time management easier and flow better once everyone is able to work around a set time schedule. All of this would have improved the overall experience and production of the entire promotional video experience. I may also have looked more into different locations as I stayed really local so next time I would explore further for more locations to give more variety when filming.

In conclusion, I believe I was able to create a successful promotional video for my client, that they were happy with. I was able to provide evidence of my research, location scouting, legal documents, visual representations of what I pictured the promotional video to be at the beginning and much more. I still believe I had multiple parts of the production that I could improve on if i was able to go back and do it all again though. Overall, all of my work was well organised and labelled making it easy to access and visually see evidence of all of this. Finally, after all of this pre production evidence and the video, I was able to create a promotional video for AncesTree that they were pleased with because it met what intentions that they wanted it to at the beginning of this whole process. It targets the right audience and promotes the app in a very positive way, so engagement will increase from this video and the intention of this video will be a success.

Casting/ Actors

 When researching into hiring actors for the promotional video, I wanted to look into the depths of actors pay is so we could pay them correctly as well as their rights on set as this is very important to understand.

Actors and Actresses are people who portray certain roles for entertainment purposes. Examples of this could be movies, plays, shows, theatre. Actors and Actresses are hiring by them auditioning for specific parts in a production, the directors and producers decide who gets the job or not. 

Typical skills that Actors and Actresses have is that they are able to follow instructions really well, they show up on time as there lifestyle is very fast pace. I included a screenshot of the hourly salary of an actress or actor if they were working a normal job in the uk.

This next screenshot shows how much of a huge difference the gender breakdown is between female and male in the acting lifestyle.

Actors and Actresses are able to protect their rights while working by:

• making recordings of, or board-casting a live performance
• making a recording directly from a broadcast of a live performance.
• making copy of a recording of the performance.
• issuing copies of a recording to the public.
• renting or lending copies of a recording to the public 
• finally, uploading the recording to the internet where it may be viewed by the public.

Referencing:

https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Actor_%2F_Actress/Hourly_Rate

Budget

 

Budget Description:

This is the budget list for the initial shooting, however I didn't add stuff such as travel cost because I believe that this promotional video will be possible without hiring a van to travel to different locations as the locations chosen are local, making it cheaper and easier to travel. So I believe that the majority of the budget will go towards paying the actors involved and hiring equipment that isn't already preowned. This is a big difference price wise from the first rough estimate discussed in the pitch meeting as I believe that this promotional video can be created for much less than I thought at the beginning.

StoryBoard

Location Scouting

 Location Number One: The Coffee Shop

This is a local coffee shop/ restaurant so it would be beneficial towards travel budget as it wouldn't effect it much, if at all.  

Cons of this location:

• Very little space, so it would be a little cramped.
• Could have people in there to add to the atmosphere however that could also lead to the audio begin extremely loud. Considering this, the promotional video had little to no diegetic audio so this con could be worked around.
• The restaurant owner could decline our request to shoot here.
• We would have to shoot at a specific time if we want the desired scenery and lighting that was described in the storyboard.

Pros of this location:

• A area in the coffee shop fits perfectly to the description given in the storyboard so this would make
  filming it more accurate.
• I attached a picture that points out the area by the window that would be a great area to shoot in.
• With people around, it creates a realistic atmosphere which makes the video more realistic.

Location Number Two: Living Room

For my second location I would use my living room to shoot in. From the use of angles and illusion i could make it possible so it's shot in a way that the one living room can appear as two separate rooms. Then it will be possible to do a split screen to give the desired effect of split screen in the first few clips.

Cons of this location:

• The lighting isn't great in my living room. Lighting changes would be needed.
• Props would need to be purchased to give the illusion that it is two separate homes.

Pros of this location:

• It will be very cheap to use, free so it wouldn't effect the budget at all.
• There won't be a lot of people around, so nobody should bother or get in the way of shooting.
• Filming/location permissions won't be needed on this location as well.

Communication with the Clients

 Recordings of the meetings occurring over this promotional video production:

In this video, it shows evidence of the first meeting with the client. This video shows what the client wants from this promotional video by showing a brief. This brief includes details such as target audience, the entire project that I'm making the promotional video for, and examples of evidence we need to show throughout this process to show progress. This whole video is just a more in depth look into the brief and just discussing ideas such as ideas already coming to our heads.

The Pitch Meeting:

This next video clips is evidence of me explaining my pitch idea and explaining it. After that i receive feedback from the entire group, this feedback was highly needed because it made my idea improve and also allowed me to hear other peoples opinion about my pitch. This clip has been edited to just my pitch idea however in the meeting we did go through everyones pitches as well, allowing everyone to give feedback and help everyone. The pitch we talked about was essentially out initial ideas of what we wanted the promotional video to look like, such as the story the video will go through. As well as the ideas, we had to come up with a rough estimate of a budget, and everyones prices varied because all the ideas shared were completely different so some were more expensive than others.

For my idea, after the pitch meeting I decided that i want to stick with my original idea however change it a little from the feedback given. This would be that I want the promotional video to be more sentimental by showing images from the past, like victorian, viking... I want to do this because I realised while in the pitch meeting, I needed to include a more historical feeling into the promotional video, rather than people just realising they're related through the app.

Client 1 to 1's:

In this meeting with the client, we discuss the progress what has happened so far, making sure to keep up to date and in sync with the GAANT chart. I was also given feedback from the client from what more evidence they want to see in the weeks to come leading up the final weeks. So overall we just went over evidence of progress being made towards the promotional video.

Legal Documents

Actor Release Form:

A actor release form is a legal agreement between the producer and the actor. This legal document allows the producer to have the rights of any performance made in the time of shooting, from the actor. This release form is very important because without it, it means that the producers have no rights to use shots of the actor, the voice of the actor. Without this you can't sell or distribute your film without these rights so it is a key part to pre production.

Location Release Form:

A location release form grants permission to the producer/filmmakers by the location owners to film on that specific property. This gives details about what is being shot to the location owner. This legal document has to be signed by both of the people involved. This then allows the filming to start on the location.

Risk Assessment Form:

A risk assessment form is created before any filming is done, this is because the risk assessment form is used to identify the risks on all shooting locations. It typically goes into depth about all the risks that people should try to avoid while filming. It then assesses injury severity and implements measures to reduce the risks in that area.

Continuity Plan:

Purpose of the Commission

The Purpose of the Commission:

Fruit Bowl Tech are a start up tech communications company operating from Milton Keynes in the UK. They have reached out for a promotional video to be made for a new app that they have created. This app is compatible with mobile and desktop and it allows business clients as well as friends and families to share, explore and converse remotely as if they are in the same room. This give a wide range of people the chance to discover a whole side of their life, they may have not ever learned about before. Essentially opening up a whole ancestry to be explored, going back hundreds, maybe even thousands of years ago. This app would be able to do all of this by individuals uploading photos, documents, sharing stories that they know about their families past and they system being able to link key points, expanding and growing with every piece of data given. The interaction wanted from this promotional video is that they want more app signups, brand interaction and they want social media/press to create a 'buzz' meaning they're being talked about, this will determine the success of the promotional video.

Key messages that Fruit Bowl Tech want to be communicated are:

• Staying in touch is vital
• Connecting to the past is as important as facing the future
• Family is as important as friends

Target Audience:

In the brief, the client said that the demographic that they want to target the most would be anyone around the ages of 24 - 60 so it's a wide range of people. They have such a wide range because it give more opportunities for more people to find out more about themselves and each other. In the brief they also said that ABC1 would be part of the demographic. ABC1 is a social grade definition that describes, measure and classify people of different social grade and income earnings. Social Grade 'A' is upper middle class, Social Grade 'B' is middle class and Social Grade 'C1' is lower middle class.

GAANT Chart

 

Continuity Plan:

For the continuity plan we have to take into consideration the weather, especially when shooting the shots in the coffee shop because I want the backdrop to be a window with good weather to match the positive actions that are occurring. So when shooting this one shot, a couple of days can be added to work around to ensure that the weather is good on that certain shooting day. So the week three shooting can be pushed into week four as well just in case the weather is bad that week.

Music Copyright Issue:

 To avoid music copyright issues during the process of this promotional video, i was able to work around it by researching and finding out that adobe actually has a website dedicated to supplying royalty free music for £19.99 a month. However luckily they have a 30 free day trial, making it perfect to use for the promotional video. They have a range of genres of music such as electronic, film, pop, epic, inspiring, suspenseful and many more.

This is the website that has evidence of all of this: https://stock.adobe.com/uk/audio

This is a budget friendly version for smaller promotional video because it allows clients with smaller budgets to have a chance of having copyright free music featured in your promotional video.

When browsing the website, i found the perfect song which i want to feature on the promotional video. This being the song: 

Mood Board

 

Context:

The images above give a little idea of what to expect in the promotional video so for example there are images of people hugging and reuniting. This will appear in the promotional video when the two actors meet each other.

The images of photo albums/ scrapbooks are a representation of a way that I want history to be displayed in the promotional video, flicking back to pages, going deeper and deeper into the history of them.

Then finally the family tree is a representation of how the app shows the family tree growing as data is added to the app. More visual diagrams will be made in the storyboard.

Original Pitch Idea

 

Pitch:

For my promotional video for AncesTree, I want to create a short video that portrays the story of two families who sign up for the app, this could be from curiosity or recommendations from friends. Through the app and the information they provide, they soon find out that they’re related in some way. Which would have probably never been discovered if it wasn’t for the use of AncesTree. I want the visuals of the majority of the promotional video to be captured from their phones, so it gives the audience of the video that they’re along this journey with the two families as well. This will get theM intrigued and invested into the video and app. An example of this could be from when they eventually meet each other for the first time, it could be shown from a live stream as if someone is recording the interaction. The Budget for this promotional video would probably be around £7,000 and this is because a large amount of this budget would go towards advertising the promotional video as promoting can get quite expensive. From research an example of this would be if you payed $1,000, the video would be viewed by 10,000 people. Another large amount of the budget would go to the equipment needed to film, actors, editors. For the schedule, I believe that this promotional video could be filmed quicker than the typical video because I want the majority of the filming to be digital, however this can still take some time to produce. So for everything to be completed from beginning to end I would say around 5 to 6 weeks. i would say this amount of weeks because shooting, editing, documentation, and evaluations would need to be considered in this time as well.

From the feedback give to others, i definitely need to reconsider my idea and involve  more of a historical aspect as i didn’t involve this in my original idea.

Analysing Promotional Videos

 

First Promotional Video Example:

The intention of this promotional video is to promote and showcase this coffee shop, and throughout the promotional video the logo of the coffee shop and items featured on the menu are show so the videos purpose was achieved.

The structure of the video features a bunch of clips which were partly edited to the rhythm of the song playing in the background, however some were not. It has a lot of short clips all edited together which gives it a montage type feelings. Some clips are slowed down a little and the majority of the clips are extreme close ups/ zoom ins of objects or actions.

The depth of field changes throughout the video clip, with some clips being fully in focus and other clips having the background be slightly blurred so the audience focuses on the action taking place, in focus of the camera. I noticed that in this promotional video they used the editing technique called 'speed ramping' which is when you edit parts of a video in slow motion and then in the same clip, another part of it is normal pace or faster. This technique is used because it speeds up the little details but then slows down and focuses on key points such as coffee pouring or steam coming out of machines.

The promotional video uses both diegetic and non- diegetic audio throughout. Examples of this would be the non - diegetic music which was edited in, then the diegetic sounds would be the water pouring, water boiling, coffee being pressed. This sets the scene of the atmosphere and surrounding sounds of what it's like being in an actual coffee shop.

Second Promotional Video Example:

The intention of this promotional video is to promote 'BLACK. Clothing'' and showcase some of the pieces they sell. Throughout the video the clothes are being worn and show on, being the centre of attention in the whole video because it's the item they're trying to promote and sell so the purpose of the promotional video is achieved.

The structure of the video consists of that are also cut and edited around the rhythm of the song that was edited in. The video features a bunch of establishing shots, panning shots, time-lapses and they use the technique of speed ramping in different parts too, so very similar to the way the first promotional video is done.

Slow mo is used a lot on the shots that feature the models wearing the clothes, this technique is used for the clothes to be noticed more and the slow mo technique is typically used the exaggerate something, so this would be to make the viewers focus on the clothes.

The promotional video uses both diegetic and non-diegetic audio as well. Examples of this would the the non-diegetic music that was edited in and editing around to make the rhythm flow better for the video. The diegetic example of audio used would be the water dripping down from the pipe is featured in the video as it goes along with the beat of the music.

Third Promotional Video Example:

The intention of this promotional video is to get more people to come and visit Walt Disney World Resort Destination. They promote this by constantly showing actors having the time of their lives, none stop smiling. This technique of everyone having an amazing time is a way into manipulating the audience of these promotional videos into showing what they're missing out on and how if they visit this place and spend money, they will have the best experience ever. I would say that this message is portrayed because it doesn't show any negative and only shows 'the magic of disney world'.

The structure of the video features families and friends living their best lives, going on rides, drinking, eating. This can in a way make the audience jealous that they aren't doing this and seeing this would just want them to go do it even more. There was a lot of hand held shots in this and this is noticeable because the camera is a little shaky but it's positioned around the height of the actors, so it give the illusion that the camera is a point of view from the audience. Also a few establishing shots of rides as well as birds eye view shots, probably shot on a drone, that give an exclusive look of the entire resort. Showing the area is also a way to get people to go and visit because of all the attractions surrounding it.

The promotional video uses both diegetic and non-diegetic audio throughout too. Examples of this is the non-diegetic narrator talking directly to the audience, describing everything great about Walt Disney World Resort. The narrator is used as a technique so the audience feels as if the narrator is talking directly to them, making it feel more personal and direct. More non-diegetic sound added would be the overall upbeat music added in throughout the entire clip, which just adds to the feeling of positivity which the video is trying to show. The diegetic examples in the promotional video are when the show explosions are shown, the sound of the explosion is included in the video. 

Video Links:

First Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8k71QcArnk

Second Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LCNqRj6tJU

Third Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEyUzQUH-IY