planning review # 3 - CF

Well done Lauren / Andy (Justine absent) - a detailed, thorough, confident pitch. You demonstrated clear development of ideas, informed by primary and secondary research. It is vital that you now carry out a reccie in order to storyboard video effectively and also take the opportunity to practice some of the shots.

Well done.

AT - Focus Group

On friday I created a template and carried out a focus group in order the get a feel for other peoples ideas and feelings towards our chosen track. The group consisted of five friends who all got together aged either 17 or 18 and also had an interest in acoustic/blues music. I started by asking them general questions about their favourite band/favourite video etc. Then I played them the track and we had a good discussion about appropriate ideas concepts that could be included in the video and it was interesting to hear them voice what they would expect and include if they were shooting the vidoe themselves.

A good example one was done by



- From running this focus group we have found out the following about our audience and what they feel about the construction and idea of this video:

- Every single one of them imagined an urban location and we had a discussion and they agreed that a busy town or city was very suitable.

- Busy streets were mentioned by four out of the five and they belived that it would be better and seem more authentic for there to be more people as greater camera shots and techniques can be executed and I pitched them my idea on cut shots from the public to the singer and they agreed with this.

- All five established a key genre characteristic of artists with the shot of intruments e.g. guitars to very appropriate to be used a regualr camera shots.

- It was good to have a discussion with two media studies students amongst the group and Liz and Tom mention the use of overcranking which we hadnt necessarily thought of but we discussed how it could be used on the public and surrounding environment rather than the main character. I think this could work as it is very successful in videos such The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony, what do you guys think?

- Audience expectations of this music - casual clothes, jeans, shirt, sunglasses

- Use of different locations was brought up by all five as they said that this would make it look more real and enable greater sue of the camera.

- One person said his video would be narrative based and involve romance, and love which i have taken into account but I feel this wont meet the conventions and performance based video would work much more successfully.

- Day and night shots were mentioned by two people and I stated that we were doing this as a dissolve edit right at the end of the video and this was met with interest and they all made an input saying shots of city characteristics e..g taxi's, buses, buidlings, train stations would make it seem more real and authentic.

- Finally they collaboratively emphasised degree of different camera shots, one mentioned POV shots and the other regular shots of the guitar and singer. This therefore is something we must carefully storyboard to achieve that urban acoustic video setting.

- Overall it was successful discussion that brought up some good and interesting points about our music video.