Research and Planning: Audience

You need to complete THREE pages of work to cover audience research and planning. These are worth five marks in total so it's important to make sure they are detailed and creative.

You'll find notes from our original lessons on audience demographics here.

1) Target Audience. ONE page on Microsoft Word listing your chosen band/artist's target audience demographics (bullet points) and brands your audience enjoys. 

Example: 

Target audience demographics for Kings of Leon:

• Alternative music/rock/indie fans. 
• Age range 15-45 but largely 16-30.
• Slightly more males then females (60/40). 
• Largely white British race/ethnicity.
• Largely middle class ABC1 demographic. 
• Likely to be educated at least to A Level with 60% at university or degree educated.
• Earnings above average and likely to do or have ambitions to do a degree-level job.
• Likely to live in towns and cities but not exclusively.
• Happy adopting new technology and regularly uses social networking sites and the internet.

Brands/lifestyle for Kings of Leon fans:

• Very likely to own an Apple product/mp3 player and take their music seriously. Almost certainly owns a smart phone but could be Samsung or Apple.
• Enjoys a drink – likely to be beer rather than wine. 
• Sony audio/visual products.
• Red Bull.
• Jack Daniels.
• Levis.
• NME or Q magazine.
• Sky Atlantic.
• May also be fans of Biffy Clyro, Florence and the Machine, MGMT, Kasabian, Foo Fighters and Muse.

2) Audience Profile. ONE page on Adobe Photoshop presenting your target audience and brand choices in a stylish graphical collage.

Create an A4 Audience Profile in Photoshop for your band/artist.

Your Audience Profile needs to include the following:

1) Band/artist logo or graphic

2) Demographic breakdown of target audience

3) Lifestyle statements that the target audience would agree with

4) Collage of brands/items that your target audience would use or enjoy

Use this NME example to help you.

3) Focus group write up. ONE page on Microsoft Word explaining FIVE comments you have received about your video idea and how you will change/develop it based on your feedback.

You need to conduct some audience research with another individual/group in the class. This is called a focus group and you then write up the feedback you get to help target your audience and refine your music video concept. You will be given lesson time to do this - exact time specified by your teacher.

Example

Artist/song 
Kings of Leon: Beautiful War

Music video concept
Three locations for this slow, atmospheric song. One: walking in slow motion by River Thames at dusk/late afternoon looking moody. Two: drama studio, blacked out, single spotlight, singing track. Three: bedroom – super slow motion black and white pillow fight between boy and girl as song reaches crescendo.

Five comments I received about this concept
1) The locations sounds good but need to make sure the time of day and weather/lighting is appropriate for filming this type of video.
2) This wouldn't appeal to all teenagers but more young people into emo or alternative lifestyles or skateboarding should like it.
3) You will need to make sure the drama studio doesn't look like a drama studio or this will kill the overall effect of the video.
4) The super slow motion sounds great but would a pillow fight work with the song? Perhaps think of a different idea or something else/another location to film in slow motion.
5) For this type of music an extra location with a band playing might be a good key convention to include in a rock music video.

How I will use this feedback to change/develop my idea:

• For the river location, we will book a camera for the weekend so we have two days of potential filming for that part of the video - and also check the weather forecast first. We also need to check what time the sun sets at this time of year.
• Our target audience is teenagers who enjoy the emo/alternative lifestyle so this video should fit in well.
• The drama studio will not be visible in shot - it will just be a spotlight in black and white and shot in close up so there isn't anything to see in the background. Framing this shot will be very important though and making sure the lighting is right.
• We will consider changing the pillow fighting scene to something else although it's difficult to think of a location or activity that would work well in super slow motion and also be available to film. 
• We have considered having a band playing the song but don't have the location and equipment so will stick with the singing in a spotlight to make sure we've got a performance element in the video. 

Focus group instructions

1) Pair up with another group/individual.

2) One group pitches their idea and target audience.

3) The other group offers feedback: FIVE specific comments (these can follow WWW/EBI format).
4) Swap around and repeat.

Next, in Microsoft Word,  produce a one-page write-up of your focus group discussion.

Include the following:

1) Your chosen artist and song.

2) Your music video treatment summarised in one paragraph.

3) The feedback you received from another group 
4) What you plan to change/develop in terms of your video idea as a result of your audience research

Aim for around 250 words in total - no more than one page of A4.

You must finish these THREE audience research and planning tasks for homework. Due: Next Thursday.

Music video treatment: task

You now need to finalise your group and choose the song you will use. Once you've done this, brainstorm ideas for your music video and then write a treatment planning exactly what you are going to film. 

A reminder of the three main types of music video:

• Performance
• Narrative
• Visual effects

This online Powerpoint of music video key conventions may help you plan your video.

Remember the songs you can choose to use are as follows:

• College – A Real Hero
• Clean Bandit – Rather Be ft. Jess Glynne
• Woodkid – Run Boy Run
• M.I.A. – Paper Planes
• Sam Smith – Stay With Me (Rainer + Grimm Remix)
• Bastille – Of The Night
• American Authors – Best Day Of My Life
• The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
• Coldplay – A Sky Full Of Stars
• Frank Ocean – Thinking About You
• The Script – Hall Of Fame

If you have a specific idea that requires a different song you can pitch this to your Media Studies teacher and see if they agree. If your song choice is approved, you will need to bring your own copy of the song (in WAV, mp3 or mp4 format).

Use this music video treatment template to document your planning - this needs to be printed and put in your coursework folder when it is complete.

This is a vital part of your 12 pages of planning and you should make sure your treatment is detailed but no longer than two pages of A4 on Microsoft Word.

Your music video treatment is due next week - exact day set by your Media teacher.

Music video treatment: notes

At the beginning of every music video project, there is a need to work with the artist to define a desired treatment. A video treatment, also known as video concept, outlines information with regards to what the music video will be about.

Conceptually, a music video could show the artist performing the song in front of a live audience or by itself; alternatively, a music video can also present a story line where certain situations and storytelling takes place. Furthermore, it can also be an experimental exercise where random images are shown to complement the music in a more abstract way. All of these angles constitute the treatment, or concept, of a music video.

Music video treatment: essential planning

However, a video treatment goes beyond this exercise of defining the overall direction of the video. The treatment goes down to describe the kind of locations, situations, stories, images, look and feel, tone and colour, pacing and so on of the music video. Even though most treatment writers don't follow specific guidelines or structures, a well written treatment is one that can successfully communicate complete ideas to artists.

Summarising, a music video treatment is the starting point of every project. It allows the production company to communicate its ideas to the artists and it allows artists to make decisions regarding the direction of their video. The treatment also helps production companies to write production budgets that are accurate and that give artists a complete view of what to expect when embarking on the production of their music video.

Source: Creando Music Video Production

Example music video treatment

Alt-J: Breezeblocks by Ellis Bahl 

Three shots, slow motion, played in reverse.

Cool tones. Blues and Whites.

Scene 1: A man sits on the floor of a bathroom, head in hands.

The camera moves to the bathtub, the water is running, a fully clothed woman lies submerged, a breezeblock on her stomach. Her hair floats on top of the water, hiding her face. Blood slowly runs backwards into her head. The man gets up and the breezeblock bounces up off the woman's head and into his hands. He puts it on the ground next the the tub. The two of them scuffle.

Scene 2: They sprint backwards down the hallway. Her in front, him in back. (he's chasing her) They backwards fight through a flat. They unshatter dishes and bookshelves stand up with books placing themselves back into order as they reverse fight their way through the apartment.

Scene 3: They make their way towards the front door. A knife flies off the floor and into the woman's hand. The man grapples with her. He turns away from her and she recedes into the shadows. 

The man looks down into a cupboard. ANOTHER woman is tied up and sucking in a scream. Her eyes close. They kiss. They stop and the man slaps ducktape over her mouth. He closes the door. He walks backwards, flips the lights off and exits out the front door.

The woman with the knife returns and opens the cupboard. The tied up woman's eyes are filled with terror. The knife woman says something. "I think I'll have a bath while we wait for your Husband to get home. You don't mind, do you?"

Assignment 3: Music video preliminary exercise

Preliminary exercise

Individually, create a 30-second music video by the end of Thursday's double lesson.

You should have filmed a few minutes of footage over the summer as part of your summer project.

You will now edit those shots together into a 30-second video, learning how to use Premiere Pro and apply certain edits and visual effects.

The songs available are:

• College – A Real Hero
• Clean Bandit – Rather Be ft. Jess Glynne
• Woodkid – Run Boy Run
• M.I.A. – Paper Planes
• Sam Smith – Stay With Me (Rainer + Grimm Remix)
• Bastille – Of The Night
• American Authors – Best Day Of My Life
• The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
• Coldplay – A Sky Full Of Stars
• Frank Ocean – Thinking About You
• The Script – Hall Of Fame
• OR a song of your choice as long as it is clean/radio edit (you need to bring in the MP3 file)

The songs are available on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\GCSE\Music video audio files

Remember, you MUST include the following:

• A close-up
• A high/low angle shot
• A long shot
• A handheld camera shot
• A slow dissolve transition
• A super-speed OR super slow-motion shot
• A minimum of 10 shots
• Use of colour AND black and white

Timing

Tuesday: editing
Thursday: editing, exporting and screening

Welcome back!

Welcome back to our brilliant GCSE Media students - it's great to see some familiar faces and we're looking forward to the year ahead! 

Our GCSE results last year were excellent - 94% A*-C, 39% A/A*. For Media A Level, Greenford was given an ALPS judgement of 1 - this means we are in the top 1% of Media departments in the UK! 

You've got a lot of hard work ahead of you but with commitment, creativity and engagement with the Media you WILL be successful!