Planning

Now that I have a good idea of what sort of things I want my music video to include, it is now time for me to do some research so that I am also taking into account what my target audience would like to see, and what would most appeal to them.

In order to find out about this I created a questionnaire and I also put together a focus group. I approached the task of forming a focus group by using my position as Head Girl to talk to the school in an assembly about my portfolio. I invited students who liked the jazz/pop genre of music to come forward to join my focus group. From the pupils that volunteered I randomly selected 20 pupils who would advise me throughout the production. I also included staff in this group as I feel that this genre of music is wide ranging in terms of age.



I left my questions open so that I could get as much feedback as possible.

Focus Group Planning

The questions I asked in my focus group were:

1. What do you prefer the focus of a music video to be? Narrative / Artist
2. What special effects do you think work in music videos of this genre?
3. Do you prefer black & white videos or colour?
4. Do you think hidden messages are more important than the actual surface quality?
5. Does sex or sexual images play a subconscious part of your life?

I also showed them a number of music videos and asked them their reactions and impressions of each through a group discussion.

I made notes throughout the discussion so that I could refer to these ideas throughout the production of my main task.

The majority of the focus group said that they liked a story to be told through the video but also with a focus on the artist as it made it feel more realistic. They also thought that the videos that I showed them in black and white were far more appealing and looked more professional than the ones in colour. Most of the group weren't bothered about a video containing hidden messages and didn't agree that the idea of sex necessarily sells a music video, particularly with a male artist.

Following my work with the focus group I had a wide range of ideas of what I wanted to include in the video and also what my target audience wanted to see.

So now it was time to create a story board.





I set the storyboard out according to the order of the lyrics of the song so that I was aware of what I wanted to do at each point in the song.

Now I had a sure idea of how I wanted my music video to go, it was time to think about shooting it.

I took Todorov's 'narrative theory' into consideration when creating my story boards. Todorov believed that the primary function of a narrative was to solve a problem, the story is narrated usually in a chronological order so that the story makes sense and explains why events occur. His theory is based on the idea of a state of equilibrium with the narrative ending in a solved problem.
This theory is followed in my video by the male artist starting off lonely and then throughout the song it becomes more obvious the artist is alone and then finally ending on smiling faces all holding a 'love sign' which makes the video end on a high, showing him everyone all over the world is looking for love. It ends with a positive feeling.

When I changed my original idea due to the snow I had to create new story boards: