Molly La Fosse's Media Blog

We used some of the feedback given to us on the focus group to improve our products. However we are happy with our music video and do not have time to reshoot anything anyway so we are leaving the music video as it is, and only changing the digipak and website. Digipak - We re-took the photos, this time using natural light rather than brightly coloured lighting. - We kept the new fairly natural and relaxed, with minimal makeup and a simple outfit. This means that our digipak looks similar to our video and website. Website  - For the website photos, we took them all in colour rather than black and white - We added an about page and more articles about the artist. - We took photos that had the same aesthetic and mood to the digipak photos - Once again, we took them with natural lighting - no bright/neon lights as this is too 'dancey'. THE DIGIPAK BEFORE THE FOCUS GROUP   DIGIPAK AFTER THE FOCUS GROUP WEBSITE AFTER THE FOCUS GROUP ...

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Below is the audio that we recorded on our phones of the focus group feedback : The focus group was a helpful process as we found the feedback enlightening, and it was refreshing to have another pair of eyes that hadn't seen the products before. Here are some of the key points that the group made on the 3 products... DIGIPAK - Nice and colourful - On first glance it looks like the artist is of the pop genre - but sad pop (probably because the girl has a sad expression on her face) - Album cover is eye catching WEBSITE - Would like to see an 'About' page with some info on the artist. - The social media buttons are good - All the colours should match on the website  - The mood of the two products (digipak and website) don't go together - They like the layout of the website - Need same font/logo on both website and digipak - They thought it was best that we just have colour photos on the website rather than black and white. - Digipak looks...

Here is the digipak that we showed to the focus group. It is a very rough cut, we are not using any of these photos - we're recreating our own - but the pictures are sort of a similar style to the ones we want to create. We know that the back page doesn't really go with the rest of the pictures so will work on making a design in which all the colours etc match and have a similar aesthetic. Front cover Inside  Back cover

This is how our website looked when we showed it to the focus group : Now we have received feedback on our website, we are going to improve our homepage to create the final cut of the homepage.

Now that Daisy and I have finished editing the music video, all we have left to do is complete the Digipak and the homepage, which Anais and Vova have been working on. We have distributed various roles to each member of the group... Daisy and I are creating social media accounts for our singer, which will be embedded on her homepage. We are using photos from our Brighton shoot and the studio shoot to create an Instagram for her which is in keeping with the aesthetic in our music video. We are also finding song names to put on the Digipak. Anais is printing out the Digipak and cutting and glueing it together in preparation to show our focus group the draft. Vova is finishing the homepage, finalising the fonts.  So far these are the song names we have... Hold Ya, Contemporary Love, Must Have, Tell Me Something Good, Warm, Don't Wait,  Feel, Haze Cherry Pie Drive

These are the questions we have prepared to ask our focus group. Digipak What do you think about the digipak? Based on the digipak, what three words would you use to describe the image of our artist? What style of music would you expect on this album based on the digipak? Homepage What do you think of the homepage? Has your image of the artist changed since seeing the homepage, after the digipak? If you so, why? What do you think of the layout of the website? Video What do you think of the video? What do you think about the Brighton aspect? Is it relevant? Are there any differences between the three products? If so, examples?

Our focus group is tomorrow. To prepare for it we are going to print, cut and glue  5 copies of the Digipak so they can passed around the group. We also need to send a link of the Homepage via email to everyone and see if they can locate by themselves around the website easily. And we need to have a cut of the music video on a USB stick to show the focus group.  In order to ensure that the focus group is fair and successful we will have  someone from another group run our focus group for us whilst we are in another room. During the focus group we will have someone recording the contestations so we can hear what people have said about our products. To be fully prepared we must prepare all three products fully before Tuesday, as well as have a full set of questions ready and printed out. 

Phil told us that on Tuesday we are going to have a focus group. A focus group is a small, but diverse group of people whose reactions are studied for a market research in guided discussions about a new product to determine the reactions that can be expected from a larger population. We are using an A1 class as our focus group to find out what they think about our Digipak, homepage and a cut of the music video. At this point in the process we are far enough along for our products to look like finished products, but we still have time to make adjustments, depending on the feedback we receive from the focus group.  To give us a better idea on how a successful focus group functions, we watched two videos about two focus groups - one that went well and another that is unsuccessful.  Here is the first video that we watched which shows a good example of a focus group : This focus group went well for the following reasons... Because the ...

Daisy and I have almost finished editing the cut of our music video. We have spent some of our Media lessons and lots of our free time editing. We have two cuts - one with the Brighton footage and one without. Next week we'll present the Brighton cut to a 'focus group' of A1 students and ask them if they think the Brighton footage works well with the rest of the video. Once we've received this feedback we'll be in a better position to pick which cut is best.

Whilst Daisy and I are editing, Anais has been doing some research on digipaks - her findings are shown below.

This week Daisy and I spent two lessons and some of our free time editing. The first thing we had to do was look through all the footage we had and pick which shots we definitely wanted to use. We then had to sync up all the shots and rename them so they would be easier to find - for example 'Vickey Lip syncing Wide Shot'. Then we drew up a rough plan because one of Matt's editing tips was to create a plan and stick to it. This way we have an idea of how and what we want to edit before we start. We created a rough timeline.... We want it start with the wide, close ups and tracking shots of Vickey perched on the stool lip syncing : We want to edit the beginning in a very slow pace because this suits the tempo of the song and because these are our best shots. Next, we'll start to edit in the shots of Vickey sitting by the window : And incorporate in the shots of the velvet landscape : Then finally we want to introduce the ...

Whilst Daisy and I got on with the editing, Anais and Vova conducted some research on homepage conventions, the results of which are recorded below : 

Now we have filmed our video, the next thing to do was to share out the different roles in post production between the four members of our group.  Whilst obviously all major decisions will be made collectively, we only need one person actually pushing the buttons for each product - this will ensure we can maximise our efficiency and productivity. Therefore we decided that Daisy and I would edit, Vova would do the digipak and Anais would create the homepage, with some help from me because it is the biggest job.

The day before our shoot we helped to create the set in the studio. We put up the lilac coloured wallpaper and put the wooden boards on the floor so that on the morning of our shoot we would be all ready to start filming as soon as possible.  On the day of our shoot we were pretty well prepared. We had all the costumes, accessories and makeup ready and started getting the actresses ready at 8:20am. We got them into their costumes - Vickey wore a pink velvet slip dress, Lara wore a pink t-shirt and velvet trousers, and Zoe wore a fluffy pink crop top with pink trousers. We also sorted out an outfit change for Vickey - for the bed scenes she changed into pink corduroy trousers and a purple vest.  We also did all their makeup - we kept it quite fresh with pink eyeshadow and pink lip gloss. I think we managed the talent well as we got them all ready on time and made sure they knew exactly what they were doing. Thanks to the various rehearsals we had done in pre...