Group post:TA research: company logo (Instagram poll)

4 people in the survey preferred this logo.

2 people in our survey preferred this logo.

I used Instagram as a form of social media for polling our target audience on which logo they would like to see best for our Music Institution. the results were as followed:

There were 6 participants in this survey, all of which were girls (which could have affected the results).

We have decided to use the logo which got the most votes since it looks neat and professional.

Research: TA evaluation of fonts for company name

From our TA research it became clear to us that number 9 was the most popular choice of font. Font 9 is shown below:

Tomorrow our group will meet together and discuss whether we believe this font would look right on the company logo that we are currently working on. I feel that the research we conducted was highly useful as it indicated to us what people of our target population liked and what they felt would look appropriate for the company name and to be advertised on the front cover of a digipak to release our new star. 

Planning: Make up and costume research

I have created a moodboard with idea's for makeup and hair for our music video. Throughout the video there is going to be a progression of the character through the break down of her makeup suggesting she cannot tolerate her abusive relationship anymore. At the beginning Sophie will have a natural look then throughout she will change to red lipstick and darker eyeshadow to show she has gained power and is strong when the music builds. Finishing the video she is physically broken from her relationship hence the smudged eyes and lipstick with wet messy hair implying a decline in appearance.

This is a mood board I have created for costume ideas we are thinking about. At the start of our video Sophie is going to be dressed casually but then throughout the video with have changes when appropriate. I've found researching clothing that will reflect our genre quite hard due to the song being of the indie pop genre which does not have a specific image. On the moodpboard is a selection of ideas that I liked and thought would reflect our genre and also be suitable for the narrative of our video. 

These mood-boards that I have created are just giving us idea's of things we might want to do for our video. Currently we have not definitely decided on our costumes.

TA Research: Font for company logo

Above is the sheet that we gave out to perform our target audience research for the font of the company logo. I found twenty fonts that I believed would look appropriate for our company name 'Rebel Records' and asked the participants to choose their favourite one. Below are the finding of our results: 

1) 1

2) 1

3) 3

4) 3

5) 1

6) 0

7) 1

8) 2

9) 6

10) 1

11) 0

12) 1

Research: Adele 21 digipak

Above is Adele's digipak for her album 21.There is clear synergy shown between her front cover and the back of her digipak, however the actually CD decoration appears to be significantly different. On the front of the digipak a sans serif font has been used to write the artists name and the album name. I like the the font that has been chosen for this as it is very simple but looks really effective as it complements the stunning dramatic photo which is on the cover. The font also looks sophisticated and is clear for the audience to identify who the artist is. Synergy is also created on the digipak through the use of black and white images on the front and the back. The photograph on the front cover is very appealing and creates a classy grown up feel about the album, this could be useful due to appealing to an older audience due to the cover of the digipak. However Adele also has a following of the younger generation due to having numerous hits in the charts, so I feel the photograph that has been used here was a fantastic choice due to appealing to both audiences. On the back of the pack a simple conventional track list has been used to present the songs entailed in the CD. Using another simple sans serif fonts continues to synergy onto the back and is clear and easy for the audience to read. Furthermore another black and white sophisticated photo is used on the back of the pack, this conforms to the star image that Adele has created for herself through her previous albums. The photograph is very audience based due to the artist staring directly into camera which almost gives the impression of Adele staring at the buyer. To complete the digipak is the CD, in the case I would say that the design does not follow the synergy from the previous sides of the CD, however I like the use of the bright green as it projects some colour into the case showing it is not all serious due to the main theme of black and white on the cover. Some parts of the synergy has been continued through the pack including the sans serif font that has been used almost creating a paint brush effect to put the 21 onto the CD. 

Conventions of a digipak: 

• A full scale image with text overlay
• Range of font sizes: the largest is the artist and name of the digipak
• Images of the star
• Centralised text
• Text wrap

Planning Principle photography of locations we might use

Amy Johnson's Slidely by Slidely Slideshow
This location is on Grammar School Road in Brigg right at the end of the road. Indya showed Morgan and I this location as it had been considered for the video she was in last year. I believe this location would work for some of the video due to it being a large open space giving us a big area to work with. Also there is the sheltered part with the platform down the middle which could work as it will introduce different level's into the video and make it more interesting.

Research: Rhianna digipak research

Above is Rhianna's album cover for 'Loud'. During my research for digipak's I believe that this cover is one of my favourites, this is due to the photograph that has been used on the front being so eye catching and appealing to the audience. The use of bright colours really makes the pictures stand out and the constant theme of red is really appealing.The use of the block red colour is linked with the connotations of raw, luscious love also being an erotic colour so supports Rhianna's sex appeal. I also like the sans serif front as it is very simple but is very clear to the audience what the name of the album is. When creating the digipak for my music video I like the idea of creating something similar to this meaning using a close up photo of our artists face showing emotion as I believe it to look very unique and a great way to launch a new star's album like we are aiming to do. 

Here is the back of the digipak, at a first look I do not believe the back to entail much synergy with the front of the digipak. For example the use of the bright fiery red of the front cover is not shown here apart from on the panel of the side of the CD. However another attractive, appealing photograph is used her of Rhianna, seeing her surrounded by floaty clothes and wearing white lace portrays her to innocent here, whereas on the cover it was advertising a flirty, young, attractive female, whereas a different more innocent side is shown here. A san serif font is used here again to show the names of the songs on the CD, using a light red colour carrying through a little synergy from the front cover. On the back pane of the digipak it is conventional to have the list of the songs, a photograph, the album production company and a barcode. 

 Here is the CD for the digipak, again with another theme going on compared to the front and back of the digipak. However I like the use of a solid, beautiful image on the CD as it really looks effective. Yet again the san serif synergy has been carried through to the CD as the artists name and the album name have been carried through onto this. Having a close up image of a flower is something that my group should consider for our CD as its not conventional to have a photograph of the artist on the CD so we could consider using a flower or something else with relevance to our music video.

Above is the limited addition digipak that was sold when the album first was released. The difference being this was a foldable case instead of a standard generic plastic one. Also this edition has a CD and also contains a DVD of the making of the 'Loud' album. This however was a couture edition and in UK HMV stores was retailed at £89! But this digipak is know for being extremely large due to normal digipaks and extremely unique.

Word It with words to describe our video ideas

Colour idea's for our video

Amy Johnson's Slidely by Slidely Slideshow

Why these colours have influenced us:

• After gathering ideas for our music video we decided we were going to base the video around an abusive relationship where the female singer has been abused in a previous relationship but she loves the male to much to let him go even though she is being abused by him.
• Black: we believe black will look good in our music video due to it being and emotional and evil colour also is conventional of this genre of music video and Sara wear's black in alot of her music video's and photo shoots. 
• Red: we are centring our music video around a girl who has been in an abusive relationship but she cant let him go as she still loves him. I think red will be an appropriate colour for us to use due to it having a duel meaning of love and danger. 
• Grey: we decided on having some grey features in the video as grey is a colour that symbolises dull, dirty and dingy implying that nothing is going well and everything is negative. 
• Purple: this colour symbolises gloom and sad feeling which will be very apparent in our video due to resembling the aftermath of an abusive relationship that she cannot let go.

Props Research

This is a moodboard full of screen grabs from Kate Nash's music video 'Foundations'. The video is narrative and tells the story of her being stuck in a relationship she is not happy in, however at the end of the video she leaves. Throughout the video it uses a wide range of props, and as you can see on the music video numerous of the props are repeated throughout e.g the toothbrushes, the socks and the shot of the watches on the bed side table. In this video the props are very cleverly used to almost tell the story through the props. The toothbrushes are used at the beginning to show they are separate then in the middle they are together and touching then they argue by moving back and forth, then at the end of the video they are separate again.

This mood board is screen grabs from Katy Perry's video 'Part of me'. This video is also narrative and uses the military highly throughout. This video uses the props mainly to help the flow of the story for example using the military training equipment to showing her training for the army.

Creating a Poll Daddy for research

https://polldaddy.com/sharing/poll/9544146/?msg=settings-saved&step#link
Q) Do you prefer indoor or outdoor shots in a music video?
We decided to use this question for our poll as it will be useful to see if people prefer shots in a music video indoor or outdoor.

We gave to question three answers. "Outdoor", "Indoor" and "I have no preference". By giving the respondents three answers makes it easy for them to choose which they prefer. We wanted to know what people would want to see in the video so it becomes appealing to them.




https://polldaddy.com/sharing/poll/9544149/?msg=settings-saved&step#javascript
Q) In a music video do you like to have the music and action linking?

For this poll we decided to ask whether people like when the action of the video links to the lyrics which are sang in the music. I believe it is important that we find out what the audience want as I believe this is a key aspect of a music video to whether the lyrics link to the action or if they dont.





https://polldaddy.com/sharing/poll/9544159/?msg=settings-saved&step#javascript
Q)Do you like a music video to have a strong narrative story line?

The last question I decided to ask on my Polldaddy is whether people like a strong narrative storyline. This is a key question as the idea what we have for our video is about a domestic relationship. The story line we are exploring is very strong and powerful but we need to be careful due to it maybe bordering on offending people due to the male in the relationship beating the woman.  

Target Audience Research 2

Our target audience for our music video of 'Gravity' has a audience of 15-30 year olds. This is a young target audience due to that being the main age group of Sara Bareilles. However we had to make sure that our narrative idea that we have had will be appropriate for our target audience due to main theme of our video being an abusive relationship. So as a group we decided that a target audience of 15-30 would be perfect as that age group would understand the narrative we are putting into our video.

Our group is going to create a myspace page for our star as we feel this is a fantastic way of advertising her. Also we are considering making a Facebook page. Using social media as a form of publicity for launching a new star is brilliant as the majority of teenagers and young people have a social media account for at least one sight. During researching myspace we discovered that 'The Arctic Monkey's' launched their career from myspace due to it being one of the most popular social media sites at that time, and since they have the same target audience as Sara Bareilles we feel we should promote Sophia in that way.

How will we appeal to a female audience? Sara Bareilles sings a lot about love in her songs with emotions which for a young adult/ teenage audience can appear very relatable. Sara might appear as a role model to some girls as through her songs its suggests that she understands heartbreak and how others feel so her audience might idealise her. Sophie (Sophia) will have to portray a strong teenager who has a voice for women due to having a strong narrative (domestic violence) for the narrative portrays her as somebody who could be looked up as a role model for dealing with situations like these.





Amy Johnson's Slidely by Slidely Slideshow

Research: TA- Consumption of music

For our target audience research we asked 20 people (10male, 10 female) about how they consumed music, as we are investigating due to us launching a star through a digipak.

(Some of our participants put down more then one answer)

Question 1: How do you consume music video's? 
Music channels= 7
Youtube= 17
Social Media= 3
Other (please state what)= 1(Spotify)

Question 2: Do you listen to a lot of music? 
Yes= 20
No= 0

Question 3: How do you mostly listen to the music? 
Soundcloud= 2
Youtube= 7
Playtube= 3
Spotify= 7
Apple Music= 1
Itunes= 2
Radio= 1
CD= 2

Question 4: Do you ever download music? If so where from. 
No= 5
Itunes= 6
Itube= 3
Apple Music= 1
Spotify= 3
Amazon Prime= 1
Youtube Converter= 1

Question 5: Do you ever buy CD's? 
Yes= 5
No= 11
Rarely= 4

Locations Research

There is three locations we plan on using for our music video.
1) At the start of our video Sophie will be shown leaving the house, so for this shot we will be using a door. We have planned to shoot her on the 26th of October.

2) We have requested permission to film at Normanby Hall, this is a beautiful location with a beautiful house will large stone pillars outside which we are planning on using. Also Normanby Hall has lots of land and woods which will be good as we can use that in our video. We have planned to shoot her on the 27th of October.

3) The third location we have chosen is a local abandoned farm, this location will be really appropriate for our video has it will help the mood of the piece throughout. Also this location is very local to us so access will be easy for us. We have planned to shoot here on the 26th of October.

Researching establishing shots.

Paloma Faith- '30 Minute Love affair'. This is an extreme longshot as the whole of their bodies can be seen. I like the use of black and white as it makes the scene look mysterious. This is an establishing shot we could recreate for our video do to being an extreme longshot in an alleyway. Her costume is vintage which is reflective of her genre.

Paloma Faith- 'Only Love Can Hurt Like This'. This establishing shot is similar to the previous one by Paloma Faith. This is another extreme longshot as her whole body is on display. This shot would be harder for us to recreate as its raining which is something we wouldn't be able to do unless it was raining on our filming day.

Ella Henderson- 'Yours'.  I am influenced by this establishing shot as it is a reflection of a building through a puddle. I am really interested by the use of a shot through the reflection of a mirror or  puddle as I think it looks really effective. There is also the use of black and white which creates and emotional feel for the video.

Jess Glynne- 'Take Me Home' This is a side angle shot, the artist is in the centre of the frame. During this whole video Jess is naked which is showing her to be natural and vulnerable not like other females in the media. This song was released for children in need. The shot is dark creating an aery atmosphere over what is to come in the video. This is a shot we could recreate but its one that I think would not fit our genre.

Beyonce- 'Hold Up' I really like this establishing shot as I believe it is very abstract looking and is intriguing to why she is under.The artist is centre of the frame which I am finding quite conventional of a music video. However this shot will of taken alot of planning for health and safety reasons so this is something that we would not be able to create for our video, although this wouldn't fit our genre anyway.

Beyonce- 'Pretty Hurts' This is an establishing shot that I really like due to using a mirror for a reflection. The artist is to the right of the frame and is a close up/ head shot of Beyonce. This is an establishing shot we could recreate.

TA Research 1

Today we had a focus group with three boys and three girls. The focus group was really useful as we found out what other people thought about our ideas and if they thought our idea of domestic abuse would work or whether is would be un-tasteful or would offend people. Most people approved of our ideas but the only change we got was that they wanted to see more of the male in the video and showing more of the reasons that it was a domestic relationship. It was clear to me from the focus group that everybody in the group supported our idea however they were concerned about making sure we made it look although there is a reason for the male character to turn abusive which is something that we need to consider before our planning goes any further. David Morley's audience theory questions whether you get a prefer reading an oppositional reading or a negotiated reading, from our research I believe we got a negotiate reading to the our focus group finding our idea's extremely interesting however they wanted to make sure we made it look although there was a reason behind the abuse. During the focus group we negotiated lots of idea's to how we could create the video by portraying a reason for the male to turn abusive. Following our research I feel we need to sit down as a group and ensure we assess all of the idea's discussed in the focus group. 

How this has influenced our planning:

• We had positive feedback on our video, people like the idea of domestic abuse.This was something that when we planned and thought of the idea concerned us due to some people maybe finding it offensive due to the very strong nature of the storyline. However from our research it became clear that they thought it would be a good idea as long as it was shown tastefully without being too offensive. 
• We learnt that people wanted us to show some of the male side of the relationship
• Make sure we have a clear story line to what is happening to make it easy to understand.

Group Post: Research Soundcloud

Soundcloud from IndyaConway

Spotify Research

I believe Spotify is a great way to get new music heard, and would be a great way to launch a star. Due to Spotify randomly playing songs of the same genre if you are not on Spotify premium which the majority of people aren't, this is a great way for the song to be heard by the correct genre audience. A downside to Spotify is that is doesn't show music video's which is the main promotional device we are using to launch our star, so I believe Spotify will not be the most effective way to launch our star, however will be a useful tool to use to help the song get heard.

Introducing our actress, Sophie Scutt.

This is Sophie Scutt, and she is a seventeen year old student from Brigg. She is currently studying for her A-levels at Brigg Sixth Form. Sophie is very photogenic and also has a great passion for singing and acting, and has drama as one of her A-level courses.

Sophie has always had an interest in music and

preforming ever since a young age. She has 

taken part in many productions including being

the narrator in Joseph And His Technicolored 

Dream Coat, Cage-birds to Aldo Annie in 

Oklahoma.

When we asked Sophie to be our performer for the music video she was over the moon and could not wait for the project to start. I believe working with Sophie will be a very easy experience as with her having experience from doing shows before she can take direction really well and will listen and take on board the instructions we ask her to do.

Another good quality about Sophie is that she has a great visual appearance for our genre of indie pop. She has also agreed to help as much as she can for the preparation of her costume and to help us find things that will be perfect for the music video.




For Sophie we are going to create a star image of a young girl who has a passion for music. Her image is going to be reflective of the indie pop genre so she will be dressed to reflect this genre. After speaking to Sophie she is willing to help us create an image for her that she is also happy with. Some of Sophie's everyday clothing will be able to be used for the video as she has a very individual clothing selection that she likes, but also makes her stand out among other people for dressing a little different.

Change in group members.

After our AS results day Amy Jacklin decided she was dropping media. She felt that she would benefit more from continuing a different subject as it will benefit her more when she goes to University. Following this we gained another group member, Indya has joined media and has joined our group. Indya is going to be an asset to our group due to taking part in her friends music video last year so she will be very useful in helping us conduct our planning and production for our music video.