Male Gaze Theory

Focus Group

Here is the focus group I created to help me understand exactly what it is my target audience are looking for.

Focus Group Booking

In Monday's lesson last week, I booked a room to use for my focus group. There were two available rooms. I chose a smaller room as I felt it would feel less intimidating for the girls who I will be questioning. The bigger room was called the 'Board Room' and had lots of space in it.

The smaller room was called the 'Collinson Room' and was more suitable for the amount of people I was going to have in my focus group.

Next Steps

Next Steps…

-          Male and Female Gaze Theory

-          Focus group post and results

-          Story Boarding for photo shoot

-          Video Analysis- three different pop song videos

-          Story Boarding for the video

Focus Group Organisation

Here are screenshots of the emails I sent in order to organise my focus group.

focus group

These are the questions that I plan to ask a focus group.

Andrew Goodwin

I researched into Andrew Goodwin's music video theory. This was really interesting to read about as it all made sense and helped me to understand music videos a bit better.

Andrew Goodwin discovered that there are five key aspects of a music video:
1. Thought beats (seeing the sound)
2. Narrative and Performance
3. Star Image
4. Technical Aspects
5. Relation to Visuals

Feedback

Every month we are given feedback sheets from our teachers to do peer assessments. We work in pairs to evaluate each others work and provide feedback for each other. This was the feedback that I got for my blog.

For each point I have created a solution as to how I could improve:

 

- Video doesn't show - the school internet does not allow YouTube, which is what I posted the video to. I could try to find a different way to present my videos.

- Need more member analysis - To improve on this I will finish each band member post and then create a real profile on each of them including pictures.

- Need to use videos a lot more - I plan to create focus groups asking my target audience about the song and what ideas would appeal to them.

- Male and female gaze theory - I will research into this theory and relate it back to how girl bands are portrayed in the news.

My Target audience

https://www.canva.com/design/DACF9ZKoeK4/s1WgJB59EPskDVgI6WQzeA/view?utm_content=DACF9ZKoeK4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton
Here is a link to my target audience profile. Below are screenshots of each page.

Trial Video

We were given the task as a group to create a short one minute video to experiment with camera angles. The aim was to create a video showing love, so in our group we decided to base it around the idea of love in friendships. although the overall outcome came across as very staged, it still helped me with working out what camera angles to use and how to edit a video.
 
What I learnt:
I learnt that it was important to really plan out a video. We were only given an hour for this task, including filming the footage and editing, so we did the best that we could. It was very hard to create a good story line in such a short amount of time. We focused on the stereotypical shots that would be portrayed in films to show a friendship. If I were to redo this video, I would plan it out more and maybe try using a different editing tool, as I used Movie Maker.

Member 2

Real Name: Meg Williams
Character Name: Nancy Smith

Nancy is 19 years old and was originally from Devon but moved to London when she was 3 years old. She is a very mature girl and enjoys watching films with her friends. Nancy has been singing all her life and is very influenced by her grand mother who used to sing for a living. She has a very supportive family and is currently single.

I did the same as what I did with Lauren; I went through with Meg what Nancy's personality could be and we both formulated answers to each of the questions that would work well for what the character should be like.

History of girl band

Digipak Ideas

Here I have noted down a few initials ideas for what I want my digipak to look like. I tried to include things I had learnt from my digipak research.

how girlbands are portrayed in the news

I wanted to look at how girl bands are portrayed in the news to help me with making my girl band seem more relatable.

Here are the news stories:

Ideas

As an idea, I thought it would be interesting to try and experiment with a band member leaving the group. I could link this to my research into how girl bands are portrayed in the news. The member that I will be doing this with is member 5 - Amaya. I will take pictures of Amaya split from the group and doing her own thing.

Girlband Research... Next steps

- Look at how girl bands are portrayed in the news - especially little mix
- The history of girl bands
- Theories that relate to girl bands
- Theories that relate to music videos
- Look at the typical ideas associated with girl bands

Ancillary Tasks

O
Here is the information about the ancillary tasks and my ideas for them.

http://popplet.com/app/#/3625124 - Here is a link to the page.

Lyrics

After deciding on my song, I looked at the lyrics and studied the actual music video to see which member sang what part of the song. I highlighted this and gave each member a sheet of which lyrics they will need to learn ready for lip syncing.

Member 1

Member 1

Real name: Lauren Macdonald 

Character name: Elizabeth Crabtree 

Elizabeth is 20 years old. She is a sophisticate individual who loves the outdoors and reading books. Her favourite book is 'The Perks of being a Wallflower'. Her celebrity crush is Jamie Doran. The rest of her band mates called her Liz and she is one of the main singers. Since the age of 11, when starting secondary school, Elizabeth became interested in joining the school choir. After her first concert she knew that she wanted to perform for the rest of her life. She is from Chelsea and comes from well looked after family.

This is the questionnaire that I asked each girl to fill out. I gave them each a brief and let them fill it out themselves because I wanted to give them the freedom to create a character that they could play off.

 

I asked Lauren to fill out hers acting as though she was very sophisticated. We both worked on the name, age and hobbies together just so that she could get a feel for what this character was like.

Video feedback

I asked my fellow media students to watch the music video and listen to the song of my choice. This was the feedback that I was given. I plan to storyboard my ideas using these suggestions. I really like the idea of using things such as a girls group chat as they are quite popular now a days.

Next Steps

For my next few posts I plan to analyse three music videos and to complete my character profiles.
The three videos that I want to look at are
- Hailee Steinfield- Starving
- Taylor Swift- Style
- Bruno Mars- Uptown Funk

My Girlband members are
- Lauren Macdonald - Elizabeth Crabtree
- Issy Farmer - Scarlet Mai
- Katie Joyce - Rose
- Meg Williams - Nancy Smith

Song Idea

More Camera Shots

I wanted to further experiment with different camera shots. I created a video to show these shots.

Digipak Research

My girlband

Here I have created a rough idea of what I want each of my girl bands personalities to be like. In my band I will have five female singers, ranging from the ages of 18 to 20. There will be five different personalities. These are:

- The fashionable one

- The sophisticated one

- The rebellious one

- The mature one

- The girly girl

I plan to take photos of each member and create posts individually all about them. I will work with the girls as well to create hobbies and interests about their characters.

Camera Shots

Word document of the pictures from charliemae1999

I wanted to look in depth at all the different kinds of camera angles and shots. I drew out sketches of what they should look like and my next step is to take my own photos of these kinds of shots to experiment with what ones I could potentially use for my music video.

Questionnaire for band members

I have created this questionnaire to ask my band members. I wanted to create a fact file for all five members, but I wanted it to be in a fun way. I will put this onto a word document and ask each girl to write on it. This way I have their handwriting on it to make it more personal to the girl.
I will work with my girl band to create answer that will suit all of their different styles.

Pop Research

Fifth Harmony Research

Little Mix Research

Jess Glynee Research

Next Steps

I wanted to work out what my next steps would be so that I had a clear path of what to do.

Experimenting with camera shots

Camera shots from charliemae1999

Questionnaire results

I received 20 responses from my Survey Monkey Questionnaire. These are the results.

Looking at different songs

Prezi Presentation to show my ideas for what female artists to look at.

Conventions of a music video

I made this Slideshow to help me understand more about the conventions of a music video.

Target Audience Questionnaire

Create your own user feedback survey

Maslow's Theory

Maslow studied the idea of what you need in life to reach full content and to want to start helping others because you have everything you need in your own life.

The Four P's of Marketing

CD cover analysis

Cd cover ideas from charliemae1999

I created this SlideShare to explore into the idea of digipaks.

Target Audience

 

This is a brief look at my target audience. I plan to do more research into those who fit into this group and find out their interests and hobbies. This will help me to understand what they like and what to add into my music video to make it more appealing to them.

Chosen Idea

After researching the three briefs that I found the most interesting, I have finally chosen to do a music video as my coursework idea. Having previously created a music video for GCSE I have some experience on what to and not to do. Here is a Prezi on tips I have researched for creating a good music video.

Coursework ideas

Coursework ideas from charliemae1999

I created this PowerPoint to allow me to explore the positives and negatives of each of the three ideas from the brief that most appealed to me. A music video, a children's TV drama and a regional magazine came across as the options that I would enjoy creating the most. 

Introduction

Welcome to my blog. I will be showing progress throughout the year working on the A2 Unit of the media Alevel.