Feedback from the AS students

We had a class where we joined with the AS students who have media at the same time as us and showed them our rough cut and asked them to provide us with feedback in order for us to improve our edit. I have filmed the feedback that we got from them.

In order to obtain individual answers we distributed sheets to the AS students with the questions in order for us to obtain individual feedback from each one of them afterwards.

Rough Cut of our Music Video

This is the rough cut we made of our music video. This was the one we will be presenting to the AS students in order to obtain their feedback.

Open vs. Closed Questions

 In order to write the questions to ask the AS students we had to first understand the difference between open and losed questions. We decided to write the same number of open and closed questions in order to get a nice balance of straight forward answers and longer opinionated questions.

Closed-Ended Questions

Closed-ended questions are questions that have a simple and quick answer. Essentially they can be answered with a simple yes or no response. 

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions are those that require a little bit more thought process in order to be answered. A simple yes or no would not work. These questions can be furthered answered with the additions of some reflection by the person responding. These questions can also include opinionated answers, in order for us to obtain individual feedback as opposed to overall feedback. They also give the respondent the control of the conversation.

Editing our Music Video

Researching the Conventions of a Different Homepage

My group is currently working on the music video of an alternative R&B artist, Spooky Black. While the rest of my group is researching about conventions of similar artists to spooky black, who are also artists of the same genre, I am researching about a completely different artists from a genre that will completely contrast alternative R&B. Therefore, I decided to research about famous pop/country artist Taylor Swift's website. Given that the two genres already are polar opposites, the conventions of the genres are also going to be completely different.

CONVENTIONS OF ALTERNATIVE R&B

• Regarding gender sterotypes, Usually, the male artists of this genre dress up fairly nicely and smart, wearing suits and other smart clothing set pieces. This can be seen with the famous R&B artists: Usher, Drake, and Chris Brown. However, depending on the lyrical context or sub-genre of the track, the artists may dress up quite differently, wearing baggy and swaggy clothes as it can be seen in many Rap music videos.
• As far as dressing codes for women are concerned, the same thing applied then to men. Women are either dressed up in very little and provocative clothing or in nice, classy clothing. The way that women are portrayed in the music video plays a hige roll on attracting the target audience for the genre which usually consist of men who are into sexy women.
• Now, regarding Website conventions they are usually quite simplistically laid out. Once again, depending on the aritst the website will either be quite classy or quite "swaggy". Two good contrasting examples are Chris Brown's homepage and Drake's homepage. As shown in the pictures below. 
• The conventions of R&B artists' homepages are not tha much different from the conventions of rap artists' homepages, due to the fact that the two genres don't differ too much from each other.

TAYLOR SWIFT'S HOMEPAGE

Taylor Swift's homepage is unarguably a completely contrasting artist to the R&B ones. This is mainly due to the contradistinction of both music genres. As it can be seen below, Taylor Swift's Homepage is quite colourful. It's not abstract and weird, it is exactly what is expected from a classic pop music homepage. It was laid out this way in order to attract the gigantic target audience that pop music consists of. As opposed to the other two R&B examples, Taylor Swift's website completely contrasts it due to the movement seen as soon as the website is opened on the homepage. If you visit the site ( http://taylorswift.com/ ) you can see that the main picture changes every few seconds. 

In addition, if scrolled down a bit further, the individual can see pictures and gallery photos of what seems to be her personal life, giving the large fan base the expectation that they are connecting with her in a way. These pictures include Taylor having fun with some friends, her youth, past shows she performed it, etc. Self centering herself in nearly all the pictures. 

Lastly, as far as dress codes are concerned. Taylor Swift's dress codes have both similarities and differences form the R&B artists'. It can be seen that Taylor is either dressed very classy and sophisticatedly (like some dress codes seen in R&B artists' pictures), or in a slightly more casual, yet fashionable way, which is usually how pop artists are seen. This is because they have a large fan base and they need to be careful with what they wear in order to portray the idea that they don't try too hard to look nice, but still look good in their casual clothes.

Why do Artists/Bands use Websites?

Websites are considerably important for the success of an artist. It not only helps their fanbase connect and be updated with the artist's life, but it also creates a certain professional vibe to the artist's image. Connoting that they are committed and serious about their careers.

Here are a few reasons why artists use websites:

• To promote themselves and their music, as well as selling tickets online for their performances.
• To sell and merchandise their products.
• To reach a wider audience, as in reaching an international audience as opposed to a national one
• It is easily accessible. They are able to utilize the internet in order to spread their image and make it easier for the audience to connect with them. As well as providing the audience with alternative social media networks where the artists can be found (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc..)
• It serves as a tool to research about the artist. Enabling the audience to understand their bio and background information.
• To connect with the fans and target audience, updating them with information, communicating and receiving feedback.
•  To create an image for themselves. Helping them become more official/professional as opposed to amateur. 

A few benefits of having websites for the artists include:

• It is a cheap alternative to put themselves out there and being reachable to an international audience. 
• It is easy and quick to update the entire world with what is going on with their lives, whether it is their personal lives or their professional lives.
• It is an easy way to put their music out there show them to the world 

Evaluation of the Shoot Day

The day before the shoot we thought about all the steps we would need to take when it came to filming. This was important in order to be organized on the shoot day. We decided on a time when we would start to film the studio sequences, and a time to leave the school and go film in the hotel room. We decided to start filming at 9:30 a.m. This was to leave us with enough time for the actors to eat breakfeast, get make-up, get dressed, and get ready for the shoots. However, we started around 30 minutes late, so we had to speed up the filming process in the studio in order to be able to leave for the hotel on time, since we had booked it for around 2:00 p.m.