We recently showed our digipack, website and video to a focus group. A focus group, is a group of people meant to be representative of the target audience for the three products, they review the products and tell us what they liked and what they didn’t like. This lead to developments in the products based on their criticisms.

In preparation for the focus group, we exported an early cut of the video, printed off five copies of the digipack and shared a link for the website, and gave them to a person that was responsible for asking the questions which we prepared in advance, we could not be in the room with the focus group so that we would not influence their answers. Emily created 7 questions which we asked

What are your thoughts on the digipack? What are your thoughts on the website? Based on the digipack and the website, what words would you use to describe the band? Based on the digipack and the website, what genre of music would you expect the album to be? What are your thoughts on the music video? Is the video consistent with what you expected from the digipack and website? And would you listen to the bands music based on video, digipack and website?

We took careful consideration over the questions, as not to make them leading, this meaning that they answer truthfully and we don’t guide them to answer what we as a group want to hear, instead receive a variety of criticisms and praise. We however did record the focus groups audio so that we could review exactly what was said

There was a fair bit of criticisms, however, there was also a lot of praise as well.

Digipack

-The front page didn’t fit the style of the rest of the pack

-Eddie is the least pixelated which shows him clearer which makes him look like the lead singer

-The orange colour isn’t as good as the rest

-Change the back cover also as it has the same issue as the front cover

What needs to be done is to put Eddie on the bottom panel and Gabbi on the top panel, create a new front and back design, and make Eddie more pixelated/make the rest of the band less pixelated.

Website

-Get rid off the cream colours

-Have more information of the band

-Get rid of the clay models of the band

-Don’t fit the style of the video or digipack

-Gave the image that we wanted

To change this, we only need to remove the claymation, write a bit more about the band, add in the merchandise, and remove the cream colourings

Video

-Well received

  -Add more of the behind the scenes so that it looks less random

  -Maybe change a few of the shots, track shots to hand held don’t work

  -Matches in well with the other products

The first piece off apparel that I made was a yellow jumper to reflect the upbeat tone of the band and also be more representative of the video to reflect the yellow appearance of the performance aspect of the video. The jumper has the bands logo on the front and back to make it more visible which band it was, and the tour dates were on the back in a big font, this means that people that see the jumper will be able to see when and where they are able to see the band, thus turning the people that are buying the bands merchandise into advertisements for the band which will increase interest in the band.

I used the software Photoshop CC to create the image, I found an image of the front and back of a plain yellow jumper, I then added the band logo to the front on a separate layer, adjusted the positioning and scale of the logo and blended the layers, and for the back, I used the same font that is used on the digipack and website to write the tour dates and added another logo on top of the tour dates to show which band was playing in those locations.

The final edit is now complete, after the fist edit was complete and I showed it to Matt he pointed out to me that I hadn’t grouped the shots together and gave me an ultimatum, to start again or to change the order and the lengths of each shot, however, the latter would be more time consuming so I had to start again from the beginning, this slightly disheartened me, however, it was a necessary step in the development of the video.

I started the video again, devoting a lot of time and effort to the edit. I made special care to group all of the shots together so that the video made more coherent sense and many a rough cut later, created a video that I was rather proud of, showed it to Matt and sent me on my way saying that it  was finished.

I learnt from the editing experience was mostly to group the shots together, and the experience of having to start again is something that cemented it in my mind. The grouping of shots is when a shot shows the same person doing the same action from a different angle and allows extra time with a specific person in the band and creates a more natural transition to another band member. Another lesson that I learnt from the editing, was how to use the software and colour grade, a lot of the photography shoot rushes had a yellowish tint to them, thus making the background look yellow when it was meant to be white, so in post, I changed the white balance of the shots to make the background look white which made the shots look more realistic.

Final Edit is still to be embedded

I finished the first edit of the video, this edit is a performance cut that I did on adobe for the rest of the group, and now I only need to layer the shots of the photoshoot over the top and then it will be finished, however, the performance aspect of the video looks good and is finished

I will add in the video here

A change in software has occurred for me. After deciding to do a different cut of the music video for my final video, I thought that I would move to a software that I was more familiar with. I chose final cut pro x because of its connection with DaVinci resolve, I like final cut due to the fact that it is the editing software that I have to the most experience with, this means that shortcuts and video effects seem more natural to be on this software, and DaVinci resolve is a colour grading software which I mainly use due to its professional workspace and it works in real time and feels more natural than adobe’s colour grading software.

I decided to do a separate edit to the rest of the group, this is due to different ideals that the group had, I believe due to the shift in colours of both of the sets, the video should be a performance cut, whereas the rest of the group want them in there. The separate edit is the only way that I can think of to meet them in the middle, that way, they get what they want, and the realisation of the creative ambition and I get the same, It’s not easy and probably time consuming, however, to get satisfaction from the video, I cannot use there cut of the video as I don’t believe that it looks right.