Constructing the Digipak

Here is Sean's blog on constructing the digipak

These are ideas I had which never made it to the final product. 

I cropped using preview and layered cropped photos (pngs) together using pixlr. I also used heavy colour manipulation to create the dreamy colorscheme (purple haze) I was going for.

Constructing the Website

Here is a video of the website being constructed by Harry. Within the video, links for social media are added, as is the merchandise store. Harry created the website using Wix, making a custom website format and customising the text to fit the genre. The photos used were taken previously on a photo shoot with our artist Fares.

Making of the Video

Here is the first draft of our video. I hope to cut down the introduction element if I can as it feels too drawn out. This would also allow me to add more of the studio content that we filmed.

To start the video I synced up all the footage with the music. Harry helped me with this long process and named each one so that it would be easier to source footage later on.

Responding to Focus Group Feedback

Having asked various questions, Harry and I turned any data I could on the whole campaign into various charts. The data is very helpful, and shows us that the background of our website clearly needs changing. The video could be changed to fit one of the 4 concepts that the audience picked up on, however they are all very similar, and in my opinion should all be prominent in the video. Only 2 out of the 7 people we showed the music video to said they lost interest at some point, however one said afterwards that she has ADHD and it wasn't because of the video! Unfortunately we didn't ask many quantitative questions and so we couldn't graph more. The other points that were prominent was to change the website fonts, and colours to make everything less of an eyesore. 

Focus Group and Results

The Results

Below is the video of our focus group. We first showed the group our website, followed by the music video thus far.

We were lucky to have such a responsive focus group, who were very willing to share their thoughts freely. The overall response was that they liked the campaign, and that the music video really captured the 'trippy' psychedelic genre. The changes that they would have liked to see are as follows:

• Reduce the amount going on on the website - too many conflicting visuals make the website hard to look at
• Change the font and font colour on the website to something more visible
• Add more to the about page - this is incredibly important as we are aiming to sell the artist
• Advertise the video more!

The group were particularly impressed by the social media accounts, as well as the merchandise store. Overall it was a very successful focus group

Preparation for the Focus Group

Focus in...

The first thing we have to do is finalise our three products. This means having a final cut of the video completed, and ready on a hard-drive, the digipak printed off and the website live.

Unfortunately our digipak is not ready as Sean has fallen ill, and so we will only be able to present the first final draft of the website and video. On the day we will show the video last, so not to give the genre away through the song, as well as to stop the group from comparing our product to the original song.

The website (linked) is very fleshed out, as Harry did a great job creating social media as well as a merchandise shop for Frank Ray.

I personally think the video is practically complete also, although we will see how the audience receives it.

We also prepared a set of questions each that we will ask the viewers, and as they add suggestions we aim to continue conversation with them, to make sure the target audience gets their say.

The questions we asked were purposely open, and we made sure none of them lead any of the group into answering against their own personal opinion. We wanted to know if everything we presented came across as one campaign, and so we made sure the two products shown didn't clash. We also asked questions to help us get a second opinion in order to improve the products in the interest of the target audience.

What is a Focus Group

The point of a focus group is to get a real, outsider perspective on a product. As the producer, it is easy to become attached to the product. This makes it difficult to improve your work in many ways; for me it was deleting clips which I really put effort into achieving, even if it made the video worse.
By conducting a focus group, you are also directly asking the target audience for their opinions on the products and ways that they could be improved for their consumption. This point in the process is perfect timing for a focus group. Our products are nearly fully complete, but we still have time to improve them. These opinions aren't self-gratifying and have the genuine purpose of improving what we have created even more. Therefore the questions asked should be open, and shouldn't lead the audience into answering what you want to hear (E.G "What did you like")

However there are a few things to watch out for when conducting a focus group. For the group to be productive and helpful, you have to let them feel comfortable. For starters this means making sure the meeting is professional and slick, so that no arguments between the group occur in front of the viewers. This also means not defending the product if someone makes a critique as others will see this and be uncomfortable to share their own opinions. Filming the audience should also be discrete as people may be nervous on camera - However they should know also as it is illegal to film someone without their knowledge.