Evaluation

For my final production myself and Anouska paired up to create a

music video. Our original plan was to create a music with the story
line of a couple falling in love, this couple quickly takes a turn for the
worse and becomes an extremally unhealthy toxic relationship. We
planned to watch ‘Maya’, who was one of the two main characters,
identify that she is in a toxic relationship with the help of her friends
and the audience would watch her grow independently which she has
never done before, she does this with the help of her friends. Our goal
was to express to our target audience which would be directed
towards ‘generation z’ - age ranges from 16-23, that they shouldn’t
spend time entertaining toxic personalities and follow happiness
instead of what’s ‘safe’ because it can take a heavy toll on you.
Surround yourself with people that wat the best for you.

Later on in developing our production we realised we wouldn’t be

able to follow that storyline without leaving out any details in the time
period of three minutes, so we decided to cut certain parts of the story
line, now focusing on how simple it is to get involved in a toxic
relationship. We conveyed this through visuals by having the couple
get into a relationship very quickly and ‘Jaycob’ will express a lot of
negative emotions towards ‘Maya’ for little things, the story will
show what minor things set him off by seeing Jacobs controlling texts
and Jaycob being aggressive towards his girlfriend for simply having
friends. Something that we find important for the audience to take
away from this music video is to look out for their friends and we will
get this message across by having Mayas friends sticking up for her
and letting her know their concerns about the relationships. That
message will be clear to the audience because they will notice the
relationship throughout the music video is toxic by the way Jacob
treats Maya they will then understand it is important to express
concerns. Because Mayas friends could notice a shift in Mayas
personality since meeting Jaycob and that the relationship was toxic
when Maya couldn’t due to blind love. friends then helped her escape
the relationship so she is able to continue to grow.
The outcome compared to the original plan didn’t include Maya
spending time to herself to manage her emotions from the relationship
then finding happiness. Although we didn’t include this in the music
video we will leave links to sites that help people to get out of toxic
relationships and to help people recover from them sour audience can
take something away from our production.

For this production, we decided to work together because we both

excel in opposite parts of the work that goes into creating a
production, for example my strong suit is coming up with ideas and
developing them, Anouska is confident in editing when I’m not as
skilled in comparison. My roles in this production was to brainstorm
ideas, developing them which includes thinking of locations, problem
solving, creating storyboard and camera work. We both worked on
the shooting script because it needs to match to the storyboard. We
individually created surveys for primary research to gather as much
feedback as possible. We worked with a handful of actors Jamie who
played the role Jacob, Rosie who played the role Maya and we also
worked with Charlotte and Anouska herself who played ‘Mayas’
friends.

The first questions were

whether or not the audience
enjoyed the music video and
all of our responses said
they enjoyed it which is a
good thing to see for
reassurance that it was not
only educational, but also
something people enjoy
watching also, whether or
not they think it was a good
style to fit the narrative. All
of our feedback was
positive! Which is extremely
good and helps us see if we
were successful in our production. W wanted the style to seem kind of
messy, it is a big mix between sad and happy. We wanted it to seem
as realistic as possible. To do this we made sure to use relatable
clothing and things like the messaging to seem as realistic and normal
as possible. I think this helped a lot for our audience to relate so that
they can then be more involved in the storyline.

100% of our audience

enjoyed the music
video. The audience
provided us with
constructive criticism
on the with the editing
saying that the black
screens to create
tension was a little too
long and the coloured
effects could have
been tinted more.
Some of the shots
were actually fitting
with the storyline when the camera was shaky, as it shows the edgy
style of our character Jaycob. Although I can see that the audience
might not have recognised this. I think that if I want to do a shaky
shot on purpose it should see more obvious and be very different to
other shots to show the comparison between. Helping the audience get
the message slightly more.

The audience agrees in our

choice of actors for the
roles. We both researched
and looked for inspiration of
how we want our characters
to look and we were able to
find that. 33.3% of the
audience would of preferred to see more locations of places teens
would generally hang out such as reading. But the remaining 66.7%
thought the locations where suitable.
The views thought the style fit the narrative of the story which we
hoped to be powerful in bringing out emotions, suspenseful and

engaging. We achieved to bring those emotions out in the viewers by

using different camera angles to exaggerate certain emotions,
following the couple on their journey from first date to what pulled
the apart also using camera angles, editing and lighting. The song we
used which was ‘Dark Red’ by Steve Lacy was the perfect choice
because it is extremally popular in our target audience and the lyrics
match the story. We knew the song would be popular for our audience
from the extensive primary research.
66% of our audience understood what the message of our music video
was telling however 33.3% didn’t.
In the future I think it is important to make sure all of our planning is
in depth enough so there isn’t a chance for some of the public to not
fully understand the story and educational aim. This can either be by
how we film things, how we put scenes together or even having some
sort of description with in the production. I do believe after seeing this
feedback we could have added some sort of text at the beginning or
the end to sort of summarise the story and even give potential help to
those struggling with what we conveyed in our music video. As most
of our research was focused on how people get out of a toxic
relationship. I think that in future the storyline should be more solid
and clear, and easier for some people to understand.

All of this feedback really helped us to see what we need to make sure
we include and touch on.

Once we had all of our planning done we were set to go out and
shoot. Most of this process was successful. We had to adjust some
parts of the filming to fit with the time that we had, this involved
cutting a few scenes off of the end and changing a location slightly as
we believed it fit a lot better to the storyline we had created.

When we were filming the weather for each day fit perfectly with
what we wanted for the narrative in certain scenes. For example, the
first scenes with a good mood set had good lighting that was bright
and showed how both characters felt. As the camera woman, I made
sure the settings and
movement of the
camera was right to fit
the storyline as we
went along. When we
had the good weather
with bright sun lighting
I turned up the contrast
to make it seem
brighter and almost
more of a yellow undertone to match the emotion as much as possible,
this also gives good clips for Anouska to edit together. One other
thing I think was good about this scene was the contrast between
Maya and Jaycob, we had Maya in the sun with her friends, where as
Jaycob was in the shade making a big show to the audience of the
difference in their personalities.

For the scenery that we wanted to be more disheartening, I made sure

that the lighting was also darker and a more colder colour. Again we
planned to film these scenes on a more cloudy day so that it fit
perfectly, this was also extremely successful.

When I was filming I knew the shot types were very important for the
production to look right. So I ensured to follow our storyboard which
included the shot types as well making the whole process flow a lot
easier by getting the right shots and shooting them properly.

For example, when Maya is supposed to come across overpowered

and undermined by Jaycob in their texting scene, I filmed from an
eagle eye angle so that Maya came across a lot smaller and almost
completely stripped of power due to
Jaycob actions and messages. This helps
the audience sympathise with how she
feels without even knowing why. I think
this was extremely successful as it does
make her seem a lot more emotional and like she has been overtaken
by the mood of Jaycob at the time.

Another example of the shot

types is at the ending of the
music video. Jaycob is being
verbally aggressive towards
Maya as he finally loses himself
in anger. I positioned myself next
to Jaycob and had him a lot taller
than Maya to show the difference in power. I believe this was also as
successful as it shows the real contrast between the two characters and
emphasises the toxicity in the relationship; as they should be even in a
relationship but because It is so toxic they are so imbalanced. I think
my camera angles and shooting really helps push the audience to see
what we are trying to convey in all of the scenes.

Over all, I believe my role in this production was mostly successful. I

do believe some things could potentially be improved in the future.
Such as the shaky shot being more obvious to the audience.
But some of the successful sides are when I ensured the lighting and
colouring was right for the storyline in the scenes to match with the
storyline.