33. Focus Group

It's important for me to establish a focus group and gain ideas and expectations from these people. This will help to gain an overall understanding of what people expect from a pop ballad type of video. I will then be able to establish whether I go against these or use them in my idea and whether they fit into the concept of my video.

The first point my focus group highlighted was that there are many close ups in pop ballad videos. The use of close ups and extreme close ups establish key characters particularly and key aspects that want to be highlighted and pointed out easily and quickly. For example, part of the concept aspects that play a big part in the video. The group also said the key focus was particularly on the artist and the performance aspect. This often shows the passion they're portraying and key parts of their performance due to it being a pop ballad it often shows the power through these. 

My focus group also suggested that they expect to see low angles and editing that allows the artist and individuals to seem superior to the audience. This is due to them assuming that pop ballads are powerful and show power from the people. Often motivating people and wanting people to aspire to be like them. With these low angles, they establish the way the audience look up to them and approve of the artists.

Another point they suggested was the use of bright lighting and how this adds to the 'joyful', happy feelings you often get from pop songs. However, this is an aspect I am going against in my video as I've stated before. My video will not establish this stereotype of pop videos being happy and upbeat in that sense. I want my video to be motivational and inspirational so at some points I may want to change the lighting to darker lighting to show pathetic fallacy or represent emotions, so in this sense I will go against the expectations of my focus group for the fact of continuing with the factors of my idea. 

A good point my focus group said was they expected the pop ballad to be based on love or from a feminine aspect. The song I am using could be seen as based on love but I like to see it in another form and look at it from a sporting and motivational aspect rather than a love one, going against the conventions. In music people can see different music and songs in many different forms and points of view and it's an individual point of view - this is what I like about music, as people can have their own point of views. I want to go against the stereotypical love approach as I feel this song has more to offer if you look at it from a different point of view. However, I will look at it from a feminine point of view and base it on attracting females, for example, showing them in a different light but showing them it's acceptable. Although, I also want it to be to males to show them this different side of females and that they're just as capable as men. 

My video will be a concept and slight performance video, so my group said they'd expect to see someone playing an instrument of some sort, particularly powerful instruments such as drums and guitars, especially with the type of song I'm choosing. Although, I want to try and focus of the concept aspect of my video as I believe this is the most important part in my video. So, this makes it difficult to include an instrument, particularly with th lack of people and resources