Peer Review

Although my video still wasn't complete, I decided to show what I had produced to my class mates to receive feedback. This was the first time most of them had seen what I've been working on in the previous weeks, which was useful as there's more chance of them spotting any mistakes I've made and where as I know the main message and narrative of my music video, it was interesting to see what they thought it was. 

 

 

 

Overall the feedback was very encouraging. People commented on the styling, location and good directing of my performer. They thought it was clear on what my performer was told to do rather than free styling. 

One piece of advice that I will definitely work on and use was to include a twist in my video to give it more of a narrative and story rather than a simply dance based performance video. An idea that was mentioned was to have a shot at the end of my performer begging on the streets. This would shock the audience as originally you believe my performer is singing about a homeless woman she knows and the song is in second person and refers to the homeless woman as 'her' and 'she'. However, at the end we find out she is singing about herself. I believe this idea works really well and fits in with my video, as I have already included footage of my performer waiting against a wall or fence. At first we don't know what or who she is waiting for and this adds some tension and questions, however by including this ending, we know that she is begging.

This idea too fits in with Andrew Goodwin's narrative theory. He states that narratives link to the lyrics and tempo of the music. A repeated lyric in the song is ‘she’s just like you and me but she’s homeless’ and this is a strong message that you wouldn’t be able to tell this woman was homeless, as she gets up and acts the same as an ordinary person. Throughout the video, the audience wouldn’t have been able to tell the performer was homeless as she looks just like an audience person, however we soon find out that she does live on the streets and like the lyrics say, she has to beg for money. Although the visuals don’t act out the lyrics of the song, the narrative of not being able to tell this woman is homeless does link with the lyrics. 

Another piece of feedback was to feature locations I had use at the beginning of my video again near the end. I had use a shot of my performer dancing on the train, however haven't used it again. Therefore I am planning to film some more shots on the train. I don't think I will include my performer in these, as like I said in my answer, she features throughout, so it will make a change to have some footage without her in it.