The Footage
For question one, we found that fifteen people thought our product was typical of a music video, while only one person thought it stood out from the normal.
However this result contrasts greatly with what the audience say in the footage and later on in the questionnaire when asked if it breaks conventions, being something different from the normal, as many people state in the questionnaire that we break conventions with the fairy tale theme, surely this would make it stand out from the norm of mainstream music videos. The fact that the audience thought our video kept to the typicals of any standard music video clearly appeals and pleases them as no audience member wants to watch something that confuses them.
As you can see from the results from question two, some audience members feel the conventions were broken, while others disagree (and one member didn't comment).
This contradicts the first question and some of the comments within the footage. What we could have done to improve on our results, was to ask the audience to be more specific with their answers, referring to different parts of the video or telling the truth when answered in the footage. When breaking conventions it can appeal or displease an audience member given the way the video breaks them. For example, the video to "Smack My Bitch Up" clearly breaks conventions and offended a lot of the public and audience members through the themes and actions presented in the video, however in our video we used hand held tracking shots and frequent long shots as well as a muted colour pallet, which is rarely seen in mainstream videos. We can assume from this comparison that our video did not offend any members of the audience through breaking conventions however, we know that we may have appealed to the Aspirers of the audience, as they are the more creative and influential members within our audience group.
Question three was purely a matter of opinion when regarding the audiences answers, which is something even the big industries have to look into. The question itself is very open to the audience "What parts of the video worked best?" which basically asks the audience for their favourite parts. Groups of 8 and 5 liked the studio shots and the lighting, as well as the in time lip syncing and guitar playing, making the footage more realistic. To achieve this we made sure our actor, playing Kathy Striker, could here the song clearly and would learn the lines previous to filming the video, something that artists in the industry must do. This easily appealed to our audience as they do not want to watch an artist ho clearly can't sing along to their own song, making the overall product seem unprofessional.
Question four is very much the same for question one, as we find fifteen people agreeing that our video was paced and edited well, while one audience member disagreed.
However, as the majority of the audience felt the pacing worked well with the track, we have pleased the majority of the audience. It is possible that the person who answered this does not fall within our target audience boundary (see the word document for more details on our target audience.)
Despite our target audience falling in-between the college age range, this does not necessarily mean that our music video and print products would appeal to them as everyone has different genres they like, dislike, some even don't care about the music video, just as long as the song is good. Knowing this, allows us to see that our target audience is far more intricate than realised, implying that our audience will not only be those who fall under the college age range but also those who like that style of music (acoustic rock.)
For question five, the whole of the class, 16 people, agreed that our branding worked well throughout the products and that the colour scheme of the album and the iconography of the artist was branded very well. This would obviously appeal to an audience as bad branding can create confusion within an audience and a negative response. As our colour coding, amount other things, was thought about thoroughly with our artists music video and other print products, we feel we have done a successful job at branding as well as clearly pleasing the audience.
Question six, again, is purely a matter of opinion as if you were in a room filled with Directors, they would each have a different idea regarding the plot of a horror film. The answers found here, and in the footage, contradict question two (we wish they made themselves clearer.)
Upon looking at these results you could conclude that we didn't please our audience at all, however, when looking at the numbers, 8 people stated the thought the lighting worked best in Question two however a separate 8 thought the lighting needed working on. I personally didn't understand how an audience member could want more of a story within the narrative footage, as there are three separate threads that follow the fairy tale theme, perhaps we could have made this more clear to those who couldn't understand that.
I found question seven a very important question to be answered truthfully. For an artist to be successful, they need their first music video, usually, to be thought provoking enough to the audience that they would wish to buy the album or single. In the above footage, the audience either lie or don't dare to say what they really think as, in our questionnaires, we received mixed results.
After viewing our footage of our classes feedback, I decided to analyse and go over what and who our target audience are.
Question 3 A
In order to look further into our audience we looked at two other theories that would allow me and Jayne to understand and target our audience better with our products. First we looked at a theory created by three men, Blumler, McQuail and Brown, who realised that an audience relates themselves to a specific media text. They can relate themselves to it on a personal level or they simply gain a escapism through the product. Below are the four main categories that they came up with.
Basic Diversion
Through most music videos, the footage provides a sense of escapism for the audience.
Personal Relationships
Through the use of close ups, artists create a relationship with the audience. This relationship allows an audience member to connect to another audience member, through the love of the artist.
Personal Identity
This allows the audience to look at their own life and personality in comparison to the artists, this is usually seen in narrative videos as more of the artists personality is shown through the narrative.
Surveillance
This allows the audience to gain information on how the target audience/our artist lives their life. For example, if the music video featured a lot of young people drinking, this would informing the target audience, probably teenagers and young people, that this is how teenagers should live their lives.
As half of our video is narrative and the other half is performance based, the narrative of fairy tales does create a sense of escapism as our narrative footage has a beginning, a middle and an end (like a proper story that an audience member can take in.)
In order to keep to the conventions of an acoustic rock music video, we used frequent close ups in the studio, however we used a lot of hand held tracking shots in our narrative part of the video, where our artist is in long shots and walks into extreme close ups. The close ups in the studio do created personal relationships, however the hand held tracking shots creates the feeling of something watching the artist, not the audience connecting with them, so I feel there is only a slight relationship created with the music video. In the print products eye contact is constant through out all the shots used, thus creating a personal relationship with the audience and keeping to Blumer, McQuail and Brown's theory.
Trying to find personal identity in our video was tricky as personal identity is seen frequently in narrative based videos. However, in our narrative, the genre of fantasy was used constantly so very little can be found to show how an audience member would connect with the artist. The one moment which, when analysed, could apply to this, is the moment when the artist beats the unknown villain, the "wolf", with a large branch. This can be showing the audience that she is strong and brave, something that is rarely seen, in females, in narrative based videos.
Very little can be said on surveillance as there is only one character seen through the music video and the print products however I can only see that, when reflecting on the Personal Identity of the audience member, the artist defeating the "wolf" can be connoted as encouraging woman and girls to be stronger and braver.
Another theory we looked out was Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
This theory states that all human beings follow a certain code to happiness and well-being. The first layer needs to be complete before advancing onto other, more complicated levels. The first level purely focuses of the physiological needs of a human beings such as air, shelter, water etc. When first looking at this, on the face of it, it doesn't appear that we have met any of these needs however, when looking higher up on the triangle, certain needs can be met such as "Friendship", "Creativity" and "Respect of Others".
Friendship: Looking at our audience, how they are most likely Mainstreamers or Aspirers, they created friendships with people who like and enjoy the same things as they do. If an audience member watched our video then met two others who watched our video, they would create a certain amount of friendship as they enjoyed the video.
Creativity: As previously stated with Aspirers, seeing an acoustic rock artist play a guitar in a video may influence them to begin guitar lessons. Also, a creative person and watches our music video and feels they can do a better job, may go out and film there own version of a music video, sparking off with their creativity.
Respect of Others: Can only be slightly applied with people who have worked with our artist, real name, Sarah Green. Myself, Jayne and Mike, the media technician who helped out a bit on the video shooting, have developed a great amount of respect for Sarah as, for those days of shooting, on location and in the studio, she was willing to do anything.
Although these three needs are met, the first layer is not met at all with our video or print products. Which makes a lot of sense as music videos and print products very rarely increase the amount of warmth, safety or oxygen that an audience member takes in. Regardless, I feel that certain needs, higher up on the triangle are met by our products.
When looking at our audience feedback, in footage and on paper, there is a deal of difference with peoples opinions and thoughts. One of the major differences is on the footage, when the question is asked about whether you would want to buy the single after watching the video, no one said "Yes" however in the scans you can see below, you can clearly see that majority of people said they would.
Originally, however, we used a questionnaire to find out what our target audience liked and disliked about a music artist and what they felt were most important when regarding their representation in the media. Below is the questionnaire.
Originally, however, we used a questionnaire to find out what our target audience liked and disliked about a music artist and what they felt were most important when regarding their representation in the media. Below is the questionnaire.
We then displayed a powerpoint on our blog, stating the results and what we can assume from the results we gained. The question we mainly focussed on for our artist and the genre they were part of, we focussed on question 7, which asked which aspects of an artist are most appealing. Below is the result.
The further results are on the blog, in a power point form. Once we gained these results we took into to mind how the audience felt about music, artists and the importance of the genre.
Question One: Most people stated that they watch music videos, thus allowing us to realise the vastness of our audience and the number of people we have to impress and market our artist to.
Question Two: Most audience members stated that they watch music videos at least once or twice a week, not only would this increased our sales and hits of the record and video, but we also had to regard how eye catching our video would be and whether we would rope in any new members of the audience, in stead of the same people over and over again. To make our video eye catching, we paid close attention to editing, iconography and the main video theme of fairy tales.
Question Three: Six people stated they enjoy both narrative and performance based videos which allowed us to make the decision to make our music video both narrative based and performance as we knew we would have an audience for that.
Question Four: Most people stated that they would watch our music video on youtube or the artists website, this would not only gain us hits but it also shows us how new technology has influence the music audience.
Question Five: Obviously, pop music was most popular with the people we asked however we were originally aware of the large fan base that acoustic rock music holds, so we continued with the song Big Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.
Question Six: The results from this question reinstate that both narrative mixed with performance videos are popular with our audience.
The remaining questions allowed choices for our artist iconography and for the choice of genre to be determined. As we focussed heavily on our audience feedback from this questionnaire, we feel that we have pleased our audience. The ways in which we pleased and appealed to their needs and taste in music can be found in the powerpoint below:
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