Audience Research

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My group and I believe that last year we did not use our target audience research, like focus groups and surveys, to the best ability as we could and did not really take a lot of detail into the insight they were giving us in such ideas. By identifying this it means we can improve this within this year’s research.

This is why we decided to produce a survey monkey in order to receive the feelings of the target audience in a way we could reach all genders and a wider range of ages. Mostly females completed this survey at a range of 13-18 (78%), this is extremely useful as this is our target audience which means the answers will be enormously relevant to my research.

Here are a selection of the most important questions from my survey in which I believe will help me when planning my narrative and storyboard:

What is your opinion on the indie/alternative music genre?

The response to this was mixed between negative and positive comments, mostly positive. We wanted to ask this question in order to see individuals initial opinions of the genre and take into consideration the answers to our question.

In an alternative/indie music video, what sort of thing would you expect to see?

In the majority of the answer it is not only what we wanted to see but also what we expected. These answers will help me to reach and target my audience by utilising the suggests in my production period.

Do you like music videos which have a narrative (a story) or do you prefer to watch the artist/band sing perform the song?

Due to the fact that my group and I were indecisive on whether we should feature a performance part to our video, this was an important question to us in terms of what are audience would prefer. The majority of the responses did not really mind and that they like both, this is reassuring to know that if we decide to do wither performance or narrative that it won't impact the audience too much. However, 42% of responses did choose a more narrative based music video which it helpful to know that a lot of people prefer a narrative rather than performance.

Pick which narrative you'd most expect to see in a indie music video

This question allows us to see what conventions of an alternative genre music video our audience prefer so we can make sure these aspects are included in our own music video. As we can see over half of the respondents expected to see partying/drugs/smoking etc. This also means that a narrative structured video is most likely being preferred which is very helpful as it means we know what the audience expect/want and we can deliver this when deciding our initial ideas.  

Chosen Artist Representation

In order to produce a piece of media text including a song produced by Lorde I felt it would be necessary to research and understand how the media represent her as an artist. I found her CD cover and one of her posters in order to develop knowledge of Lorde's music and the way she comes across in the media so I can mirror some of these ideas when producing my final project.

Her CD cover for ‘pure heroine’ features a plain black background with simple white text creates a dark colour scheme where we would typically expect a picture of the artist as a key image, it is representative of the artist, as it adds to the mystery behind her. As well, it is clear that the artist has already established hr audience before her album has been released allowing her the ability to only feature her name on the cover, setting her apart from other artists. Although Lorde is very young her album cover shows a more mature approach which makes her seem older and doesn’t only appeal to a young audience but older too. Continuity is shown through her font as it is what she uses in her poster and website, this maintains a nice theme between the different types of synergy. Furthermore, the cover represents the genres ideology as the colour scheme is very conventional as it is very simplistic and creates enigma. 

Lorde also advertises herself on posters for upcoming tours, in this poster it features a mid-shot of her which allows the audience to view the choice of costume. The costume is extremely plain as she is wearing a black top with a basic necklace, this fits perfectly with the conventions of the genre. The costume represents her as emotional and rebellious due to the plainness and colourlessness. Her facial expression also suggests this as she is very serious but also edgy in the way she is looking directly at the camera giving us an intense key image. Her dark lipstick again reflects the idea of her being different and even eccentric. Moreover, the necklace in which she is wearing in this high key image seems old fashioned and slightly vintage which could be juxtaposing her style of music which is modern yet electronic.

Copyright Request

Using a song which has not been produced by yourself comes with several rights in terms of using the song. By producing my music video, I have chosen to use a song that already existing, this means I must request permission to use the song.

I have decided to use ‘400 lux’ by Lorde to feature within my video. Professionally, I emailed ‘lava records’ who produce Lorde’s music to receive accurate permission to use one of her songs in my coursework.

Target Audience Focus Group -Song Choice

After choosing our song that we will be producing a music video to, my group and I thought it would be better to get our audiences response to the chosen song.
From our last focus group I realised that a bigger group of people resulted in very short answered questions which made it harder for us to really see the response of our audience. So to improve this I gathered a smaller range of people to answer and couple of questions. I wanted to see their feelings together the song, if they liked it or not and if they would listen to it in their own time.
The response was overall positive, obviously it is hard to generalise the findings of this focus group to the majority of our target audience but I feel this is still helpful to gain some knowledge of our targeted audiences preferences and choices despite it being such a small group of individuals.
The participating individuals are all 17-18 years of age which fits in well with my target audience. They all enjoyed the song in different ways, how unique the song was and think it is a different song that they would listen to in their free time.
This was helpful in clarifying this choice of music as the focus groups responses expressed their feelings of enjoyment of the fact that the song was unlike no other, this was great to hear as we were looking for a song which was distinctive and different so we could be creative with our video and filming choices. 

Lyric Analysis

By analyzing my chosen song, in which I will produce my music video for, I allows me to start gaining ideas when producing my story board.

For example, I found that the majority of the lyrics conveyed a lust for love. From this I feel a love story of a couple would be hugely appropriate in my video, enjoying their time together as a couple maybe have some small busts up in order to create some enigma (Barthes).
In order to incorporate my researched conventions into this idea being portrayed by my lyrical analysis, I feel it would be best to have the couple out partying, drinking and smoking in order to show to the audience that it is an alternative genre music video.

The end of the song almost is like she is leaving a lasting memory by saying "and I like you", it could also suggest her getting this off her chest. I would want to show this within the production of my video. To do this I could have the last scene of the couple being them kissing or just looking happy within each other arms to show a certain relief that they have one another.

Song Choice

After doing some research on female alternative artists my group and I discussed that 'Lorde' would be a great artist to use for our video.

We listened to a great amount of her songs in order to see if one of them would fit with some of the ideas we had come up with as we want to follow the conventions of an alternative genre music video with this would include alcohol, rebellious teens and a love story.

The song '400 lux' by Lorde really appealed to us and allowed us to visualise the video we wanted to create.

Female Alternative Artists Research

As a group we discussed small decisions in which will be making throughout the process of developing our digipak. One of the main ideas we discussed was that we wanted a more narrative based music video and an actor to lip sync a existing song within the alternative genre, however in order to slightly challenge the stereotypes of the alternative genre we thought by having a female lead as the artist and the actor would be different to current products. Therefore, our video will involve a female artist which I think some research is needed into female alternative artists and also songs in which as a group we could potentially used.

These are a few examples of female alternative artists, each portraying a different side to the genre.
By researching existing female it not only allows me to gain more knowledge in order to help me when recording my own female actor as I have be able to see how they act within these videos but it also helps me pick a song from a certain artist which inspires me with ideas and fits with my existing ones.