We wrote the questionnaires for our target audience to fill out.
We printed out numerous copies of this questionnaire and ask a large group of teenagers to fill it in for us so that we would gain a better understanding of how teenagers (our target audience) view music videos and what they would like to see in a music video so that we can compare their thoughts and opinions to our music video to see if we have what they are looking for and if there are areas we need to rethink or add more to.
We got a variety of feedback from the questionnaires, but overall we discovered that pop is the most popular type of music amongst our target audience, this is beneficial to us as our song is a pop song so should appeal to the target audience. Further more, one person states that their favourite music was ‘Egyptian garage funk’- this is perfect as our artist is fro Egypt and the music has Arabic, Egyptian elements- this is perfect for our target audience. We noticed that most of our target audience enjoy having something to follow when it comes to a music video, this is a slight issue as we feel our music video's story line is not very clear as it follows a theme of limbo which is an unusual area that people don't know much about, so in order to improve this aspect of the video I think we will have to clarify the story line slightly, we could do this by making some connection between Elina and the limbo state so that the audience are aware that it is her limbo experience we are watching. Although the story line is not blinding obvious and generic, there is still a story line, about a girl who gets hit by a car and is trying to come back to life- this is similar to the theme of a Rudimental video ‘Tell Me That You Need Me’, which one of our audience members said was their favourite music video, which is about a boy who has a cycling accident and then his journey to regain his strength. This means our video will appeal to the same audience as Rudimental and hopefully be a pre-sold element to our music video.
The age
bracket we chose for out target audience stated that what they are looking for
in a music video is first of all dance, they wanted something that will be
visually pleasing, something that will excite them and make them want to watch
the music video over and over again- further, many people say they want
something that is ‘unique’ that they have not seen before; this relates to our
music video as the theme of our music video (life vs. death and limbo) has not
been explored in many music videos. Our audience
further stated that the presentation of the artist in the music video is very
important, that “people take a lot of inspiration and ideas from the way the
artist is presented in the music video”, furthermore, “they should be the
center point of everything”, and this is also reflected in our music video as
Elina will be the center point of the music video- she will have the most
screen time- moreover, she will be wearing three different outfits which will
appeal to the audience as people take inspiration from our artist.
Furthermore, many people state that the look of the artist is crucial in
the selling of their music, for in they are not attractive and not presented
well, their music will not sell (especially in pop)- one of our audience states
“the artist appearance will get them attention and recognition which will cause
their music to sell”. Another states “their look is their image, and their
image is their marketing, and especially in today’s industry, where pop culture
and social networking is the beacon of the selling of music, their look has to
appeal to the teen market, or else their music will not sell”- this directly
relates to our music video as our star is very attractive and will attract both
male and female audience members, the women will want to be her friend, and the
men will want to be with her.
What many
people think makes a music video unique is their costumes, dance routines and
the general concept of their music video. They want something that “has not
been done before”, which can “catch their eye” and “leave an impression”, this
is exactly what our music video provides. Firstly, the costumes we have are
very different to any others in music videos, as most videos do not use paint
as the costume- this unique feature will attract a wide target audience.
Furthermore, many people think interesting dance routines make things
interesting, this is exactly what our music video provides, the dancing in it
is not the generic ‘pop’ dancing that is seen in many other music videos, it is
different, there is an Egyptian twist to it, it is very old school commercial
with a modern foreign flare to it- this will appeal to our target audience as
they will be attracted to the uniqueness of it. Lastly they feel that a unique
concept makes for a good music video- again this is reinforced with the unusual
narrative we have taken- a state between life and death, appealing to our
target audience.
It is also
apparent in our research that the music video is very important in the selling
of the actual song, for example, one person said “it is very important, it
shows what the song means to the band, what they look like, and how they are
expecting us to feel about the song”. Furthermore, it has become apparent,
especially now a days, that the music video is also a massive publicity stunt,
for example Miley Cyrus’s music video for “Wrecking Ball” and “We Cant Stop”,
were scandalous and were frowned upon, but they also create hype, to the point
at even 2 months after the video released, people are still talking about it-
this caused both the 2 singles and the album to become number 1, world wide.
This shows how important the music video is to the selling of the artist-
especially artist who are in the pop industry, which our artist is.
However,
people have expressed that what they do not like about the music video is when
the artist goes to far with what they are doing, for example, Rihanna has just
released “Pour It Up”, which was banned from www.youtube.com 10 minutes after it was
published because it broke to many conventions, it was to revealing, had
explicit themes and could not be shown publically. This means that the music
video could not be seen by all of her fans, meaning that her music will not be
as widely known because of her lack of music video- this means that with out
music video, we must ensure that it sticks to the conventions of www.youtube.com to ensure that it is not
to risky or provocative. Furthermore, people dislike when they are predictable,
and not interesting enough- we have accounted for this in our music video as at
the end of the video- the girl effectively gets hit by a car and in slow motion
returns back to life- this will engage the audience and they will not predict
that will happen. Lastly, people do not like it when the artist is not shown in
the video.
All this
feedback we have taken on board and will take note of when creating our music
video- for we want to appeal to our target audience as they will be the ones
viewing, sharing and publicizing our music video.
This is Elina, who will be the star of our video. She will be the girl in our performance element and hence the girl who we will be aiming to market and promote. We feel Elina is appropriate for the part because she is an ethnic, Egyptian girl with soul and sass. Dyer says that a key component of a star is that they are somewhat anti-authoritarian and rebellious, Elina fits that description and this is how we will market her. She is also a talented actress so she will be able to portray the distress and confusion of limbo accurately. She does theatre studies A-level thus she is used to being required to learn lines, this means the demand for her learning our wordy song will not be too demanding on her.
This is Lelia, she is our female dance star who will be dancing solo and as a group with the boys. The main reason we chose Lelia is due to her impeccable dancing talent, she is also a very talented choreographer which is perfect as we have told her the dance style we want and have shown her the music so she can create a dance routine that will work well with what we want. Dance is something that is a key component of a music video based around a synthetic artist. 
Harry is going to be one of our male dancers, he will not appear as frequently as Lelia or Elina, so attention is not drawn from Elina who is ultimatly our star and the most important person. Harry is a talented dancer who does dance AS-level thus he is good at taking direction and he will be more likely to be in sync with the other dancers during the dance breaks.
Kalvin will be our second dancer. Kalvin is also a talented dancer who is in the dance company at our school, this shows that he will be good at dancing with other people and he will take direction from a choreographer well.
