Audience feedback has been extremely helpful throughout the planning, research and evaluation stages of creating my promotional package. During the research and planning stages, I conducted a survey using SurveyMonkey. This website allows you to create quick survey's and then it puts the results into graphs for you. I began my coursework by carrying out research on demographics. Producing primary market research gives a general idea of the interests of my chosen demogaphics; in regards to music videos. After researching into demographics I gained valuable knowledge about what my target audience would want to see from my music video. The questions I were:
1. What If Your Gender?
2. What Is Your Age?
3. What Continent Do You Live In?
4. How Many Bedrooms Do You Have In Your Home?
5. Which Best Describes Your Current Occupation?
6. Favourite Music Genre?
7. Favourite Musician/Band Why?
8. Why Do You Enjoy Watching Music Videos? Why?
9. How Often Do You Watch Music Videos?
10. What Do You Expect To See In Music Videos?
I began my survey with basic questions due to SurveyMonkey operating with an anonymous answering system, I needed to know these basic facts in order to find out who I should target my music video toward and find out what they liked in music videos before starting my storyboard. In relation to the gender of the participants of my survey, it was equal male and female. This shows that both genders are avid of social media and will be more attracted to social media marketing due to their upbringing with the internet.
In regards to age, I used 6 different categories so that it would be able to see more specifically who my target audience would be. From this survey, I found that most people who answered were between the ages 10-18. I was expecting this result as I posted the survey onto social media where my followers/friends are of the same age group as me. There were several 19 - 24 year olds who completed this survey. This showed me that young people should be my demographic of my music video.
The next question I asked was what continent they live in. However, I was not surprised with the results of that all the people who participated in my survey would be from Europe as this represents the following/friends I have on social media. On the other hand, this method of social media advertising showed me that my product may only appeal to an English speaking audience. This lead me to advertise my music video more globally when conducting further research, following Anderson's 'long tail' theory which he states that niche markets are extended by appealing to larger audiences with the accessibility to people all over the world with the internet as a gateway to them. This shows the effects of globalization have on how I developed and advertised my music video.
Following this, I asked my audience how many bedroom they have in their home. This gives me a idea of the financial situation. Other methods of finding this out would have been to ask if they have a mortgage or paid rent, however this would be extremely personal and I doubt many people would be willing to answer. This most popular answer was 4 bedrooms and the least popular was 2 bedrooms. This shows that my demographic may be part of a financially stable household, which means they will be able to purchase my artists merchandise and CD's etc.
Finding out my demographic's occupation allows me to know what price I would have to set my products in order for them to afford them. All of my demographic were students and some had part time jobs. Knowing this information made me decide how I would market and advertise my artist. I decided to use the same model/artist as in my Foundation Portfolio as it was successful and my audience really liked how she was the same age and represents feminism, which is an issue today.
I then focused more questions relevant to the music and music video side. There was a variation in favourite music genres, I expected this due to posting it on social media which makes it available to a vast amount of people not just my friends. I noticed that the most popular answer was indie/indie rock. This showed me that many people today were interested in hybrid genres, which I did in my music video by chosing the song 'Thinking Out Loud' by Ed Sheeran but replaced it with Annie Harmeston's acoustic cover, therefore making it fit under the indie/pop/folk genre. Which, in turn opened up my target audience.
From this question, I realised that my demographic have a wide taste in musicians. This fit in with my hybrid/genre. A lot of the answers featured artists that use acoustic guitars mainly in their music. This shows that the acoustic version of my song will be popular amongst my demographic. One of the responses states that they liked Ben Howard's "emotive lyrics", by using an acoustic cover of an already emotional song, it emphasizes the meaning of the lyrics even more.
All my participants said they felt music videos helped add "meaning" and "depth" to the song. I carried this idea through to my video by basing it around a death in a same sex couple. Not only does it add depth but it also makes its relevant to contemporary society. One person even said that it was "more interesting than an album cover". This shows that the audience will identify more entertaining video and prefer a more conventional and not out there digiapk, something which was applied to my own work.
My demographic appeared to watch music videos regularly, this shows that music videos are still relevant today even though everything has become digitalised, people still put the time in to watch them. This meant that my music video had to be memorable in order to be successful in the music industry.
The most popular answer to what was expected in music videos was 'storylines/narrative'. This is probably the most common convention in music videos, which I followed. However, I felt like this question didn't help me too much into my research, as it just affirmed what I already knew about conventions. On the hand, it showed that people who are not media studies can understand and recognise the conventions when taking this survey. I then conducted another survey after completing my video and the questions revolved around what they thought of the product. The questions I asked were:
1. What genre do you think my music video is?
2.What do you think of the narrative of my music video?
3. did you enjoy watching my music video? and why?
4. Does the music video and ancillary texts show continuity?
5. Would you watch the music video again?
6. What did you think of the use and representation of a same sex couple?
As you can see from the results collected the majority of people thought my music video was of the indie/pop genre, however some thought it was pop. This was probably due to the hybrid nature, so I had to conform to both conventions in order to blur the line and make it look effective.
All of the participants correctly answered what they thought the narrative of the music video was, showing that it was an overall successful product and I achieved what I set out to do.
Once again, the particpants enjoyed my music video and understood the style that I was trying to achieve, simplistic. Some of them praised the use of flashbacks and everyday life aspects and thought it fit well with the narrative.
The answers to this question show that they thought my music video and ancillary texts were successful as a promotional package. One even praised how it "shows feminism and power for women", which is what I set out to do during my media studies course.
All of the participants of the survey stated that they would watch my music video. This also shows how successful my music video was as a product and that many people agree with the ideology I have.
When creating my music video, I had to make sure that I was representing a same sex couple in a 'tasteful' was, as they are often objectified by the media and used to fuel the desires of a heterosexual male. One person also said that using a lesbian couple made it 'relevant today'. Despite legalising gay marriages, there has only been a slight increase in the use of same sex relationships and with my music video I hoped to challenge this.
In my opinion, I felt that survey's were the most effective way to collect fast and reliable information. I did create a poll on my blog, however this didn't work as many people ignored it when looking on my blog so I didn't get many results.
I asked my 16 year old stepbrother for his feedback and this is what he said.
Finally, Stuart Hall's reception theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer, myself, which means that what I've produced is filled with values and messages. The text is then decoded by spectators, and it has been from my peers on social media. Different spectators will decode the text in different ways not always in the way the producer intended. After conducting audience research, I have found that my audience have understood and respected my values and ideologies in my music video.
I have collected all of my footage and refilmed the final scene.
Things To Do:
- add the bit that I had to edit out due to corruption of the film
- fix the match on action of the end scene as it is off
- play around more with the colouring to really make it apparent to the viewer of the different time periods.
After collecting all of my footage and I edited altogether, I found when I tried to upload it to YouTube the option was no longer accessible for me to click. This lead me to try solutions such as recording my screen, however this was not a very professional manner of approaching this. I then went to my college's media technician and he suggested that we transfer my project on my MacBook onto the iMac's available at college. We then asked the film teacher whether this would work and she told us that we would just end up having the same problem. Finally, he got the college's IT technician to come and have a look at my final cut project and he suggested that I go through and delete each of the clips one at a time to see which is corrupted. Despite the time consuming effort I have no found out which clip it is. I will upload my video with this section missing but will try and edit it back in later.
Before filming tomorrow, I have planned out what needs to be filmed by filling in the gaps of my music video with titles of what is going to be filmed and where. This has given me a clear view of what needs be filmed.
After watching it on youtube for some reason a lot of my clips have changed shape so this is something that I will need to fix before finishing my product.
Tomorrow, I will be filming my scrapbook scene, here is how I made it
[insert construction]
After speaking to teachers and looking at the mark scheme, I noticed that my video and ancillary texts all needed to link together. When initially creating my product I had the idea of not making my artist a character in my narrative, however when looking at my work so far I have realised that my work isn't cohesive, so I have decided to change my artist to the main character in my music video. This means I will change my ancillary texts accordingly.
After showing my ancillary texts to my teachers they told me that my product needed to link more with my music video as that was how you gained marks. My initial idea for my video was to involve a performance element when the couple meet. However, due to complications with finding a suitable locations, cast changes and finding an appropriate time when everyone is free, I have decided to make my video focus more on the narrative and the relationship between my couple. To make sure my artist is featured in the video I will make her have a cameo in the video, this allows me to have the artist present but also to make sure that the audience is focused on the narrative and the relationship between the couple. In order for my ancillary texts to relate back to the video I thought about changing the roses I have on the inside to polaroid pictures with screen grabs of the couple in my video. I decided on polaroids as firstly because I felt it would fit in with the rest of my ancillary texts but also because polaroid pictures are done quickly which fits in with relationship in my video. Short lived. But due to the fact that polaroid cameras give you a hard copy of the photograph symbolises the theme of my video being a memory of this relationship and that she won't forget it.
This is the third draft on my music video. Changes: - Taken out 'photobooth' scene, will have to reshoot if I want to use this ideo - taken out all of the colouring as I have decided it will be more efficient to do this when I have all of my footage. - Replaced original track with Annie's cover Things To Do: - Film meeting - scrapbook scenes - add colour correction to reflect the memories and the current time [end scene].
I decided that I wanted a female artist for my music video as I believed it fit better with the theme and ideology of my video. This meant that I had to re-record the song as it was sung by a male singer. Luckily, my actor for the artist role is a singer and she has already recorded 'Thinking Out Loud', but as a duet with Max T Stafford. I feel that using a duet will enforce the theme of love in my music video as when duet's are performed the songs are usually about love. Also they performed an acoustic version of 'Thinking Out Loud' which gives off a more chilled vibe, which is what I wanted for my music video as I don't want it to be structured like other love music videos today. Due to the music video being unstructured and free, I feel as though this fits with the lesbian relationship I am portraying in my video.
Many albums are promoted in Times Square. It costs between $1.1 million and $4 million a year if you want to buy one of those flashy, digital or neon billboards that light up Times Square, according to the Wall Street Journal. The owners of 1 Times Square make $23 million a year from the billboards that cover it.
The pros of having magazine advertisements, allow for it to be more targetted specific magazine titles appeal to specific target groups more so than a newspaper advert. They also have a 'longer life', magazines have a longer “life” than newspapers, they sit about in doctor’s waiting rooms, magazine racks and with collectors. Pass-on readership – people may pass magazines on to their friends and family which will increase exposure of your advert Status – some magazine titles are well respected in their field, so an advertisement in these will increase your product/service’s prestige by association.
Bus Shelter advertising is a form of outdoor advertising that delivers quick messages across a traveling audience, through posters or mini billboards at bus stops. The huge volume of commuters entering and exiting buses lets you speak to huge numbers of people each day in only a matter of seconds through bus shelter ads.
Due to my artist being signed to Columbia Records, I looked on their website and saw that they featured their artists on the front page as a form of promotion. This is a less obvious form of advertising for the music industry and is targeted towards people who are fans of artists from Columbia Records, who would look at their website. This allows these people to find new music and to keep up to date with the record label.
I decided to photoshop my digipak into a HMV store, to see what it would look like in comparison to already existing products. I feel as though my product fits in well amongst these products and looks conventional and professional.
The majority of people purchase their music on iTunes. When i went onto the iTunes store homepage I saw that they promoted new albums on their homepage. This lead me to create this banner promoting my artists new album.
When you purchase an album from iTunes, you have the option to purchase the whole album or a single song (a la carte). I changed this layout to fit my artist and I think it looks very professional and could pass as a real product.
When creating my Digipak, the hardest aspect I found was creating the CD. Compared to the other conventions, creating the CD to look conventional involved a lot more technological knowledge of using Photoshop. As you can see from the existing products below and others, most, if not all, CD's have font curved around the edges of the disk. This text is usually the album track list or the list of producers. The CD also includes the same credits and copyright information as the backcover. The CD also has the artist, record label and production company's website along with their logo's. It also features the 'compact disk' logo, which indicates that it is a small plastic disc on which music or other digital information is stored in the form of a pattern of metal-coated pits from which it can be read using laser light reflected off the disc.
