Audience Research: Interviews

This is the 3rd Audience Research method we used

We decided to conduct an interview with 4 females aged 16-17 years of age which is our target audience, to make up for the lack of people at our focus group and to get more detailed information about what our target audience expect from the 'Indie Rock' music video and what they like. There are a few flaws with conducting an interview as some people get nervous and struggle with what to say, but I feel our interview went quite well with few flaws. We asked them 10 questions, these are many questions and require a lot of detail but our participants tried their best and were very helpful. They did not understand some words, like iconography, so we had to explain and by explaining in simple terms they knew how to answer the question adequately and to the best of their ability. 
       
           

These are the questions that we asked:
1) Do you think that settings make a difference to a music video and how we portray a character or situation
2) What types of settings do you like in an 'Indie Rock' video? Why?
3) Does your opinion of a character change or form when seeing their costume and associated iconography and themes?
4) Is iconography important to tell a story or inform the audience what genre the video is? Why?
5) What are the typical iconography and themes you expect to see in an 'Indie Rock' video?
6) Do you think iconography can give negative and positive attitudes towards a character?
7) Do you think props make the video more interesting?
8) What props do you expect to see?
9) Do you think lighting makes a difference to the video?
10) Do you prefer story or performance videos?

These questions mainly focus on how the target audience feel elements should be used and what effect they give in the video. These answers will now allow us to think carefully how we use iconography, settings, costume etc..

Because of our interview we now have varied methods for audience research, our focus group allowed for a group discussion and viewing of 'Indie Rock' music videos, our questionnaires allow for a paper based response from many different people (this was the best way to collect views on CD covers and adverts) and our interview allows for a more personal response as we spend time with individuals and ask them their personal preferences.I feel that we have quite a lot of audience research to feed off so we can make our music video appealing. 

Moodboard 

I produced a mood board in order to sum up the main findings from the questionnaire, focus group and interviews in a simple picture form. The images consist of the main iconography expected in the music video, props, narrative structure and settings. There are some little things which emphasises the gender of our target audience also. 

Audience Research: Questionnaire (New)

The survey site that we first used to collect our data expired so all our collected data was lost. So, we had to create new questionnaires on 'Survey Monkey', we used the same questions but made slight changes to the design and some questions as we felt this would give better results. We may not get as many responses as we did last time, but because we have other research methods like the focus group, we still get an idea of our audience and their likes and dislikes. 

Demographics & Music Video Preferences

Preferences of Album covers and Adverts

Demographics & Music Video Preferences

We made some slight changes to this questionnaire, mainly on question 7. as this time instead of giving an essay box where one feels the need they have to write loads, we gave them 3 boxes so they only have to write 3 things and seeing a big essay box does not put them off of answering. 

Preferences of album covers and advertisements

This is the questionnaire that we mainly made changes on, as we gave more album covers and adverts to choose from. 

  

By giving more options we get more valid results as there are more to chose from as last time there was only 3 and this time we have more variety. We gave an essay box like before as they may want to say a lot about their favourite, so there is no restrictions. We also gave the 3 boxes instead of an essay box on this questionnaire, just like the new demographic one. 

The Results

I put all of the results from both questionnaires into a mini video.

Audience Research: The Focus Group

This was the second research method we used

We conducted a focus group to get more information about what our audience expect from an 'Indie Rock' music video. We have asked questions on freeonlinesurveys.com about what they expect from an 'Indie Rock' music video, but it is hard to get detailed, valid answers without seeing a video first. So, by conducting a focus group we will get more valid answers and a discussion was created.
We had 5 people in total answer the questions and watch the videos, but one male had to leave so missed the discussion. We asked them 7 questions about the 4 videos they watched. The videos were:
The 1975 - Robbers
Kodaline - High Hopes
The Vaccines - If You Wanna
The Neighbourhood - Let It Go
The videos we showed them were good to use as they were very varied, ranging from narrative videos with either a linear or non linear narrative and a performance video. By showing this variety, we can get more of an idea of which route we want to go down when doing our video.
The questions we asked were:
1) What did you like/dislike about each video?
2) Which video was easiest to follow? Why?
3) Is there any improvements you would make to any of the videos?
4) Which video did you think fit more with its music?
5) Do you prefer a story or a performance? Why?
6) Which type of narrative did you prefer; Linear or non linear? Why?
7) Which song did you like best?
By asking these questions we got a better sense as to what is preferred narrative wise in a music video, and if our audience prefer the narrative to be easy to follow and if it should match the lyrics. Because we have done this we have more of an idea of a preferred narrative we should incorporate in our music video.
The focus group worked well as we had a mixture of girls and boys ranging from 16-17 years of age. Even though one boy had to leave, we still got his response via paper. Asking questions on paper and getting them to write their answers down, was good as not everyone is confident to speak up. A problem is we had a small sample size so it is not fully representative of the target audience but they wrote around the same answers. But, because we produced a questionnaire, we have got more results as many different people got to answer roughly the same questions we asked the focus group, but the questionnaire people answered questions about adverts and CD covers also. We may also do interviews to get more rounded results. 



Here were the results recieved from doing the focus group:

2 people out of the 5 said 'The Neighbourhood' was easiest to follow as it shows a clear contrast of emotion and how society sees them and was spelling out a clear message. 2 other people said that 'The Vaccines' was easiest to follow because it was all performance. 1 person said 'The 1975' was the easiest to follow because "It shows at the beginning, their life is good and easy to understand. Also shows the effect alcohol has on individuals"

1 person said they would improve 'The Neighbourhood' as it is "too black and white" Then 3 people said they would improve 'The Vaccines' as it did not really grab them and needs to grab the audience, would prefer a story, needed to be more interactive, and the colour scheme did not really match. Then 1 person did not answer this question.

2 people said that the best song was 'The Neighbourhood' as it shows a "major stereotypical   scenario and shows that it is not always the way and how women don't like to be accused of being a stereotypical housewife" and "Shows a realistic society stereotype and shows women don'y have a luxurious life and don't like being accused of being a housewife" Then 1 person liked 'Kodaline' as it had a "Nice story and nice song" 1 person liked 'The Vaccines' (did not state why) and 1 

person liked 'The 1975' (did not state why)

 Everyone apart from 1 person said that they prefer story to performance. The 1 person said they prefer both story and performance as they get "The best of both worlds" The majority said they preferred story as it is more interesting, can enhance the lyrics, can follow the song and "Make inferences about the song"

4 people said they they prefer a non-linear narrative as flashbacks allow for a better understanding of the story, makes it more interesting to watch, allows for the story being told to be told in further detail, helps build enigma and suspicion as want to find out more, makes the audience want to engage more as they want to find out more. The one person who preferred linear said they preferred it because, "You stop focusing your efforts on understanding the lyrics if you can't understand the video."

1 person said 'The Neighbourhood' (did not state why) 2 people said 'The 1975' because "They robbed a store" and "The story being told was of a robbery and the song is called robbers" And someone said about how the lyric "Now everybody's dead" matched how the gunshots went off and it was quiet before this lyric, connoting death. 2 people said 'Kodaline' because "it shows there i always hope and there is always new beginnings" Also someone said how the lyric, "Take me back to where it all first started" Matched how after the shooting there was flashbacks to their relationship, and this is how it all started.




What did you like/dislike about each video?

The 1975 - Robbers: People liked this video as it was clear, simple and easy to understand, matching the lyrics. Some people liked how it had some social realism of alcohol, relationships and how things can go from being ok/good to being bad. Someone said that they liked how it showed that "alcohol, drugs, can influence decisions". Some liked how the story took a dark turn when the lyrics started to go dark, "Now everybody's dead" 
What some people did not like was how there was a depressing storyline.

Kodaline - High Hopes: What some people liked about this narrative was that it showed that even though something bad has happened there can be hopes and new beginnings, this links in with how some liked how the narrative liked the link to the lyrics of "High Hopes" Some liked that there was a plot twist of a death occurring. 
What some people did not like was that it showed how bad habits are taken up to deal with problems in which viewer(s) may mimic.  

The Vaccines - If You Wanna: People liked that there was focus on the band and specifically a focus on the main singer, they liked this because it made a connection between them and the band. Some also liked the bright colours and high key lighting to match the song beat and lyrics. The high key lighting was also said to reflect a positive mood.
A lot of people did not like this video due to it being 'boring', dull' and 'bland' as you are only watching a band playing instruments on a stage and there are no other locations.

The Neighbourhood - Let It Go: Most people liked how it showed how society sees women and how women actually feel about a stereotypical housewife. Someone said that they liked "the way they represent her personality class. It makes viewer feel as if they are getting an insight to the woman that the other characters can't see" Some also said that they liked how the image matched the lyrics of "Let It Go" as she is letting herself go. Most also said that they liked how there was the use of lighting to show a contrast of emotions and how society sees the women.
Only one person put a dislike about the video, which was, "It's too black and white".