1) What do you believe to be the message in the video?
2) What genre would you describe the video?
3) Can you relate to any of the characters?
4) Do you think the ending is effective?
5) What are you favourite music artists?
6) What is your favourite genre of music?
7) Which radio station do you think this artist would be heard on?
8) What are your favourite retail shops?
9) What are your favourite activities?
10) Which sequence in the video, do you like the most?
My target audience is 14- 22 year olds so I handed out the questionnaires at college, pubs such as “The Playhouse” and “The Red Lion”, and another teenage popular destination; the art school, and the Forum. I wanted to find out if the music video to be not only widely accepted as part of the genre of “acoustic folk” but to be enjoyable to watch and entertaining as a media product. I handed out sixty questionnaires; here are a few examples of the answered questionnaires... The layout was simplistic so that the reader wrote exactly how they felt without the need to personally elaborate with lots of detail, so that I could generate a basic understanding on what the norm thought of the video.
The first question was asking what the viewer thought the message in the video was. This question was important in showing whether the themes of love and relationships were clear throughout of if the storyline was too vague. The video message seemed to be clearer to the females than the males questioned. Romantic movies have higher popularity with females than males, statistics show on www.imdb.com . This could show why the message of love was more easily understood by the females who answered the questionnaire. Many of the males who didn’t answer the first question by saying it was about love and relationships, thought the message of the video was about freedom and the memories the main character has.
One person answered with, “main characters’ need for freedom and wanting to escape from a life he may not want anymore”. This answer was interesting to me as it shows the possible negative outlook males may have felt from the video, but it could also show how the males saw a realistic motif in the storyline, whereas the females saw the naive part of falling in love with the perfect person. In the second question I found that many people answered with “alternative” which is a sub-genre to the “acoustic” genre I aimed to produce. Primarily the genre I chose was “acoustic” but the ancillary texts have aspects of other genres- folk and indie. This was deliberate as to emphasise the acoustic genre as a new genre I wanted to link other similar genres. The other genres have very similar artists and all three are sometimes used to cross-over each other by artists such as “Florence and the Machine” and “Foals”.
The answer sheets showed that the females on the whole, thought the ending was effective in showing how the main character is biking towards the distant future of his life and is travelling away from his past. In the feedback form, the majority said that the radio station they’d expect to hear “Cigarettes” by Tom Sutcliffe is “radio one”. This was the expected radio as the radio plays all genres of music, the song wouldn’t be played on radio stations like “kiss” radio. However I thought that more people would think the song would be played on a radio station such as “Kerrang”. From question 9 I wanted to see the trends of activities of people that liked the genre “acoustic folk”. In the video the characters are seen at “The Playhouse” which is a generic location for the intended audience, therefore in the question sheet I wanted to see what other things the main characters could have been doing in the video to fit the specific genre. The ending question was meant for me to get analysis on the video to see what scene in the video worked the best. The most popular sequence could be stilled and featured in the digipak to draw in the intended audience. There was another questionnaire specific for other media students which asked them to identify the genre, main colours of the video and the main image of the video that stands out and how the video may appeal to the audience. This questionnaire helped me to find out if the technology used was effective.
From the answers I have learned that "acoustic" music trends are growing in popularity with youth. Many volunteers who answered the questionnaire and were in their late teens said they like not only folk music but also jazz. This is very enlightening to see younger people enjoying stereotypically "older" generation music. I therefor believe I have represented an artist who appeals to wide audience through the naturalistic lifestyle and how the video connotes happiness within life.
Some good questions and responses but you need to reflect on the answers. What have you learned? How would you change production process next time? Do you think you have been successful in representing artist and appealing to target audience? Reflect on aspects of video that were successful and not so successful.
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