Demographics
Before creating a music video, it is very important to identify who the target audience is. This is because all the elements included within a music video such as the artist, characters, themes, settings, mise en scene and more are all related to the target audience. Therefore I used a questionnaire to identify the target audience - which allowed us to find out the most vital information about them and how to appeal to them through our products. Once we had discovered as much as we could, we made some decisions regarding our music video. The key areas and requirements we identified were:
Genre: The genre of my song for my music video is Hip-Hop, and we chose the song Too Young by Post Malone.
Gender: My music video is targeted at all genders, although Hip Hop is conventionally seen as a genre for young males, there are many females that enjoy the genre and recently there has been a rise, especially with more female hip hop artists.
Age: My music video is targeted to those above the age of 18 up to 30 years old, this is mainly due to the lyrical content of the song and profanity used.
Ethnicity: My video is targeted at all ethnic groups, as hip hop is not constrained to one race with many artists being from different backgrounds.
Occupation: My music video is mainly targeted at working class young people as this is conventional for the genre of hip hop, therefore my audience should be able to relate to my music video.
Hobbies and interests: As my music video is targeted at young adults and due to the locations we filmed in, people that are sociable and more likely to go to parks and skate parks will enjoy the music video more. Although these are quite general locations and people without specific hobbies or interests should also enjoy the video.
Questionnaire and Graphs
During the initial stages of planning I gave a sample group a questionnaire in order to receive feedback on my upcoming music video. This was to identify who my target audience was and to understand what they enjoyed and expected from the music video. I used the results of my questionnaire to create graphs to display the results much more clearly and analyse them, using this I was able to make educated decisions on characters, mise en scene, cinematography, locations and more. This allowed me to create a music video that was targeted at the correct audience and was suitable enough for them and to meet their expectations.
My questionnaire:
There were some key questions that we had asked and the feedback we received was vital when it came to making decisions:
This allowed us to identify our target audience as most of the people that contributed to our questionnaire were between the ages of 18 and 30.
This evidence made it clear that people enjoyed a music video with the artist as the main focus of the video - which is what we ended up doing.
This allowed us to make decisions about our artists costume, which ended up consisting of typical young working class male's clothing of tracksuit pants and hoody, parka jackets, joggers, puffer jackets and a hat.
How did this help you make decisions?
The questions that we asked and got feedback from helped identify what the audience wanted and expected from the music video, this allowed us to make key decisions based on the results. For example, with questions on expectations on how the artist should dress in a hip hop music video, we got the results back of most people saying "gangster-like" and "casual", we kept this in mind when planning our shoot and instructed the artist to wear what he did, this would appeal to the target audience positively as they will know we are listening to them. Without a questionnaire, my group would not have had feedback to draw upon and our group would have been put in a position where we would have very little knowledge of how to appeal to the target audience or even whom our target audience were. Therefore this use of research has been greatly helpful as it allowed us to base our decisions on solid evidence as we had referred back to our graphs and results constantly when making important decisions regarding the music video.
What is the importance of receiving critical feedback once the production has been made?
Once a product has been completed it is vital that the target audience get a chance to view the product and give feedback - this will allow you to make small changes that may have a big impact on the final product. This allows it to be as successful and appealing as possible for the target audience. After identifying how vital it was to receive critical feedback on our final production, we held a focus group which consisted of AS and A2 film studies and media students to watch our production and view the ancillary products. We were given both positive and negative comments on this.
Focus group pictures:
Soundcloud feedback
Link to youtube video and comments left on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHfi-jZhHLo
Why did you put your work on youtube?
I put my work on youtube as it is the largest social media platform in the world. It has the largest global audience and it is regularly used by creators to gain recognition and several careers have been started due to posting on Youtube. Youtube also have a comments section (as seen above) which allowed me to see unfiltered feedback from the general public and my target audience, I was able to see positives and critiques about my music video which allowed us to make minor changes which affected the quality of the finalised product.
Comments left on Youtube:
Positive:
"Shot and edited very well!"
"..very different music video not like others right now"
"The editing is really well done...didn't overuse effects because that can make it seem unprofessional"
Negative:
"..the shots were too similar in the different places"
"..some lip syncing is not in time"
What did you learn from this audience feedback in terms of whether you created a conventional and successful music video?
The audience feedback on Youtube taught me that my music video was effective and produced well overall. There were only very minor changes that were needed such as the lip syncing which was made aware to me by the criticism in the comments. Some shots were replaced and the lip syncing was sorted out so every shot had the lip syncing on time. The majority of the audience enjoyed the music video which made it successful.
Screenshots of video on facebook and instagram
Why did you put your work on Instagram and Facebook?
I put my production on Facebook and Instagram as it is an easy way to share the video with family and friend as well as the rest of the general public who may not be active on Youtube. It also helped spread awareness of my artist as Facebook and instagram are very popular social media websites. Both sites allowed for my video to be liked, shared and commented on therefore allowing me to receive constructive criticism from my target audience, especially as the age range of my target audience of 18-30 mostly use instagram.
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| demographics from sproutsocial.com |
Some general comments from Facebook and Instagram
Positive:
"The themes are illustrated in this video, very unique I love it"
"Great cinematography I like the slow motion editing it is used appropriately"
Negatives:
"It got a bit too repetitive at times"
"The lighting was a bit off in some of the shots"
What did you learn from this audience feedback in terms of whether you created a conventional and successful music video?
I learned that a majority of the audience, including my target audience enjoyed the music video as I received a lot of positive feedback. I learned that my music video is greatly conventional due to the amount of positive feedback I got and the numbers of people that viewed it. The feedback may not have been greatly recieved if I had targeted a niche audience as the numbers of people watching would be a lot less. Most people enjoyed the idea of it and although it was risky, I aimed for addressing social issues rather than boasting about wealth to a mass audience, but this was too received well. Although I did get some negative comments mostly about the shots being repetitive and earlier on about the lip syncing not being on time, this was quickly taken care of for the finalised product. Overall these criticisms helped me build a better product to appeal to the target audience.
Conclusion
Overall, I promoted my music video and linked it on various social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. This was effective as they are some of the most popular social media websites and are globally accessible which allowed us to reach the largest audiences thereby making it a popular and successful product. The feedback I received from the various social media platforms greatly helped me build a better product. Overall the feedback was positive which ensured the videos success, although there were some critical comments regarding the lip syncing and the repetitiveness of some shots, although this was quickly amended before the finalised product as they were very minor issues. As the director of the music video, I believed it was important to identify the issues as early as possible and use this production as a learning curve in case of future reference where I may have to create a music video again. As a whole the feedback helped greatly and I am positive I am able to make a successful music video with very little issues.
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