Q3: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

For our music video for the song ‘First Love-The Maccabees’, we held a focus group in order to gather feedback on it. We asked 10 questions to a group of 6 people within our

target audience – 16 to 25 year olds. We chose to question people from our target

audience so that we can find out if our music video draws them in correctly and to find out whether we do actually appeal to the audience

the Indie Rock is dominantly aimed at.

The Narrative…The narrative of the music video is about a young couple’s aim to move on after separating. The 6

people in the group understood the narrative. Using a non-linear that wasn’t in chronological order it

added an abstract look to the video and drew in the viewer a great deal as it is a usual convention for

Indie Rock videos.

We also used this idea to show each character’s confusion. Although we chose to do a non-

chronological narrative the audience commented that this was a good idea because

it reminded them of how happy the protagonists were previously compared to the

feelings they’re experiencing after the breakup. This taught us that sticking to this music video convention of the Indie Rock genre was a good

idea.

The focus group also agreed that the music video did suit the genre of music. The feedback said that the costumes, choice of actors and pace of shots were the main elements of the music video that made the music suit the genre correctly. However the issue was raised that perhaps more shots of Harry should have featured displaying him with his lover on the side ‘Alexa’ who caused the breakup so the story was told a bit more clearly.

The Genre…

Originally, during the initial ideas stage, we planned to display Harry and Alexa together.

Although, when shooting the music video, lack of time meant that we could not display this as successfully as we planned. This being said, the audience did still agree that the story was clear and conventional to the genre as Indie

Rock videos leave you thinking.

The Mise-En-Scene…The focus group mentioned that the colours used throughout the video clearly displayed the type of

characters portrayed in the video as antagonist Alexa wore black displaying her bad and villain like character. Where as, innocent girl Abbie was placed in bright pastel colours in order to display

the bright and positive character.

This told us that we had the right ideas with costumes as the characters were dressed appropriately to who they are portrayed to be in the video. However the issue was raised that there could have been more low lighting in the video in order to display the type of feel each shot/scene has. Even though the bath scene involved relatively low lighting, other shots lacked this idea.

We discussed this after the focus group and we said that if we could do some shots again we

would have shot some point of view shots making sure that low lighting was involved or even manipulating the lighting on Final Cut-

Pro.

We would have to experiment first though because this does run the risk of reducing the quality of the music video and making it look more amateur. This taught us that the use of lighting could have been improved although the choice of costume worked well in order to engage the viewer.

The focus group agreed that the Mise En Scene and characters did create a good sense of

verisimilitude and were generally worked well towards the representation of the genre. The

main protagonists Abbie and Harry each created a sense of verisimilitude as people of

there age are usually in a relationship however many do not work out.

The Verisimilitude…

The reactions of the characters in the situations weren’t extremely realistic however we was not aiming to make their reactions realistic as we wanted this to draw in the viewer and create a sense of humour, for example Harry dropping the biscuits and crying in his bed. These are very important aspects of the video as this causes the audience to feel empathy for the characters.

It was said that the Mise En Scene was good because it seemed natural and suited the main protagonist, the genre and the message that the

music video gave. The Mise En Scene also gave a good sense of verisimilitude because the

settings/locations were ordinary settings that ordinary people come across on a daily basis.

As well as being the location that the majority of the target audience live. On the subject of this, the props and décor of the house scene was very realistic and modern, suiting the correct time that the video was set in. This taught us that location scouting is important and that every aspect featured within the scenes add to the verisimilitude and are strongly recognised by the audience.

The Ancillary tasks…

The focus group said that the magazine advertisement strongly suits the genre – indie rock. The simple layout and lack of content adds a laid back feel to the advert, which is

conventional for indie rock. It was also commented on that the idea of using the star

rating from NME magazine was very significant as it strongly exaggerates the conventions of indie rock advertisments. 

The digipak created was commented on as extremely good and suited the genre, due to the hand writing design and bright colours also fitting the name of the album ‘Colour It In’. This strongly appeals to the target audience as they are easily drawn to the text.

It was suggested that maybe more images of the band could have been included however in this case we stepped away from the usual convention by not exposing the band as much compared to other digi-paks although, this still does work well.

The continuing house style that runs through the ancillary tasks was

explained to be very useful by the audience as they commented that the album would be very easy to

recognise on a shelf after seeing the advertisement.

This taught us exactly what the audience would have wanted to see within the ancillary tasks and if we could revisit the digi-pak we would have added a greater number of images of the band in order to expose them to their audience although it was said that the ancillary tasks do full very well into the indie rock genre.

The Conclusion…

Overall, we learnt that our choice of using a conventional narrative for the music video was a good idea as it allowed the audience to gain a connection with the characters and respond to their emotions. As well as allowing them to

understand the story a lot more.

The use of lighting could have been better in the video in order to add a sense of emotion to the much more morbid scenes in order to cause the audience to understand the feelings the character has. We are very happy that the unconventional feature of hand writing in both the digi-pak and advertisement turned out to be a good choice because it was a risk. It could have resulted in us not appealing to the target audience, but this was not the case.

If we had the chance to improve the ancillary tasks we would choose to put a greater number of images in the digi-pak in order to show the

audience what the band looks like and also showing the sort of style they represent in

order inspire the audience .If we had a chance to re-shoot the music video we would involve the character Alexa a greater amount in order to display the storyline much more clearly for

the audience.

This would be good for the audience as this may contribute towards them gaining a greater opinion of the characters. The feedback on location taught us that location is very significant within the music video along with props as this suggests to the audience whether the video is realistic and believable or not.