2. Interviews
At the start of the coursework our group interviewed members of our target audience
and asked them what conventions they would expect to find in a typical alternative
rock video. We also asked them what they would like to see in an alternative video.
We did this by using sound forge audio studio software in a sound booth
to interview the different participants. We interviewed three people overall:
- Jordan Chilvers, a 17 year old male from our school who has a wide
range of music knowledge and is and A level Drama student, so offered lots of advise
towards the acting part of the video.
- Kane Guichard, a 17 year old male from our media class who has a
good knowledge of camera shots, music video conventions and stereotypes.
- Beth Huby, a 16 year old female from our school, who studies
sociology and gave us an incite into how society stereotypes people and objects, and
she gave us her opinion on other alternative music videos she had seen.
Kane
Jordan
Beth
3. What we got from the
interviews
Our response was very helpful to plan our music video as we were told they would like
to see a clear but interpretable narrative story line.
Beth Huby, a 16 year old female from our school, who studies sociology and
made us consider twisting the story line, actors and characters to develop our
conventions. She told us about the stereotypes associated with different genres of film
and music which was good to hear about from a sociologist’s point of view. She was
eager to see a narrative story line that has a twist on the characters and plot.
Jordan was concerned about the performance elements of the music video.
He said that we should make sure we have actors that look like they could play the
instruments and if we could actors that actually play the band instruments so it looked as
real as possible. He told us about how he had done drama performances in which he
had to pretend to do something but it would never look as real as actually doing it.
Kane told us about how we should include lots of different kinds of shots
such as close ups on the instruments and lips when shooting scene where the actors
are singing.
Overall the feedback from the interviews was very helpful and we learnt what
people expect from our genre of music and what they want to see in our music video.
4. Formative Feedback
O We got lots of feedback from our teacher, class, friends and family and even
university lectures of media studies/ sound and film production. I sent emails to
Media departments at several universities and some professors and doctors of
media emailed me back with there opinions and feedback.
O The feedback we received from our peers and other classmates was to completely
redo all the narrative scenes at night and change the actors to fit the theme better
as our old actor was about 6 feet tall which drew attention away from the singers
and other protagonists.
6. Public Feedback
O We used Facebook and You Tube to promote our music video and receive
constructional feedback.
O I found Facebook to be a very effective tool when distributing my media text to my
friends who are aged 16 – 21 and were also our groups main target audience, so the
feedback was very important and critical to making decisions when we changed our
video to suit audience demands and feedback.
O You tube was a helpful piece of media 2.0 , in which we could contribute to the media
on the internet and receive comments and feedback to better our video. We used you
tube because it could reach a larger audience than just Facebook and get outsiders
points of view. I found that many of the people
that commented liked our video but said it was
a little dark and the intro went on for a bit.
7. Focus Group
We decided, as a class, to have a focus group, in which we could watch each
group’s music video and give constructive feedback. All the groups got comments
and feedback and what they said what they didn’t think worked,
When our class views our video they said it was quite dark , and I
questioned if the length of time it took to get into the song was too long , but they
said it worked because it is a slow song., they also liked the speed of transitions in
comparison to the speed of the song.
However the group didn’t thin the
narrative was very clear, they did agree with the
fact that we need it to be interpreted differently
by different people, but they did say how it still
should have been made slightly clear. the group
also thought that it would be a good idea to have
most of the shots brightened because we have
darkened it too much using Sony colour curves.
8. What I have learnt
O If I could change the music video in anyway I would redo the narrative
scene, because I don’t think we fully clarified what the story line was and I'm not
happy with all the shots that we captured. I learnt that we had over complicated
the narrative aspect of the video which wasn’t needed.
O I think the shots during the performance aspects were the best part of our video. I
particularly like the crane shots with the pinkish lighting. I think it really brings out
the meaning behind the song and genre.
O The audience didn’t like the long wait at the beginning, however the media class
thought it was appropriate so it was shorted slightly to create an balance between
what both groups wanted.
O The audience liked the variety of shots and performance aspects of the video, and
the developed convention of burning a piano in a field because it was original and
unique.
