Target Audience
Our Music video aims at the following audience:
- Essentially Males who may may be in a similar situation to what our music video portrays, as it seen from a male perspective.
- 18-24 year olds, as our video is quite serious and strong on emotions we felt it needed to be watched from a mature, adult perspective. Relationship problems are also very common during this age range, increasing the relevance towards it.
- Any Indie enthusiasts, who particularly have an interest in a narrative story
- People who like abstruse music videos with complicated themes and ideas.
- Any ethnicity
We used a large range of technologies to receive our feedback from a wider audience. Feedback we received inspired us during the production of our music video, as a result allowing us to pinpoint our target audience. This also meant that we could gain a larger audience by spreading our music video through social network sites such as Facebook, to gain likes and comments, putting it on twitter in hopes of re-tweets and favourites and most importantly YouTube for views and likes. This showcases audience interaction thanks to web 2.0, making it possible for these sites and technologies to be possible.
Worlde
Worlde is an online application that will compile lists of words that you input, emphasized words that appear multiple times by making them stand out more with a larger font. This achieves knowledge of key themes and ideas of the soundtrack, in our case it was "What?". At the beginning of our music video project this application helped us to focus on certain themes and influenced us to portray them in our music video.
To gain audience feedback for our finished product, I contacted 5 people and asked them to write down any thoughts that come into their head while watching. Words such as Cube, Lost, Depression etc have appeared the most so I will analyse their importance towards our music video.
Another thought that appeared to stand out among the audience was "Lost". At the beginning of our project we planned for the idea of being lost to be a key theme throughout the music video, however lost being in a mental state as opposed to the literal meaning. This was a very important concept as it is how we represented Stuart Halls theory of encoding/decoding, the audience needed to pick up on what the deeper meaning is behind the subject being stuck in the middle of a crossroad. " I don't know which way to turn to" is a way of suggesting complexity in the relationship, not knowing whether to let it go or attempt to salvage what is there. 
Two words that are particularly interesting are "White" and "Black", as they are complementary to each other, with the audience perfectly picking up on our attempt of creating a vision of Levi Strauss' Binary opposites. The black being the representation of our subjects distress, sadness and despair, other thoughts of the audience. The black connotes the time when the relationship is crumbling and effectively over. At the other end of the spectrum the white seen in the video signifies the opposite, when the relationship was healthy, and as can been seen on the wordle, the idea of "Happiness". We displayed these conflicting emotions through the use of costumes, on both the Main actor and the band members. We also made sure our location had a white floor and walls to continue the opposites of black against white.
"Depression" is a concept thought of from a few of the audience; again this is a theme that we strongly implied to further emphasize our characters inner struggle. We used Barthes' semiotic theory through the use props, objects such as alcohol give implications of depression, and is commonly used as a coping mechanism for people going through tough times. We also heavily focused on lighting to further accentuate the idea of depression through low-key lighting, combining it with the use of props to make the theme very powerful. YouTube Statistics
These are some figures obtained in graphical f from our music video "What" on youtube. We can learn a lot from the image above, in total we have had 186 views, 98 of them being unique. This goes to show that some people have decided to re-watch the video, which means we successfully completed our goal of initially confused audience members, to make them watch it again and try to understand, thus increase our view count even more. Our video is currently at 186 views and is ever increasing, meaning that there is constant audience interaction with the product.
You can also see that we have 5 likes and no dislikes, promoting only a positive response , therefore we feel our product is a successful narrative story, which may be down to correctly meeting our target audience, as well as people possibly sympathizing with the character from their own experience. Sympathy is one the words present from the Worlde. It has also been shared, so that it spreads between audiences, and the channel from which it was uploaded has 5 subscribers, which could be people showing their appreciation for our product and hope to see more. It has been watched an impressive 5 hours in total, although the average watch duration is 3:04, when the length of the actual video is 3:45. This statistic may have been skewed by myself and my group members when we have had to skip forward at parts to find screenshots.
Class Interview
Question 1: What conventions of our genre did we use?
Response:
- Retro video game
- Skateboarding
- Clothing
Comments
We felt they were good responses, as an indie genre we had to make sure our video deviated from the norm and really stood out was being different. We went with a retro style game instead of a modern one because it was an interesting and unique concept. Skateboarding is also a hobby that is enjoyed by people from the Indie crowd.
Question 2: Which of Goodwin's rules did we use?
Response:
-"Relationship between music and visuals" Solving Rubix cube, "what you gonna do?".
- Crossroads "Don't know which way to go".
Comments:
Thankfully our audience here picked up on a succinct relationship between music and visuals, as the examples they picked out are completely correct and what we intended. The crossroads has 4 directions, which links to " I don't know which way to turn to".
Question 3: How did the clothing represent the artist?
Response:
- Band wearing all Black, singer wearing all white
- Girls shoes are white, Main characters are black.
Comments:
-These answers are correct and link directly to Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites, with the bands Full black representing negative emotions, sadness, despair etc. The Singers white clothing representing the positive emotions, happiness and tranquility. He is also seen wearing darker clothing throughout the narrative scenes. One of our audience members noted the girls white shoes connoted "purity", therefore on the other hand the singers black shoes could suggest he was his own downfall, possibly making a mistake to put the relationship in crisis.
Question 4: What did you like about our use of semiotics?
Response:
- Wine bottle breaking, representation of relationship falling apart.
- In the video game when it comes up with "Game Over".
- Crossroads scene
Comments:
These semiotics using Barthes' theory are all correct and each symbolize stages in the relationship. When the bottle breaks this shows how the relationship has taken a big hit and is effectively in ruins. Later on when the the "Game Over" appears, the relationship is portrayed as simply being over. One of the most important semiotics that was missed however, is the rubix cube, and also the skateboarding in circles scene. We felt the initial skateboarding scene was very important to the story as it symbolized the situation in the relationship, it wasn't going anywhere and the characters emotions were stuck in a loop.
Question 5: What did you like about our Cinematography and Editing?
Response:
- Tracking Shot in skate-park
- Reverse effect
-Range of shots, high angle, low angle.
- Time-lapse (Stop-frame animation)
Comments:
We're glad the audience interviewed liked the shots they picked out, as we really wanted to make an impression with unique camera work in an attempt to make the video stand out. During planning we weren't sure how the time lapse sequence would turn out, but fortunately the effect came out nicely.
Question 6: Overall what did you like about the video?
Response:
- Good representation of the Indie genre
- Lip syncing
- Use of connotations
- Our way of connoting the break-down of the relationship
We did create a facebook page for our music video, but did not really interact with it during our project, therefore receiving just 9 likes. If we had put more stuff up on our page, such as our rough cuts and animatic then the page may have received more likes and views, spreading more and gaining a larger audience. We also could have put the final video on and therefore received more feedback. Maybe if we had employed youtube strategies we could have received a larger audience from advertising.
Summary
What went well:
- Our implementation of media theorists, such as Barthes' semiotics and levi Strauss' Binary opposites
- The way we portrayed the indie genre through clothing, style, symbols etc.
- Our unique and interesting cinematography, such as the time-lapse shot and timing of slow motion.
- The use of Mise-en-scene, the low-key/high-key lighting and props such as the alcohol.
- Our portrayal of a narrative story, that could possibly sympathize with some audience members.
- The variety of locations throughout our music video, showcasing dedication and maximizing the potential of our video.
-Acting of our main character/singer.
- Originality.
- Slick editing to give off a great visual appeal, such as the cuts during one of the skateboarding scenes.
EBI:
- A couple of the lip syncing shots were slightly off, we could have improved upon this.
- A couple of the scenes drag, and are possibly longer then they need to be.
- Added in more variety of shots during the performance, such as a close up of the guitar playing.