Connor Murray's Music Video Blog

In order to establish what I have learned from my audience feedback, it must first be analysed. Below is the video created from our feedback.

Question 1: Did you like our music video?
Responses:

"Yes, it was really good."
"Yeah."
"Yes, I enjoyed it a lot. It was very emotional."

What we learnt:
From these answers, it is evident that our music video was enjoyed. This is particularly good for us as we felt that our music video may not be liked as it was emotional. However, the third response indicates that music videos can still be enjoyed even if they leave the audience with a large emotional impact. Additionally, we have discovered that we did successfully create a music video of a professional standard as it was liked by many.
Question 2: What did you enjoy about our music video?
Responses:

"It was really emotional and powerful."
"The locations were good."
"Because it was a very true story. However, when you found out that the boy had died it was so sad."
"It told, like, a story and it gave you more of an idea of what was going on in the song."

What we learnt:

Again, we can see that the emotional impact of the music video is a reason why people enjoyed it. This corroborates with the professional music videos we see on a daily basis; Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful' video is extremely emotional yet is still liked my millions of people.

The locations were also mentioned as being a good part of the video, which shows that our selections were correct at fitted our plans well. Two of our participants also commented on the story, with one saying that it was a real life story. This, in our opinion, infers that our music video is relatable as many people experience the death/loss of a friend or friendship. The emotions portrayed in our music video are emotions that are commonplace in society, albeit on different levels. Therefore, the participant is highlighting that we created an extension of these emotions and feelings, and visually represented it alongside Moss' song. Moreover, a participant also stated that we gave the audience an idea as to what the song potentially meant. This suggests that our interpretation was valid and reflected the lyrics well. We feel this is beneficial as there are many songs with meanings that are hard to follow and are only properly understood when the music video is released.
Question 3: What was your favourite part?
Responses:

"The whisk as the end. That was really cool. The really happy bit."
"My favourite part was definitely the montage bit at the end."
"My favourite part was at the end when it goes to her memories and she was thinking of all the good times she had with her boyfriend."
"The part where the boyfriend that died disappears, showing that he died."

What we learnt:

As three of the four participants mentioned the section at the end of the video, it is obvious that this was a success. At times, we were unsure whether the montage section would work in relation to the rest of the video. However, we have discovered that its inclusion helped to tie the whole video together. Another participant also enjoyed the part where the male character appeared and disappeared. We thought this part was rather haunting and therefore memorable, a thought confirmed by the answer given. From looking at the 100 greatest music videos, it is clear that the best ones are the most memorable; as ours has two distinctly memorable parts, we have learnt that our video is of a high standard.

Question 4: Would you change anything?Responses:

"No, it was perfect."
"No."
"Not really. I wouldn't change much. I think it was very well done. The music video was very well thought out, and very well edited, and very well filmed."
"Nope, it was brilliant."

What we learnt:
From the responses, we learnt that our music video worked very well as a whole, as the participants of our audience feedback did not want to change anything.
Question 5: Do you think our music video matched the song?
Responses:

"Yes, incredibly."
"Yeah, definitely."
"I think it did match the song very well."
"Yes."

What we learnt:

All of the responses agreed that our music video matched the song, which shows that the interpretation we provided was valid and reflected the meaning of the song. Also, it suggests that the participants understood the narrative depicted in our video, which we are relieved about.

We also created a survey as part of our audience feedback; the answers of which will be analyse below.

Question 1: What is your gender?

As with our previous survey, more females participated than males. This means that the results will hopefully be similar to what they were previously; we think that females would expect the same things, and would therefore provide feedback similar in nature.

Question 2: How old are you?

Again, the results of this question were similar to our previous survey, with the 16-20 category being the most selected. This reinforces the idea that the answers to this survey will come from the same group of people that answered our first survey.

Question 3: On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest, how much did you enjoy our music video?

With the majority of people selecting '5' as their answer, it shows that our music video was well received. Moreover, only two participants selected '3', whilst no one chose either '1' or '2'. Additionally, when I look at the results in more detail, it was two males who selected '3' as their answer.

One of these males was between 21-25 years of age, whilst the other is between 16-20. This means that neither were completely in our target audience, which therefore means that our music video was not catered to them. We therefore learnt that those who were not in our target audience may not be able to enjoy our music video as much as those who were targeted by us; females between 16-20. However, this idea was disproved to an extent, as one male who was under 16 rated our music video a '4'.

This therefore indicates that our music video is not limited to those who were intentionally targeted by us, and can have the same or similar effect on many different people. This is of benefit to us and Moss, as the product would therefore be extending her audience further.

Question 4: What was your favourite part?

As this section of our survey required the participants to fill an answer box, I thought the best way to present my results was through a wordle.

The wordle shows that there wasn't one answer that was selecting a considerable amount of more than the others, and that our music video had many memorable parts. We were disappointed that the locations or cinematography was not selected more/at all as this was something we dedicated a lot of time towards. As a result, we learnt that the cinematography or locations used were never going to be the main reason people enjoyed the video, but were the medium through which other aspects of the video could become memorable and of a professional standard. If our location choices and cinematography was poor, the audience's focus would have been drawn to these errors, which would therefore detract from the other areas that were performed well.

Question 5: What was your least favourite part?

In this instance, the vast majority of participants did not have a least favourite part. This again shows that our music video was a success. However, there were some other answers. A few people thought that our music video was potentially too sad and that the boy's death was something they disliked. We thought that this may occur, as the issues we were trying to show were rather sad. However, as the other answers infer that our interpretation was valid, we feel that the melancholy nature of the video and the boy's death was necessary. This is also present in many other texts, where a character who is liked dies. Two instances are Rue's death in 'The Hunger Games' and Jack's death in 'Titanic'. From both of these texts, and our own, we have learnt that it is necessary to cause the audience distress as it allows the impact of the narrative to be heightened.

Question 6: Do you think the lip-syncing was in time to the song?

With the responses all agreeing that our lip-syncing was in time to the song, it is therefore clear that this aspect of our music video was performed to a high standard. Additionally, we also learned that our casting decisions were correct. If the actress we selected did not look as though the voice was her own, any mistakes in the lip-syncing would have been emphasized and consequently noticed by our audience.

Question 7: Do you think our music video gave a valid interpretation of the song?

Again, every participant thought that our interpretation of the song was feasible. This also meant that they understood the narrative and the meaning behind certain sections such as the cemetery scene and the section with the female's memories. Thus,we have learnt that our decisions to make these sections separate (the cemetery was filmed on an overcast day, which created a monochromatic mise-en-scene, and the montage section was edited using the 'Colour Corrector' option in Final Cut Express) were successful and highlighted the separate chapters of the story as a whole.

Question 8: Would you be interested in our products after seeing our advertisement?

From this, it is evident that the vast majority of people would be interested in our products after viewing our advert. This means that the advert was a success. Additionally, the two negative responses both came from male participants, which suggests that our target audience responded in the way we expected, even if the other groups of people didn't necessarily enjoy our products.

The pie chart shows that all the females who participated in the survey would be interested in our products - an obvious success. This is contrast to the pie chart below, in which only the majority of the males asked would be interested in our products. This is still a success, although it shows that not everyone would enjoy our product, and that we were correct in focusing our efforts on a particular audience.

Question 9: Do you think our three products work well together?

All of the participants said that our products worked well together, which shows that the relationship between the products was evident to our audience and that our efforts were not wasted.

Question 10: Do you think our three products fit the genre of Allie Moss' music?

All but one of our participants said that the products fit the genre of Allie Moss' music. This means that nearly all of those asked saw our products as relevant to Moss and matching of the music she creates. This means that we stuck to our brief as this is what we intended to do.