2. The feedback The first question I asked my selected target audience members was what genre they believed the music video belonged to. I asked this question because I was curious as to whether the genre of the video was obvious and easily recognisable.
3. âwhat genre do you believe this music video belongs to?â âRock :Dâ âRockâ âI Think that it belongs to maybe indie genre â âAlternative rockâ âPsychological?â â It reminds me of an indy or britpop video I think â (What exactly does?) âŚHmm, probably the british setting; the jumpy camera movements from one scene to another. just seems to remind me of itâ
4. Question 1 The majority of the feedback suggested that the conventions which we used were successful in portraying the Indie rock genre of the music video, as most replies answered with one of these genres from the hybrid. However, two responses interested me. One person believed the music video was of the physiological genre. However, I do not see this necessarily as negative, as the main theme we used within our video was âconfusionâ and âdreams and realityâ. The fact this individual saw it as âphysiologicalâ suggests we were successful in fulfilling this theme. 1 person however, believed that the genre of the video was Indy or âBritpopâ. Despite the latter option, they did get the correct genre to start with, so again, I donât see this as a negative comment.
5. âDo you think this video reflects and addresses this target audience?â âYes.â âyesâ âIf the target audience is young teenagers that are into soft rock, indie music then yes it hasâ âYes; everyone in the video are teenagersâ ânot older generationâ âAnd yes I doâ
6. Question 2 From this feedback, I am pleased to see that it appears our music video has attracted the correct audience; teenagers of both sexes, (mainly males), due to the use of teenage actors throughout the video. One personâs response however, was that it wouldnât attract the older generation, as they believed the genre of the video was Psychological , which would suggest the target audience to be older. If this is true, and the older generation are not attracted by this music video, it suggests that the only generation left is indeed, the youth. If this is the case, we were successful in attracting our audience. ď
7. Does the narrative (the story) make sense to you? âNo.... Really just that Will seems to be half wandering around figuring out what's going on and half dancing for no reason at all. xDâ âi knew there was some kind of story and it followed the story but idont actually know what the story was because there was an element of time in the video and you knew time was passing so a story had to have been happeningâ Yes and no because i understand that the story is about what is reality type thing and i think Will is a scarecrow so him coming to life isn't normal but it may be to him or something along those lines however idont get the dancing lol
8. Qu 3 continued âYes.. Scarecrow.; hatâ âYeah .. It made sense to meâ â*Not really, the song title summed up the guy dancing. I guess to me it kind of seems to be his decent into madness - *the straw hat, the crazy dancing, the spinning camera at the start *and the lyrics of the song seem to also enforce that, though they could mean a number of thingsâ
9. Question 3 From this feedback, the responses were mixed. It was apparent that a story had taken place throughout the music video, but what exactly that story was, appeared to have been lost to the audience. The dancing aspect of the video also appeared to make no sense to the audience either. I believe the audience assumed it was supposed to be there for a reason, whereas in fact it was for the entertainment of the audience only, created a McGuffin in the fact they believed it was important to the video when it wasnât.
10. Qu 3 continued One interesting comment I received throughout the music video was the following; â*Not really, the song title summed up the guy dancing. I guess to me it kind of seems to be his decent into madness - *the straw hat, the crazy dancing, the spinning camera at the start *and the lyrics of the song seem to also enforce that, though they could mean a number of thingsâ This suggests that this individual took a Amplifying approach to our music video, and assumed that the content was about decent in to madness as opposed to it being a dream. However, this can still be classed as part of the âconfusionâ theme, which was our originial theme, making the video a success ď
11. Can you tell who/what the main character is? âUm... Just a random guy.â âthe main guy is that dude in the cowboy hatâ âYes it is very clear as he is prancing around and the main focus is on himâ âYeah you can tell heâs a scarecrow ďâ âScarecrow type thingâ â *Well will looks a bit like a scarecrowâ
12. Question 4 By looking at the feedback, it is apparent that our target audience were able to recognise who the main character was, as he had a lot of focus on him throughout the video, as well as the band members, suggesting his importance throughout the video. However, a lot of the audience members appeared to not know that the character was a scarecrow, but thought he was either randomly dressed, or based on the costume of a straw hat, believed he was a cowboy. If I were to reshoot this video, I would spend more time focussing on the charactersâ costume to ensure next time everyone knew what the character was.
13. Did you like/dislike any specific moments throughout the video? Why? âI liked the close up shots of him running. And the way you made it flash a lot. I thought it was a good effect.â âi loved the ending with the sun setting an that but i just love sunsets and no, no dislikes reallyâ âI really liked the beginning when you hear the non-diegetic sound of breathing and the close up of the eyes and how it flashes, i liked the fats pace of the editing when it is done quickly and how each camera shot is different and angled liked the squiggly thing. I didnât really like the dancing thing Iâm just not a big fan on dancing in videos tbh unless its like a hip-hop thingâ
14. Qu5 continued âLikes; *the fade out when all 3 characters were walking down a path; good effect  Dislikes; *there was a little off timing with the drumming but other then that greatâ âseeing in pips mouth *also i like the leave flicking from the feet:P *the bit idnt like is the walking across the path *and the speeded up bit from the tree shot  *beacausethe walking across the path looks outta place with rest of vid *and the speeded up bit seems awkwardâ â*I really liked how it started, with the fading camera and t he spinning. and the cut from the scarecrow to the band members and back was well done. I didnt like when he was walking through the park with a bass though. it didnt make a lot of sense because it was just cut from him playing indoors *I just didnt think it was needed. Nobody else had an instrument. it would have been funny to see them chained up to a giant trolly containing the drummer, but it just didnt make a whole lot of senseâ
15. Question 5 The responses to this question, as expected, was rather varied. For example, the people I asked had many different likes and different dislikes from one another. The fact these âlikesâ varied from one another, suggests that we were successful in attracting the target audience to the video, as with the amount of variation which was âlikedâ, it counted for more of the video than I first thought, suggesting that the video in itself was attractive enough to address our target audience. Obviously, this is also true for the dislikes. As our target audience are individuals, they are going to have different opinions to each other about what they dislike about the video also. Because of this, the (slightly smaller in contrast to the âlikesâ) variation of dislikes will not be taken too much to heart, as everyoneâs opinion will be different. The fact they all dislike various things as opposed to one major thing, suggests we didnât make any major decisions when producing this video.
16. Are there any changes youâd make to this video if you were producing it? âLip sync better. Put emotion into it. xD Otherwise, no, it's pretty good. â âmake it clearer that the main character is a scarecrow and lip syncing needs to be in sync other than that, noâ â Nope i think it looks good how it is cause it shows your artistic eye â â* think i would have put the band in the wood with the scarecrow the drummer needs to be in the fieldâ âNo changesâ âIâd only add the drummer in to the field as i think its a tad weird you only have a guitarist in there.â
17. Question 6 Just like the previous question, any feedback from our target audience will be varied due to personal tastes, and because of this, not taken too seriously. One reply we did get more then once, was that the lip syncing was out of time with the song. We were aware of this issue when publishing the video, as Premiere Pro somehow, unlocked our track and nudged the video, causing it to be out of sync. However, we were only aware of this once it was uploaded to YouTube, and therefore: it was too late to change it. Another comment we got more than once was the fact we only had a guitarist with a prop in the field. This was due to casting reasons, and the fact we were unable to get the drumkit in to the field for the shoot. We considered not allowing the guitarist to have a guitar but we wanted the ensure the audience knew who these people were, and not have just random males in the field. Next time however, we will ensure that we are able to shoot on a day when we have all three band members.
18. Did you like the music video? âI did. Both the song and the video.â âI think it's good, in a way. This whole 'reality' thing, you know.â âYes i loved it ace video â âYesâ â Yeahâ â*Yeah. It's not normally something I would listen to, but I felt the video was well executed and looked quite professionalâ
19. Question 7 From this feedback, it is clear that the majority of the target audience I asked did indeed like the music video. This would make our music video a success as it attracted the correct target audience, as they all liked the video ď
20. Do you think other rock lovers will like this music video? âHard to judge. But...yes.â âyeah, i think they wouldâ âdepends what kind of rock you're talking about, soft rockers yeah sure but like guns n roses rockers are heavy rockers then not as muchâ âYesâ âsome, not all its a acquired taste ibelieveâ âyeah, it fits in with the genre nicelyâ
21. Question 8 Every person I asked believed that other rock fans would also like my music video. This suggests that we were successful in attracting the correct target audience, as the people who gave me feedback were also part of this target audience, so the fact that they liked the video, and believed others of the same genre would also, reinforces our success in attracting the correct audience. ď