I created a survey to gain insight into what people expect to see in music videos - more specifically alternative/indie videos - as a form of research for my A-level Media A2 course.

1. An Analysis of Results
from Monkey Survey
Titled – Music Video
Survey
Total Number of
Questions - 10
Participants – 30
By Emily
Humphreys

2. What is your Gender?
• I wanted to add this question as a way to
gain insight into which gender was more
present when taking the survey.
• This is as the majority of the survey is
female, 73% female to 27% male
(rounded up), which means that the
results given are important to the
creation of out music video, as the end
result could be influenced by feedback
from these questions.
• Moreover these results will also help
appeal to Nothing but Thieves' primary
target audience. This is as their main
demographic is female compared to
males, which will help us make choices
as a group in the video and relate back
to outsider help and guidance when
needed, seen here in this
collection of results.

3. What is your Age?
• For this question I wanted to find out the
main ages across the survey, so I can see
what type of people are taking the
questionnaire overall. This is so
information given can not only be related
back to the last question on gender, but
also to their age, as age is an important
factor to consider when selling a product,
in this case a music video.
• When looking at the end results, where
was an over all majority of 18 to 24 year
old's who had taken the survey coming in
at 80%, where as the only other group
chosen was 45 to 54 at 20%. This lets me
take into account that the majority of the
survey was completed by young-adult
females, which benefits me as this is the
demographic I was looking for more of
an overall insight into as this is the band
who we have chosen's target audience.

4. Why do you watch music videos?
• For this question I was looking to gain
insight as to why people tend to watch
music videos. When creating the
question I felt there could be more than
one option that you would want to
choose, so I left this question as a
multiple choice option. This made the
final results pretty close with artists
coming out on top with 60%, then visuals
at 57% and Meaning at a lower 47%. I
won't be counting the single response for
other as it was Not Applicable (N/A).
• These results show how close it was
overall when deciding on a specific
option for this category, but also shows
me that the music video shouldn't just be
one thing over another as to not limit the
video as well as appealing to more
people.

5. What would you expect to see in an
alternative-rock music video?
• For this question, I wanted to
understand visually what the audience
wanted to watch, other than just why
they watch music videos solely. Here I
split the question into two simple
options, as I felt that that these two
choices where easier to answer than
giving a fully-fledged list.
• This in turn meant that one choice came
out on top, and in this case it was music
performance at 57% (rounded up), with
narrative coming second with 43%. With
only 4 votes between each other the
results are still pretty close and overall I
think these outcomes are telling me that
having more of performance would work
but also combining the two would attract
both sides of the question, like the
previous slide.

6. What genre would you expect the video
to be?
• For my fifth question I was looking to
understand what the genre of a music
video would entail. (This is a single
option question, with the headings as
the genres posed by Goodwin's music
theory, with additional prompts as to not
confuse participants.)
• The main outcome was that illustrative
was most popular at 43%, second being
abstract at 30% followed by amplifying
(17%) and contradicting (10%).
• This information has given me a clearer
insight as to what people want in the
videos, which links well to the ideas we
have come up with for our own music
video, as one of the main choices was
going to be an abstract based video,
affirming ideas we already had overall.

7. What type of camera work would
you expect?
• Now onto question number six, I wanted
to understand what the audience wants to
see stylistically in a music video. This
wasn’t so much as to change or inform our
overall ideas around the video, but to give
us an understanding of shots that the
participants would expect to see, so we
can deliberate which ones we can include
when creating the storyboards (this was
also a multiple choice question).
• The top four where Close-ups (70%), Wide
shots (67%), Mid shots (53%) and Pan
shots (47%). The three other options Whip
Pan, Trombone shots, and over the
shoulder shots all came out with the same
result at 13% each. These results show us
that other than some close ups, the
audience like to see mainly bigger shots
in the videos, which is a detail with we
can incorporate into our own ideas later
on.

8. What type of lighting would you
expect?
• For question seven, I wanted a better
judgment as to what type of lighting is more
favorable to the audience when watching a
alternative-rock music video. Overarchingly,
the main result came out to be darker shades
for the lights over brighter shades.
• Personally I felt that this was to be expected
as connotations of the rock genre come with
dark clothes like leather and long dark hair,
which is why I think that the dark shades of
light have come out on top with 70% of people
choosing this option. On the other hand
though, there was still 30% who picked lighter
shades, which I think is drawn from the fact
that the genre is a sub-genre (alternative-
rock). By this I mean I think that the 9 people
who picked this option probably thought that
the videos colours would be softer than a rock
video.
• To conclude this question I think that using
darker lighting choices will end up being a
must in out video, but I also think that we
will be able to also combine or try out using
the light shades to soften the video out so it
isn't too dull as well.

9. What type of colour palette would
you expect?
• This question links heavily to the last
slide/question as I wanted certain aspects
to be more precise, this being the
lighting/colors that the people taking the
survey would expect to see.
• This question was also multiple choice as I
didn’t want to limit the amount of answers.
This is because the context of the video is a
music video, which I think should mean
having more than less color-options to the
audience to pick from, as music videos can
vary quite a lot. (additionally it was so
there was more range for a wider range of
preferences).
• The darker colors and tones rained
supreme overall, with cool tones gaining 15
votes and dark tones at 16, whereas the
warmer tones only got 7, and brighter tones
came out with 1. looking at the results I
think it is clear what types of tones, effects,
and colors we should use evidenced with
this survey, that being the darker/cooler
tones.

10. What setting would you expect a music
video of this genre to be set in?
• For this question, I basically just wanted
an idea as to what the people who took the
survey would expect a music video of the
alternative/indie genre to be set in. This is
because there are a lot of different, and to
fit the name, alternative videos to go with
songs, so I just wanted to know what they
would expect, to follow the advice of
the results later on or to even use it as a
way to go against expectation. (This
question is multiple choice)
• Over all the biggest choices where the
woods (67%), a music venue (57%) and a
warehouse (50%). I think that these results
fit to the past results, linking to the
lighting for example, and also fit the
genre's connotations of darker themes and
colors. This is also shown with the least
likely option to be expected, that being the
seaside (3%), which would be one of the
brighter location choices on the list, again
showing that more people would expect the
location to be darker and more isolated.

11. How would you expect the CD/Poster
to link to the music video ?
• For this I just wanted to find out more
about how people would expect the
marketing aspects overall to each link
together, in this case, how the posters
and CD covers can link to the music
video.
• This was also multiple choice as I
thought that leaving it open would give
people more choices and help myself
overall with there being more answers to
choose from at the end . The main three
where using the artist (53%), the colors
(47%) and symbolic aspects (43%) to link
the marketing materials together. The
use of the artist and color's was
personally to be expected, but I was
surprised by symbolism coming at
number three on the list. This indicates
that more people want meaning and links
to be made though symbols in music,
which will help expand ideas later on.