1. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We had a few songs in mind for what music video we would like to create but we could not
decide which one, so we conducted a questionnaire and sent it around social media (twitter,
facebook and instagram) and emailed a few people from college it. The most popular answer
was ‘The 1975 - Milk’ so we decided to use that for our music video. Having asking our peers
and people our age can give us an insight to what young people would like to see, since Milk
was the most popular response we can determine its success as its what the audience would
like to see out of the options which included Milk by The 1975, Lovesick by Peace and Still by
The Japanese House. Out of these, you could argue that The 1975 are more well known,
which could be the reason behind the band’s’ success throughout our surveys. The band has
a well established fan base, millions of sales on their self-titled album ‘The 1975’ and a total
of 1 million followers on their twitter account; with this in mind the song ‘Milk’ is one of their
lesser known songs, therefore we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to establish our
own concept for a music video. Furthermore, the song has no video by the band, so this gave
us the creative control over the outcome of our own without the pressure of comparing it to
their video; we were able to make it our own. I believe this aspect was helpful as when
researching, planning, filming and constructing our video, we had the ability to conjure up a
storyline which was somewhat similar to what the song is about, however adding a twist onto
it which is unconventional for The 1975.
Now we had decided on the song we wanted to choose, before we started to plan for our
video and expand the narrative and concept further, we investigated who we were targeting
our video towards as well as what they would expect/prefer to see in it. This led to us creating
another survey on surveymonkey.com, which we created surrounding specific audience
questions and sent off to students in our college as well as our followers on the previous
aforementioned social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We wanted
our survey to reach an array of people in order to gain insight to who exactly would be
answering and thus giving us the information we needed in order to create something we, as
the director and the audience would like. An example of some questions we asked are; “What
is your gender?”, “How old are you?”, “What is your favourite genre of music?”, “Do you watch
music videos regularly?” etc. We asked these questions so we knew who would be answering
them, this is crucial to know as age and gender can greatly influence the replies of other
questions, for example the “favourite genre” question. This is because, for instance, a 16 year
old wouldn’t necessarily like the same type of music or preferences in music videos as a 40
year old. We took this aspect into consideration by getting the age and gender questions out
of the way at the beginning of the survey so we could gather knowledge on the rest of the
responses and why they might have chose them. The first question we asked was “What is
your gender?”. 50% of responses put female, whilst the other 50% put male - we felt this was
a nice number as it was a balance of both males and females which gave us the information
we needed in order to appeal to both genders, and to avoid being biased. The next question
was surrounding the topic of age. As the band is known for being within the indie
rock/alternative genre, their songs arguably are targeted towards a younger generation such
as teenagers, branching into young adults. We asked the question “what is your age?” with
the following options; 12 or under, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,18, 19, 20, 21 or older which shows our
focus on the younger end of the spectrum as opposed to older, we kept the older choices in
the “21 or older” option so that the ages weren’t too far apart when we got our results back.
From this question, we gathered that the from the respondees, 66.7% of people were 17
years old, with only one person being 18 and one person being 20. The ages shown are
within the same range and adheres to the fact that they probably have a similar taste in
music, this is helpful as we have an idea on who to direct the music video at. The fact that we
had no responses from an older generation is a limitation of our own due to only emailing the
questionnaire to fellow college students as well as sharing the link of our social media, which
generally consists of people around our age anyway. Although it would have been interesting
to see what an older audience would like from the music video, we agreed that it is not a
problem due to our video and song choice being targeted towards a younger audience
therefore this element of response does not concern us or influence the making of our video
as we are not appealing to them.
2. We included a mix of questions regarding the specific people answering to receive
information on how their age and gender could influence attitudes towards music videos and
expectations surrounding the chosen genre. We looked further into this when we analysed
the results and began planning our video with this chosen audience in mind as they have a
similar age group and music taste.
The feedback we received helped us begin planning our music video as we knew what was
wanted from our audience which could lead our video to a successful release. We asked
questions about how much lip-syncing was preferred, and the feedback we got back deemed
an overall popular reply of “very little’. We are aware that the brief requires some lip syncing
so we got quite a few shots of the actress lip syncing so we had a wide mix of shots
throughout. Instead of focusing our video on performance or protagonist based, we wanted to
develop a storyline/concept which related well to the song and we represented this idea
through the use of symbolism, props, scenery etc which i felt would have a nice effect on the
audience's response/attitude towards it.
We decided to use symbolism to hint at a concept without being obvious, we think it’s best to
keep the audience guessing so they can interpret the video in the way they see it as making
them think about it keeps them engaged in the storyline and leaves an afterthought unlike
most music videos which are copied from one another and mainly care about star profile like
Goodwin states. We showed symbolism using props.
Linking to the idea of props, we set out to find cheap materials that would look effective and
remain in our set budget of £50. This included a partially broken mirror we purchased from a
local charity shop which we then shattered more to establish the characters broken state of
mind and hint to the audience before ‘Milk’ starts, the rectangle mirror was also a good choice
for us as The 1975 always use rectangles for their media products as we have used a
rectangle for ours and the broken mirror is somewhat an allude to our brand identity. For the
other props such as the heart-shaped locket necklace which is seen frequently throughout the
music video, we bought from a jewelers for £3. Another prop we had was a tube of fake blood
which we purchased from a halloween/local costume shop for a mere £1.50. This was used to
show the character experiencing side effects of the drug she has been taken which is what
we wanted to achieve throughout our video without showing too much of the ‘drug’ as we felt
that would be too obvious. Ambiguity is a large aspect of our concept, and we felt we
portrayed this through our props. Other items such as salt, a £20 note and a brown envelope
we already had possession of, this helped us create a realistic drug exchange/usage scene
whilst also keeping it cheap and sticking to our said budget. It also allowed us to focus more
on the other aspects of our project which required money other than props such as travel for
ourselves and the actress and costume.
Costume plays a very important part in our music video as it shows the roles of the cast and
sets the tone for the type of role they are playing in the music video. For costume we found
the desired items from charity shops and Primark/New Look. As for the scenery, our key
filming scene was around the area of Clavering in Hartlepool. This location is very rural which
we captured when filming the trees which we included throughout the more dramatic scenes
in order to establish a contrast between the stages of drug-use and the effects it has on the
human mind. We also filmed and took pictures of the beach at the Headland.
Other survey feedback includes the question “What elements do you believe contribute to
make a good music video?” which helped us determine what our audience expects most out
of a conceptual music video. The responses deemed a developed storyline the most popular,
in which case we acted on the feedback we received by introducing a female character,
showing her development and potential demise, with the ending being a plot-twist. We believe
this was what the audience expected as it has a closed ending when we show the scene with
the elderly woman who acts as the protagonists’ older version. From our personal experience
of music videos which we see everyday through TV and online sources like YouTube, it
seems most likely that a music video with a developed storyline often has a closing scene
which finalises the concept and gives closure to the audience. We channelled this idea in our
music video, whilst also challenging other aspects such as having a plot-twist, which isn't very
common in music videos. We have followed the narrative structure of equilibrium and
3. disequilibrium. Tzvetan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative using these two ideas. The
state of equilibrium is when ‘everything is as it should be in a state of equal balance between
any kind’ and disequilibrium is ‘a disruption of that order by an event’.
The structural concept of equilibrium is followed in our own video as our storyline possesses
a balance between heartbreak and drug use with the use of props, such as the heart shaped
locket which is representative of the love she once had for her boyfriend who gave her the
necklace, along with text messages from him throughout the video. Having a heartbreak
theme makes it more relatable for the audience as they can hopefully understand the
character's state of mind through their own experiences in life - we wanted them to follow the
protagonist on an emotional journey which captures the true essence of a destroyed mind
and broken heart. We also included scenes of drug-use to establish the characters hasty
actions to her heartbreak, as at the beginning of the video, she meets a mysterious character
who hands her a brown envelope. Although you can guess what is happening at this stage, it
is not overly obvious and this theme of ambiguity is crucial for our video as it leaves the
audience open to different interpretations for it and what it could mean. Having this balance
between heartbreak and action towards it gives the storyline a sense of extreme emotional
distress, and throughout our video we capture this by showing the character in a raw state;
sat in front a white wall as she constantly picks up the necklace, showing an attachment
towards it, and the constant checking of her phone, which is where the messages come in.
We also thought that expression was important to show her emotions without being overly
obvious. This included us showing the protagonist with a dispirited look, which acts as
juxtaposition as she lip syncs “she was glistening”. This conforms to Goodwin’s theory that
the visuals and lyrics have no direct link, and are rather opposites which we channelled
through the use of contradiction. This was as opposed to other relationships within the video,
such as amplification and illustrative methods which we also used for the rest of our video.
We also established use of dis-equilibrium as we include a disruption of the storyline.
Although subtle, we build up the story to show the protagonist consumed by her addiction and
the heartbreak she experiences throughout and towards the end of the video, we see her laid
in a bath full of water with a bloody nose when she closes her eyes in a slow-motion effect.
This is set to deceive the audience into believing the character has reached a demise, as we
we wanted to show the harsh reality of drug-use through distraught emotions, effects to
symbolise a broken state of mind and potential death after abusing a substance. In other
music videos and more commonly in movies and TV shows, drug-use is often romanticised
and glamorized which we wanted to dismiss in our video. We tried to show drugs in a harsh
way, leaving the audience with a moral allegory once they have watched it. The plot twist we
introduced at this point is a scene which shows the ‘grown up’ or ‘elder’ version of the
protagonist. Regardless of the fact we don't see her face, we can easily link the two
characters to being the same person, thus increasing the audience's understanding of what
has actually transpired within the 3 minute long video. This is the prop which is significant to
establish the continuity of the concept we captured, as the heart shaped locket is a motif used
throughout (in narrative, a motif is any recurring element that has symbolic significance
in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative (or literary)
aspects such as theme or mood.) The audience are introduced to the elderly women
holding the necklace in her hand, similarly to how the female protagonist did. The realisation
that the character didn't actually die, as we set up the scene to look, offers the audience
closure on the storyline and gives them the opportunity to reflect on the actions the character
took to destroy herself, only to overcome them and continue on with her life as an older
woman. Although she appears to have overcome the heartbreak, the continuation of holding
the necklace tells us that she is still somewhat attached to the object however we finalise the
concept using a wide shot of a sunset.
We followed this in our music video as we felt that this gave our music video a sense of
originality whilst adapting ideas and themes which were conventional for a music video to
overall give the audience something they can understand as well as enjoy, our video can also
be seen as quite an emotional chain of events so we felt that this makes our product stand
out from existing music videos which are popular now as we are not objecting the female
protagonist _laura mulvey theory_ and we are simply just showing her vulnerability. .
We also received frequent feedback from a fan of the band who we knew would give
us honest and reliable feedback for all three of our products.
