Holly Taylor conducted a focus group to gather feedback on a rough draft of a music video. Participants responded to 5 questions about strengths, weaknesses, atmosphere, genre, and narrative. Overall the feedback was positive. The narrative, reverse sequence, and cinematography were praised. Suggestions included improving lip syncing and using smoother camera movements. The blue tint was deemed effective at creating a dreamlike feel. Costumes and editing successfully conveyed the indie genre. While understandable, the narrative remained engaging through its unfolding and rewind feature. Based on this feedback, the scene where actors sit on a bench was re-edited for a smoother final draft.

1. Holly Taylor
Focus Group Summary of Final Product
As part of my market research, I created a focus group where I published a rough draft of our
music video onto a closed Facebook group for people to comment accordingly with the
questions I had set for the focus group to answer. In the focus group, I presented a set of five
questions for the participants to answer, which are listed here:
1. What do you think are the best points of my music video?
2. How would you improve my music video?
3. Do you think the blue tint to the music video is effective in creating a dream like
atmosphere as intended?
4. Has the Indie genre been conveyed through costume, editing etc.
5. Do you feel like the narrative was successfully conveyed and was understandable
through the editing.
The first question was a question aimed at gathering the focus group’s opinions on their
favourite parts of the music video. People commented on the narrative as a very strong point of
our music video, with one of the people saying that “ I really enjoyed the overall narrative
because it was different from a typical ‘pop’ or ‘chart’ music video” which is a positive comment
as we intended the narrative of the music video to be unconventional and different from what is
typically seen in music videos currently. People also commented on the reverse sequence that
we included in the music video midway through the narrative, as they thought that the reverse
sequence effectively conveyed the conflicting emotions that the male protagonist was feeling in
regards to his female love interest. Others also commented on the cinematography featured in
our music video, with people commenting on the “shaky” hand held camera that was used at the
beginning of the music video. They commented on this use of cinematography as they thought
that it helped to “foreshadow the reveal showing he’s insane” which was what we intended the
effect of the hand held shaky camera to portray.
The next question asked how the viewers of my music video would improve it. One response
from a participant said that “I would maybe try tracking instead of an artificial zoom to give a
smoother effect” this is something we were aware of when we were filming the shot, however,
when we used a tracking shot as an alternative with a tripod, the shot didn’t show the complete
image of the flowers as we intended and also was shaky because of when we had to lift the
tripod to track the camera towards the flowers and so we could not effectively fix this suggestion
for improvement. Another participant said that the lip syncing towards the end of the video
looked odd, this was because when we were filming this particular scene, the male actor in the
video couldn’t sing the words in time with the lyrics and so instead during the editing process,
we had to slow the speed of the clip down to sync the lip-syncing with the actual song.
The next question asked whether the blue tint colour overlay was effective in creating a dream
like atmosphere as was intended during the editing process. Everyone who commented said
that the blue colour overlay effect was very effective in creating the dream like atmosphere.
Participants said “ Definitely, it gave a very nostalgic feel and made it appear as if it’s a

2. Holly Taylor
believable fantasy. The soft focus used also helps convey this effect.” and another said “yes, the
blue tint adds a dream like quality to the video, made the video seem foggy which added to the
creepy atmosphere” which is two positive responses on the blue tint as we have effectively
applied the blue colour overlay in order to create a dreamlike atmosphere as intended.
The next question I asked was whether the Indie genre had been conveyed through costume
and editing. Overall people commented saying that this was conveyed successfully, which is
positive as this is an aspect we intended. Someone said “clothing seems indie as it seems like
something Morrissey would wear, a hipster idol that indie is associated with, text at beginning
that fades out is typical of The Smiths videos like This Charming Man so that is a convention
associated with Indie” which is positive as this is what we intended when we chose the type of
costume such as the green parka coat the female character was wearing. Another participant
commented on the music video saying “Yes, the overall style of the video fits the conventions of
an indie genre music video. The costumes looked laid back and casual, the narrative fits the
song well and the strangeness of the narrative also fits in with typical indie/alternative
conventions”. Which again, is positive as our overall intention was to convey the indie genre
successfully.
The final question asked whether the narrative was conveyed and easily understandable, in
particular through the use of editing. The participants of the focus group commented that the
narrative was easily understandable, but still interesting, as one participant commented “ Yes,
the start of the video appeared to be a very straight forward romance narrative however as it
unveiled it was clear that his girlfriend wasn’t real. I way it was edited made it easy to
understand while still successfully getting the message across.” Another said “The beginning of
the narrative was typical of a relationship shown in a music video, whilst as the narrative
continued, it became clearer that his girlfriend was in his imagination. The editing made the
narrative easy to understand as the reflexivity suggests that the male character is recalling past
experiences with his girlfriend and this allowed a nostalgic feel to the narrative.” And so, the
video successfully conveyed the narrative but was still engaging with the rewind feature that
occurred midway through the narrative.
Overall, the response received on the music video was very positive and the participants
commented on the positive aspects of the video, such as the blue colour overlay and the
cinematography and editing which allowed for the video to convey the narrative we used in our
music video. We tried to improve the first draft of the music video based on the focus group
response we received, for the final draft we edited the music video in the particular scene where
the male and female are sat on the bench towards the narrative of the music video, to appear
more smoother and overall more aesthetically appealing.