Sunday 14 April 2013
Thursday 11 April 2013
What have you learned from your audience's feedback?
So, in order to answer this question, I went onto Survey Monkey and made up a questionnaire in regards to the feedback I wanted to get back on my music video, digipack and webpage. Below are the list of questions I included within the questionnaire:
1: What category includes your age?
So, upon reading over my results that I received back, it was clear to see that of the 13 responses I got back, all of them were answered by those in the category of 18-20, as pictured below:
So, with this question, I wanted to get a sketchy view of how well my music video came across to the people who have watched it. I did this by asking a brief and straightforward way by simply asking them to give a rating out of 10. Here are the results I received:
Going by these results, my music video got an average rating of 8.23, which I am very happy with. By getting a fairly high-end score, I know that what I have actually made hasn't been a wasted effort and that my music video has appealed to my target audience, all I needed to find out now was the ways in which it had appealed to them, and what I would have to do to achieve an even higher average score than the on I have now.
3: Within the music video, did you acknowledge and understand the narrative?
When making the music video, the one problem that I had thought about throughout was whether or not people would understand the narrative and, better still, actually acknowledge that there is a narrative. The results of this question were as follows:
12 out of the 13 responses answered with 'Yes'. This means that I had overcome my problem I had at the very beginning, but it was still fairly clear that although only one person didn't quite understand it, my narrative may still have needed some work on it to make sure that it is fully understood by everyone. This leads onto my next question.
4: If it did/ didn't, why?
So, this question was the first one in which gave me actual responses from those answering the questionnaire. Here, I was given feedback as to how my narrative did/didn't work, which made it clear to me what I needed to do in the first place to make sure that everyone understood the narrative I was trying to include within my music video. Here are some of the comments I found most enlightening:
So, the first comment explains how they knew there was a narrative but it was a confusing one. This comment I can totally understand the reasons behind it because what we initially tried to do was incorporate actions from the artist with the lyrics of the song to show a mental breakdown, which was made fairly confusing at certain points, which they also say they picked up on.
The second comment is almost the same as the first, saying that it was hard to see the difference between the narrative and the performance because they were so closely interlinked. So it seems as though for some people, we linked the actions of the artist to the lyrics too much, meaning that we moved away from the actual story we originally tried to portray. Looking back, I think that we should have a few shots of the artist in which they are NOT reciting lyrics from the song, so it seems to break away from the performance and the narrative a lot more.
The third comment is more of a praising one. It explains how they managed to understand and see the narrative through the progression of each shot chronologically. There was one shot that I had the idea of putting in, which is the one showing the gradual decline of the 'pupils' within the lecture that the artist is giving. This, I feel, shows the chronology of the music video - as the 'teacher' goes more into a decline, the more pupils leave.
5: Do you think that the music video links well with the genre of music (Electronic)?
Again, we received the same results. 12 people thought that it did fit the genre, whereas 1 person didn't. The only problem from this question is that because Electronica isn't as popular among our target audience age as we'd like it to be, people are going to have mixed opinions as to what Electronica actually is. We were surprised as to what artists nowadays actually fit into the category of being and Electronic artist, and I feel that if we were surprised by that research, and, being from the same target audience range as what we were aiming our music video at, many of those watching it would probably not see some artists under that genre as well.
6:If it did/ didn't, why?
So again, like some of the questions before this one, I wanted to get as much close detail feedback as possible from this question. Here are a few responses that I took a few pointers from:
The first comment basically sums up the main methods we used in order to try and make the music video as closely made to look like an Electronic music video as possible. When looking at other music videos by genuine Electronica artists, many movements, shot changes, etc. seemed to fall on the beat of the actual soundtrack so we made that something that had to be apart of our music video, and its nice to know people recognised that.
The second comment highlights something else that we included to make it seem like it was from its intended genre, and that is the lighting. When the majority of genuine Electronica artist have live performances, the lighting seems to play a key role in their performance. Although we didn't use this theme exactly, the lighting was definitely considered in terms of when we were actually filming the footage for the music video. if we had access to these lights, or had more time to implement something similar on FinalCut with more time, it would definitely be something I'd try to include as best as possible.
The third comment speaks more about things we included into the music video as part of the editing process. So, blue was a colour that I had used throughout my ancillary texts beforehand so I had to find a way of including it within the music video as well. Going back to the lighting at performances, the colours that were used were mainly primary colours i.e. blue, green, yellow and red. So I thought hat I should use one of these colours as my colour scheme, hence the blue. As for the Static TV effect, that was something that I had decided to use right from the off as it linked so well with the soundtrack, as we found that the soundtrack sounded very robot-like and industrial, and so we came up with the idea of using a CCTV effect within the lecture hall and then it would go static/blurry on the beat of the song which sounded the most robotic.
7:How do you think the music video could be improved to suit its genre, or does it already do this?
For this question, I decided that I only wanted to get decent and informative answers, much like the previous question. The feedback I received included the following:
In regards to the first comment, we chose someone who did drama, listened to music of our chosen genre and knew the track well. I understand that compared to certain performers such as The Prodigy for example, our actor wasn't completely extravagant, however, I feel that they put across the exact vibe that we wanted to be portrayed. If anything, it would have been us at fault for letting him have quite a lot of freedom to portray the character in the way he felt he could not only do, but to make it work with the narrative and performance parts of our music video.
The second comment was something I had thought about after the editing phase had finalised. I felt that when it came to actually editing the music video, there were a lot of shots that we should have got footage of that would have made the whole music video much better. A Point of View shot is a great suggestion to have been included, giving the audience an insight into the artist's mind and going even further as to actually defining which parts of the music video is performance and which is narrative.
The third comment brings up an interesting idea that did cross my mind when editing, and that involves the pace of certain shots. It was something that could have worked with some of the footage but at the same time, we were quite adamant that the shots would follow the beat of the soundtrack instead, simply because of the robotic vibes we got from listening to it - it makes it feel like its conditioned to be that way. As for the effects part, we didn't want to overload the amount of effects we used, however, saying that, we did use quite a few, almost too many, but we incorporated them in such a subtle way that they are hardly noticed unless you watch very carefully.
8: On a scale of 1-10, how well does the digipack and webpage fit the style you'd associate to Electronic artists?
Now like one of the questions prior to this, this is a question that needs some form of knowledge around the genre of Electronica. I really wanted to find out whether or not my ancillary texts fit alongside my music video and the different things I had implemented into that e.g. the colour scheme.
The results were as follows:
- Which category below includes your age?
- On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the music video?
- Within the music video, did you acknowledge and understand the narrative?
- If so, was it effectively achieved, if not, why not?
- Do you think that the music video links well with the genre of music (Electronic)?
- If it did/ didn't, why?
- How do you think the music video could be improved to suit its genre, or does it already do this?
- On a scale of 1-10, how well does the digipack and webpage fit the style you'd associate to Electronic artists?
- Do you think the digipack and the webpage for this artist fit closely with the styles evident within the music video?
- How/why? (To the question above)
1: What category includes your age?
So, upon reading over my results that I received back, it was clear to see that of the 13 responses I got back, all of them were answered by those in the category of 18-20, as pictured below:
These results are ideal to finding out about our music video's strengths and weaknesses, as this is the age category that we chose to have right back during the research and planning phase of the coursework. This means that we are able to see very clearly whether or not we have included the right things or not in terms of making a music video that appeals to this specific target audience.
2: On a scale of 1-10,(1=Poor 10=Excellent) how would you rate the music video?
So, with this question, I wanted to get a sketchy view of how well my music video came across to the people who have watched it. I did this by asking a brief and straightforward way by simply asking them to give a rating out of 10. Here are the results I received:
Going by these results, my music video got an average rating of 8.23, which I am very happy with. By getting a fairly high-end score, I know that what I have actually made hasn't been a wasted effort and that my music video has appealed to my target audience, all I needed to find out now was the ways in which it had appealed to them, and what I would have to do to achieve an even higher average score than the on I have now.
3: Within the music video, did you acknowledge and understand the narrative?
When making the music video, the one problem that I had thought about throughout was whether or not people would understand the narrative and, better still, actually acknowledge that there is a narrative. The results of this question were as follows:
12 out of the 13 responses answered with 'Yes'. This means that I had overcome my problem I had at the very beginning, but it was still fairly clear that although only one person didn't quite understand it, my narrative may still have needed some work on it to make sure that it is fully understood by everyone. This leads onto my next question.
4: If it did/ didn't, why?
So, this question was the first one in which gave me actual responses from those answering the questionnaire. Here, I was given feedback as to how my narrative did/didn't work, which made it clear to me what I needed to do in the first place to make sure that everyone understood the narrative I was trying to include within my music video. Here are some of the comments I found most enlightening:
So, the first comment explains how they knew there was a narrative but it was a confusing one. This comment I can totally understand the reasons behind it because what we initially tried to do was incorporate actions from the artist with the lyrics of the song to show a mental breakdown, which was made fairly confusing at certain points, which they also say they picked up on.
The second comment is almost the same as the first, saying that it was hard to see the difference between the narrative and the performance because they were so closely interlinked. So it seems as though for some people, we linked the actions of the artist to the lyrics too much, meaning that we moved away from the actual story we originally tried to portray. Looking back, I think that we should have a few shots of the artist in which they are NOT reciting lyrics from the song, so it seems to break away from the performance and the narrative a lot more.
The third comment is more of a praising one. It explains how they managed to understand and see the narrative through the progression of each shot chronologically. There was one shot that I had the idea of putting in, which is the one showing the gradual decline of the 'pupils' within the lecture that the artist is giving. This, I feel, shows the chronology of the music video - as the 'teacher' goes more into a decline, the more pupils leave.
5: Do you think that the music video links well with the genre of music (Electronic)?
This was one of the key questions I wanted some feedback one. Its all well and good picking a genre to do a music video for but its whether or not you portray the music video as being from that particular genre of music that actually matters. So, our genre of music was Electronic. Back in the research and planning stage of the project, also through questionnaires, we discovered that not many people seemed to like electronic songs so we had to base the music video around two things; the actual research of the genre and what the closest, most popular result from our questionnaires was, this being Pop. However, Pop seemed to be in a totally different dimension in comparison to Electronica, so we went on research alone. Here is the feedback from the question:
6:If it did/ didn't, why?
So again, like some of the questions before this one, I wanted to get as much close detail feedback as possible from this question. Here are a few responses that I took a few pointers from:
The first comment basically sums up the main methods we used in order to try and make the music video as closely made to look like an Electronic music video as possible. When looking at other music videos by genuine Electronica artists, many movements, shot changes, etc. seemed to fall on the beat of the actual soundtrack so we made that something that had to be apart of our music video, and its nice to know people recognised that.
The second comment highlights something else that we included to make it seem like it was from its intended genre, and that is the lighting. When the majority of genuine Electronica artist have live performances, the lighting seems to play a key role in their performance. Although we didn't use this theme exactly, the lighting was definitely considered in terms of when we were actually filming the footage for the music video. if we had access to these lights, or had more time to implement something similar on FinalCut with more time, it would definitely be something I'd try to include as best as possible.
The third comment speaks more about things we included into the music video as part of the editing process. So, blue was a colour that I had used throughout my ancillary texts beforehand so I had to find a way of including it within the music video as well. Going back to the lighting at performances, the colours that were used were mainly primary colours i.e. blue, green, yellow and red. So I thought hat I should use one of these colours as my colour scheme, hence the blue. As for the Static TV effect, that was something that I had decided to use right from the off as it linked so well with the soundtrack, as we found that the soundtrack sounded very robot-like and industrial, and so we came up with the idea of using a CCTV effect within the lecture hall and then it would go static/blurry on the beat of the song which sounded the most robotic.
7:How do you think the music video could be improved to suit its genre, or does it already do this?
For this question, I decided that I only wanted to get decent and informative answers, much like the previous question. The feedback I received included the following:
In regards to the first comment, we chose someone who did drama, listened to music of our chosen genre and knew the track well. I understand that compared to certain performers such as The Prodigy for example, our actor wasn't completely extravagant, however, I feel that they put across the exact vibe that we wanted to be portrayed. If anything, it would have been us at fault for letting him have quite a lot of freedom to portray the character in the way he felt he could not only do, but to make it work with the narrative and performance parts of our music video.
The second comment was something I had thought about after the editing phase had finalised. I felt that when it came to actually editing the music video, there were a lot of shots that we should have got footage of that would have made the whole music video much better. A Point of View shot is a great suggestion to have been included, giving the audience an insight into the artist's mind and going even further as to actually defining which parts of the music video is performance and which is narrative.
The third comment brings up an interesting idea that did cross my mind when editing, and that involves the pace of certain shots. It was something that could have worked with some of the footage but at the same time, we were quite adamant that the shots would follow the beat of the soundtrack instead, simply because of the robotic vibes we got from listening to it - it makes it feel like its conditioned to be that way. As for the effects part, we didn't want to overload the amount of effects we used, however, saying that, we did use quite a few, almost too many, but we incorporated them in such a subtle way that they are hardly noticed unless you watch very carefully.
8: On a scale of 1-10, how well does the digipack and webpage fit the style you'd associate to Electronic artists?
Now like one of the questions prior to this, this is a question that needs some form of knowledge around the genre of Electronica. I really wanted to find out whether or not my ancillary texts fit alongside my music video and the different things I had implemented into that e.g. the colour scheme.
The results were as follows:
The most popular rating being 9/10 and having an average of 8.69/10 pleased me. I wanted to make sure that they all share the same vibes of the Electronic genre and I tried to do this in many ways. By seeing that the majority of people like them and think that they fit together is encouraging, leading onto the next question.
9: How/why? (To the question above)
First comment I can understand the confusion. Many people, when I've asked them, seem to not see the difference between Electronic and Techno, which is understandable seeing as they are very similar to each other. Both share similar themes so it was quite difficult to avoid doing that unfortunately.
The second comment reflects pretty much word-for-word what I wanted to achieve through my ancillary texts and music video as a whole. The colour scheme is the most obvious link between all three but the fact that this person has mentioned that the way in which all three are made to look "futuristic" pleases me as I know I have done what I set out to do.
The third comment briefly touches on another effect that I tried to include. I've seen certain artists in the past base their album artwork around a particular music video/soundtrack that happens to be included in it and is seen as their 'promotion' song to some degree. I wanted to do exactly that - make 'Sail' the main song on the artist's album. So I decided to include images taken on the same day as we filmed for the music video and then edited them with the blue colour scheme and various other effects that I thought helped contribute into making them seem like they belong to the Electronica genre.
The fourth and final comment is fairly similar to the second comment in regards to the 'futuristic'/'computerised' feel given to all three texts. The ECG lines were also a subtle link to the music video as its clear that the persona the artist is trying to play in the music video is experiencing some form of mental breakdown so it would have effected his heart rate, and, again, the colour scheme ties it all together.
Wednesday 3 April 2013
Monday 25 March 2013
Thursday 21 February 2013
Editing - How we added the Identity Credits.
In the video below, myself and Kirstie went about making a tutorial on how we got the 'Identity Credits' for our artist into the start and end of our video. The reason why we out these credits in the video in the first place was because we felt that it would give our music video a professional feel, as if it were going to be shown on a music channel like MTV for example.
Friday 15 February 2013
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