In order to get a relevant qualitative and constructive feedback my group held a small focus group of five girls aged 17-18 and had them watch the final cut of the music video twice through so they had a good look at the video and a chance to first become familiar with it and secondly focus more on the action taking place. We also had them take a look at our ancillary tasks immediately after so that with the music video fresh in their minds they could take in how well the digipaks and adverts worked alongside the music video as a package. The choice of having five 17-18 girls make up the focus group was through the use of UK Tribes and the initial ideas for the target demographic alongside the target demographic for similar artists including Amy McDonald and Kate Nash. With these taken into consideration it is clear that Ruth Bewsey is an artist of whom teenage girls of a similar age aspire to as a role model due to her healthy grounded image and strong female independence. By using these girls in the focus group it is more likely that they take an interest in the media laid before them as it relates specifically to them. By having an audience who relate to the artist/music video they are much more likely to give a constructive and relevant analytical response when asked for feedback as opposed to say a 40 year old male who is into heavy metal as my music video is not going to capture his interest.
Here are the recordings of our focus group:-
Focus 1
Focus 2
Focus 3
Focus 4
Focus 5
Ancillary texts
As aforementioned I chose a specific group of girls to use within my focus group in order to maximize the quality and relevancy of their feedback. All five of the girls I have used are 17/18 year olds studying further education in sixth form and are aspiring to go on to university, from this they are clearly intelligent well educated and free thinking girls which I thinks relates to the target audience my artist is aiming at. They are also into mainstream music which reflects in the way they dress, main retail stores they use include Miss Selfridge, Primark, Warehouse, Dorothy Perkins, Topshop etc. These stores are all stock the latest in high street fashion and target mainly teenage females. For four of the five girls music taste is highly influenced by popular culture and the UK Top 40, they are influenced and interested by whatever music is in the charts at the time in order to keep up with the latest trends and follow what is seen as ‘popular’. The girl seen in ‘Focus 2’ has mentioned in her interview that she is not into Ruth Bewsey’s music genre and personal knowledge tells me that she is much more interested in the Rock genre and more heavy metal festivals such as Download and Sonisphere. The fact that she is into festivals and of the same age and has similar aspirations to the other girls and what I imagine the target demographic would aspire to shows that she is still relevant to my target audience, this also makes it interesting as it gives me an insight into how people who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in Ruth Bewsey and her music style/genre perceive her.
Here is a summary of the key criticisms pulled out from the focus sessions.
- The opening shot and closing shot were the two strongest points in the video, this was what left most of an impression in each of the girls' minds. The reason for this being that the stop motion technique used in the opening they found really interesting and individual, and they enjoyed the elipsis in the final shot as she jumped further and further into the distance, one person also hinted at the framing being strong as she liked the 'trees'. There was only one criticism with the final shot being that one girl didn't like the harsh cuts of the elipsis, she thought it should be much smoother. Maybe a cross fade instead of straight cut would have been better for her, but as the majority preferred the way it was executed I don't think it is a big issue.
- It became apparent that the close up shots of the actors mouth were not popular with the focus group, they felt it was too much of a contrast with the rest of the video and didn't particularly fit in. Another shot that was criticised more than once was the shot of the bouncy balls, the group could understand that it was to add an element of fun but they felt once again it didn't really work with the rest of the action in the video.
- Everybody that was interviewed agreed that the casting for the singer worked well, her face fit the voice and she had the right 'image'. They also all agreed that there was a positive representation of the artist in the way she was presented and in the actions she was doing and story she was set in. The girl in the first focus session specifically stated that the artist was "true to life", and a "real girl" and "[this] message should be given more... for girls to aspire to". Another girl said rhat the video "shows especially younger girls that you don't have to put everything out there to get noticed." I am glad this message has been made clear in the video as this description is exactly the idea I had in the planning stages in terms of how the artist should be represented.
- Each of the girls that I interviewed had a clear idea of what type of genre the music and video was, some could not put a name on it but they could identify similar artists that belonged to the same genre (being pop/folk) therefore I think the music video has been successful in using genre conventions that makes the genre clear to an audience. The focus group identified the performance narrative as having a very folky feel due to it's simplicity, yet they felt the story narrative gave the video a much more pop feel and that it held their attention throughout the video, without the story narrative the video wouldn't have survived a whole 3 minutes.
- Finally everybody in the focus group said that they would expect to see this video on mainstream channels such as 4Music and MTVHits because even though it is somewhat intividual due to it's understated soft folk influences it would still be able to work up against mainstream top40 music because of the clear success Kate Nash has had with her music and they agree it is very similar to her. On the other hand they also said that the video would survive on the more experimental individual music channel, NME because of the unique style brought through by the folk elements.
The following is the feedback i learned from the focus group based on my ancillary texts:
DIGIPAK
- The black outside is quite unique as black is not often feminine but with thecombination of the flourishes and fonts the outside panels of the digipak remain very feminine which is unusual and individual.
- The inside also works very well with the combination of the very clearly hand drawn images and the close up photos of the artists face, it gives a cartoon feel to the digipak, also the neutral colour tone keeps it very natural and gives a real beach feel reflecting the song.
Although the inside works well and the outside works well they don't necessarily work well together, the contrast between the black and yellow tones is too harsh, would possibly work bettetr if the inside panels were slightly darker, more of a brown. In saying the outside and the inside don't tie together because of the colours, the photography does, it works well in the sense of long shots on the outside and close ups on the inside and they are all of a similar style which does give a feel of continuity. Also there is a lot of writing on the outside and not any pictures relating to the beach and on the inside there is no writing, maybe these two factors needs to be equally weighted on both the inside ad the outside of the digipak. - The genre of the digipak is not quite as clear as in the video, the genres mentioned for the digipak were 'not pop... not folk... gentle pop... not girl bandy... relaxed' and 'popular... soulful'. From these statements it does show that my digipak does give off a relaxing soft persona which i think does tie in with the style of the artist and her music, but maybe I would need to look more closely at the conventions of the folk genre when it comes to CD's and digipaks.
- The focus group clearly stated that they would expect to see this product in mainstream music retail stores including HMV and main supermarkets because it is not a specialist product and works as a mainstream 'popular culture' product. They would like to see this product in front of them due to its aesthetic pleasures, online pictures of the product wouldn't do it justice.
- Overall the digipak was given an 8/9 out of 10 with the main criticism being the harsh contrast between the black and yellow colours on the inside and outside of the digipak.
MAGAZINE ADVERT
- When it came to the magazine advert both girls found that having no more than the bare minimum of information worked effectively in creating a 'teaser' advert that intrigues the audience and makes them want to find out more. Also they thought the layout was effective with having one close up image of the girl as once again it catches the eye and doesn't give much away about the artist or her album making them question who this mysterious artist is.
- The girls also said that they style of the advert with it's natural colour tones and the soft image doesn't reveal exactly what her music style is but the clear relaxing natural look created by the photography and colour scheme does hint at it in a clever way.
One girl mentioned that the genre appeared quite classical due to the pose of the artist in the photo. The writing i used was a 40's style so I thikn subconciously this contributed to her making that conclusion. - The only criticism of the magazine advert was that the writing at the top of the advert saying the aritst name and song title was not clear to see due to it overlapping the photo, this didn't stand out well enough and threatened the girls forgetting this information which ironically is the most important information to digest when seeing this advert.
- The NME rating hints at the music style of the artist is to be more 'charty' and 'poppy'.
- Overall both girls gave the digipak a 9 out of 10 because the artist name and song title were hard to see but other than that it was a very effective piece.
- Altogether taking on board all three products (the music video, the digipak and the magazine advert) both girls rated the combination as 9 out of 10 as they all tie in very well together. The advert is a great way of enticing the audience and then the video and digipak compliment this as they both in contrast with the advert contain a lot of detail and really give the audience a good feel of the artist.
The other method our group used to collect feedback was through 10 questionnaires in both digital and paper form to be filled out either by hand or via email or the social networking site ‘Facebook’. Facebook is a great way of collecting feedback from my target audience as I can identify who fits into my target demographic through the information found on their profiles and target only people who I think will be relevant to my artists target audience and who is most likely to give helpful informative answers. It's is also great in the sense of getting immediate feedback and once again the idea of web 2.0 making the sharing of information quick and easy as i can send people the questions with a link to the music video and they can access the website from anywhere without having to mess about. Also by doing it this way people are more likely to be willing to take part as it will take up so little of their time that they would be happy to help. On the other hand if people aren't really interested in doing the questionnaire at the time and they aren't taking it seriously they can fill it out with inaccurate information which can mess with results and findings. From the questionnaires the aim is to collect more quantitative information, this way I can use collective data to work out trends in how the audience perceive the music video.
Here is an example of the questionnaire:-
When the 10 questionnaires were filled in we 5 that were returned were male and the other 5 were female, this way it gives us a better idea of how the video is consumed by both sexes rather than just females even though they are the focus of our target audience. The video clearly does suit the style of music as 100% answered yes to the question 'Do you think the video is suitable to the genre' this is good as it shows our video is clear and unconfused when it comes to genre and style. On the other hand there was a total of 7 different genres mentioned when they were asked to identify the genre, this could be because of a range of reasons. Firstly, if they don't generally listen to this type of music they aren't likely to have much knowledge of the genre. Secondly if they aren't sure what label to put on the genre they didn't have the opportunity to figure it out through similar artists like the focus group, therefore they would just put down an answer they weren't entirely sure of. Even though there is a range of genres that have been said, they are all quite close to the actual genre, the majority put pop or folk which is correct, others put 'indie, 'alternative', 'easy listening' and 'acoustic' which i think all in ways have links to the pop/folk genre because of the simplicity of the instruments, the softness of the singers voice and the combination of the pop and folk styles could be classed as indie as it is 'different'. Almost all of the questionnaires came back saying they would watch the video again and be encouraged to look further into the artist, but unsuprisingly the ones who said no or maybe to these questions were male which confirms the presumption that the target audience is female orientated. Reasons for saying not looking further into the artist were because it wasn't the style of music they were interested in.As an extra source of feedback and to get professional criticism Matt Clarke, an animator/producer/director for the video production company ‘Triggerset’ came in to view my music video. His response was brief but useful and it will be interesting to compare a professional analysis of the music video in comparison with the analyses given by the target audience.
“The tone of the video complemented the song and style of the artist. The speed and composition of the piece was very good, synchronising well with the music. It used an impressive and varied use of shot types which held my attention. It made me feel as though I was watching a story as well a music video, which transcends your genre and accolades the song. The outside ending shot was very well put together however contrasted with the gradient of the other performance shots. You used very good transitions which didn’t appear jagged or misused. If you were to recreate the video again I would suggest that you looked at the grading of the shots, to give your audience a suggested time frame of what time the video was shot.”
I understand completely what Clarke was saying in his analysis about the confusion with the final shot and the grading as well as making a more clear time frame in which the music video was shot. The original plan for this music video was that it was to give out a summer feel and I think through the use of clothing and warm tones within almost all the shots throughout the video we managed to successfully present a summer feel. But by the time we got around to the shooting of the final shot it was winter outside, the weather was not fantastic, its was grey and dark and bitterly cold. We wanted the actor to wear a summer outfit and that was always the plan but sadly due to the weather conditions we felt we couldn't ask her to do this but we also didn't have the time to wait for a warm sunny day so we had to compromise and ended up with this quite grey winter shot and the actor was wearing a wooly hat and gloves that clearly contrasts with the warmth of the rest of the video. If we had more time we would reshoot the shot exactly as it was but with a bluer sky and the artist in a summer dress similar to the others shown in the video. Better planning could have possibly avoided this but by the time we had decided on our third set of planning it was already winter. In order to remedy the quite bland colour shot we altered the brightness/saturation in Premier Elements which helped slightly but sadly couldn't change the outfit she was wearing or make she sky a magnificent blue without making the shot appear unnatural.
Here is an example of Clarke’s work:-
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