15: Audience Research

People choose to listen to music that parallels the emotions they are feeling at a given moment. Other times people choose to listen to music that matches their aesthetic and social groups. However when we are in the moment and not trying to fit in with a certain group it usually depends on the way we are feeling. Music can be seen as a timeline that depending on the genre you are listening to represents a certain point of time in your life. Most people have a specific favourite genre that they listen to in order to make them happy.

Usually the music video that is produced for the song reflects the emotions you are meant to be feeling when listening to the song through the mis en scene and cinematography. Some videos make a huge difference as to whom watches them and thus listens to the song. If a video becomes viral the amount of people that the song reaches increases. If a video is seen as relatable to a lot of people, more people than currently listen to the genre it will be accessed by a larger community. A music video can either help to filter and further specify the genre or it can be used to generalise the song to s wider song. Music videos are very important and influential when it comes to the people that are attracted to the video.

In general people that listen to the music to start with are the people that also first want to see the music video. However to back up this statement and do further research as to what attracts people to videos and what puts them off.

I created a survey that I sent out to people I knew from all around the world between the age of 16 and 25. This reflects the opinions of target audience and allows me to see what they would most want to see from my music video.

By asking what there favourite genre of music is it reassures me that doing an alternative, indie pop music video was the best choice. This is reflect in my findings that show it is the majority with over 60% of the votes.

I then asked what attracts them to a music video and most people said that digital effects was their main attraction to the video. Second to this was making the video abstract and this was closely followed by having a storyline. This lets me know that the way I edit the video is important in the final effect for my target audience.

It is clear that people don't want to see a slow-paced video from this feedback and so I will make sure to keep it moving and to use multiple shots and settings to keep it moving. Although I don't think my video will have a strong story I will make sure it has some sort of consistency. This will help it to be less abstract and to have a little bit of a storyline.

It is clear from this video that it is important to my target audience that I use multiple shots. This also reflects their request for it not to be slow-paced. The more shots I use the faster the pace and hopefully more interesting the video will be. It also helps to emphasise my editing skills and hopefully allow me to show off more techniques and a range of shots in the video.

Almost 80% of those who took the survey like the singer to be the main character, this is something I am going to do. My singer will be prominent in my video and this research reassures me that this is a good decision.

Different people are attracted to different music videos, this is dependent on the content that is presented within them. Some music videos have a major sex appeal and focus very much on the promiscuity of one sex, usually females. This can be seen within videos such as Anaconda by Nicki Minaj and Work by Fifth Harmony. These videos are meant to attract straight males to the video and thus encourages that to be their target audience. Other videos focus on dance and this usually intrigues and targets a creative and aspiring target audience. An example of this would be Don't by Ed Sheeran and Sia's Chandelier. All music videos have an underlying theme that may be obvious or more subtle in order to entice a certain audience.