Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Music Video Research Notes

Music Video Research
In this topic, I will be researching different music video theorists (Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis) as well as taking an in-depth look at different music videos and analyzing them, exploring how these theories stand true within modern music videos. After doing this I will create an online survey to ask people what sort of music videos they enjoy and base my final product around these answers and the other research I gather.

Music video analysis and theorist research under different blog posts. See the labels "Research Techniques" and "Music Video"

Survey Results and Analysis
In total I asked 7 questions in my survey some being multiple choice and some asking for the user to type an answer, causing them to think more about their response, giving me a more detailed answer for me to base my video from. I got a variety of answers from my survey helping me see what people were into when it came to music videos.

My questions and the results they gathered:










 Overall my studies show that audiences prefer a performance-based video with quite literal or exaggerated lyrics. This works well with my initial ideas for the music video however I will have to think of ways to meet the consumer's need for performance-based and work it into my ideas I already have for the music video. Next time when using surveys to find out what the consumer likes I would like to expand my queries through more questioning and a wider range of audience, these are the only things I would change looking back at this experience as I believe getting a wider range of answers would do nothing but improve my knowledge going into the planning phase.

Focus Group
During this stage of my research, I have a partial plan for my ideas of what I want my finished product to look like, however, this focus group has really helped me develop these ideas and take them to a further level. For example, this focus group has given me an idea to include a Chinese whispers style to help incorporate different elements of Andrew Goodwin's theory to my music video such as giving it a basic narrative and incorporating small elements of performance through whispering the lyrics of the song. Rather than changing my ideas, this focus group helped me develop more ideas to help incorporate different elements of these theories that I have been researching. 

Concluding My Research
Looking back at my research during this unit I studied different theorists like Carol Vernalis and Andrew Goodwin and analyzed different music videos seeing how their theories apply within newer songs, I looked at what work they published highlighting the different conventions they discovered within music videos and looked at how I would implement them into my work. Some of the key points I took away from Carol's work is the use of editing towards the beat of the song and also the significance of establishing shots to create a world for the audience to connect to when watching, I found this research very effective when producing my music video as it gave me an idea of how I can edit my chosen song together, for example, opening up with an establishing shot showing the audience the warm home that the majority of the video is set within while also giving me the idea of editing the claps within the song to the beat, in doing this I was following common conventions within music videos while also showing off some of my editing skills in the process. Looking at Andrew Goodwin's theory I took away some key points such as the different genres the music videos can have, in doing this I decided on what genre of the music video I wanted on during the pre-production stage of developing my music video, in doing this gives me a more solid plan and by following these genres (in this case, I followed litteral and performance-based videos) it shows I can create a music video that matches the conventions of other professional music videos, giving my product a more professional look. After looking at the two theorists I analyzed music videos looking for key elements of the theories, in doing this I saw how these theories were applied in a practical approach such as the establishing shots to create a world for the audience to connect to. When analyzing music the videos I tried to choose different styles that I knew I could gather different information from and see different elements of these theories so I chose Pressure by Muse, Call Me Maybe by Carley Rae Jepsen and Firework by Katy Perry. In choosing these different music videos I saw examples of the different genres of music videos that Andrew Goodwin mentions in his theories while also seeing similar elements of these theories in the music videos such as editing to the beat and establishing a world. When looking back at this information I gathered I was pretty happy with the results as I managed to discover many different codes and conventions of music videos and learnt how they get applied practically by analysing random videos and searching out where these theorists appear, in doing this it helped me when producing my music video as I knew what elements to include and how to do it such as the editing to a beat and set the music video around a certain genre, so overall I was very happy with this element of my research as I could effectively use it to improve my final product.

The next stage of my research came in the form of asking others questions in what they prefer within a music video and using this data to plan my music video around what the audience would want. Overall this is the weakest part of my research with a low sum of questions and field of answers however I do believe this was still effective when it came to planning my research as I still gathered what style of video my audience liked even if the audience pool was limited. When applying this information to my planning stage I knew what my audiences need where and decided to create a video that works around that. When talking about the limitations of this research it is clear that I needed to ask more people and ask more questions to gather a broader range of information, in doing this it will help me gather a better and more legitimate idea of my audiences likes within music videos.

After this research was complete and I was during the planning phase of my music video I participated within a focus group with other members of my class in which we discussed everyone's basic ideas for their music videos, It was here where  I developed my ideas for my video further, coming up with ideas like a Chinese whispers style video between multiple peoples, in doing this I would be able to have elements of narrative, performance, and litteral within my music video through this telling a story while copying the lyrics such as "Tell me all your secrets" and obviously the elements of performance being the whispering. Overall I would call this element of my research successful as I managed to share my ideas with my peers and improve and develop my ideas before the production began.

In conclusion, I am very happy with the research I gathered and the quality of it as I have managed to gather the information that has helped shape my ideas for this project and improve the quality of my product, next time I would focus more on my questionnaire and gathering information from the public by increasing the range of questions and the people I asked within this section of research, however, I am still happy with the research I gathered and the ideas I developed because of it and I believe it positively affected the outcome of my finished product

No comments:

Post a Comment