Final Music Video and Evaluation

Final music video

Here is my final finished music video, I've decided to shorten the song as 5 minutes was personally too long for me to film, and I decided to leave the narrative on a cliffhanger / an open enigma so the audience can put together their own ending. From researching other music video's by hybrid minds eg. 'Kismet', I found out that the music video's don't necessarily have any type of storyline they take the more experimental route which could be interpreted to be polysemic. The main basis to my narrative was to use fortune tellers in the use of phones, to also elaborate to the audience the lyrics but also as an element of fantasy and something i hadn't seen before. I wanted to incorporate this type of playful element to it however to also still look captivating as a whole different plot line. 

    

In my music video I really like the cuts and how I filmed a lot of different angles from the same scene so I was able to manage the 'fast paced' edit I was looking for. I really liked how this element of my music video turned out, I believe it surfaces the fast natural beat of the music I chose and really works well to bring out this tone. I think by using the narrative structure with a slight experimental natural feel it would appear more unique and create a lot of enigmas for the audience. I believe it fits into the genre of the music it relates to (liquid drum and bass) because it contains the soft element of the story along with the quick paced editing that I tried to incorporate the whole way through. I also feel as though the storyline I have does unfold in a chronological order or some sorts as the concept is very easily understood and when shown to people who haven't seen it before also agreed with this fact.

This song in particular is one of my favourite songs to listen to when I'm just doing anything really because of the softness of it, I prefer this version a lot more to the actual version as it amplifies the lyrics a lot more and makes them seem a lot more important as they've cut a lot of the initial ones out. I can picture the first time I heard it and what attracts me to this song and genre in particular is that every song i hear from it, every time I play it it always sounds like from the first time I heard it - incredible. I believe now more than ever there are certainly a lot more genres in the music industry than before, with lots of 'hybrids' and a lot of people are unknown to a lot of these. I believe that liquid drum and bass is a very big up and coming genre people are starting to realise and come to terms with, I chose it because it fits with the modern world and my narrative tries to draw you away from it in a sense which both contradict each other.

I think another element I would 100% definitely think about next time around is lighting. As you can see from different clips in my music video there are parts filmed outside and parts filmed inside, the inside clips tend to be that of a rubbish quality I personally do not like at all. This is due to using natural school lights that come off with more of a yellowy tone rather than a natural tone. For this I didn't use a very high ISO as I knew the lower you use it the more natural and better the quality normally comes out. Meaning if I did this whole video again i would definitely use maybe a ring light of some sort if I had the chance.
However not to toot my own trumpet but the quality of the footage took outside (this shot in particular) was definitely one of my favourites.

I actually filmed a LOT of footage for this, too much for one scene and not enough for others(or not enough good quality ones to use). If I was to redo this I know that I should try and get as much footage as possible, to try and fit the lyrics in time with the music wasn't too hard but to work my story around it I could've definitely planned a lot better. I also would've planned better, my initial plan was to only use one actor in it as put bluntly the less actors the less people you would have to let you down. So I was playing it rather safe to use just one actor a close friend who I knew wouldn't let me down. We actually also filmed on multiple days he had to wear the same outfit 3 days in a row (lol) which he certainly wasn't fond of, but it did help me.

In my music video you can see that I represented Andrew Goodwin's theory of illustrating lyrics through the use of the fortune teller which was used as my main motif of the experimental/narrative. I wouldn't class it as an illustrative video as per however I would say there are glimpses of illustrating moments and this would perhaps be one. Which does show the relationship between both elements in these parts is direct. Personally I believe I did really well in getting these lyrics exactly on par which helps me to get a better understanding of editing and premiere pro. The shots also look pretty similar to each other which was the exact look I was hoping for which I managed to achieve. 

Technical Issue:
There were multiple clips that I couldn't include in my final video which would've made the ending a lot more understandable and better in my opinion, however when editing my Mac book wouldn't encode the files as the IOS files (shot on my phone) were different to the camera files and every time I opened them they would freeze and wouldn't encode to MP4 which was increasingly frustrating which unfortunately wouldn't allow me to use them. 
However I have inserted a clip below so you can imagine the extra details yourself, a lot of them were very long so had trouble exporting to my macbook which is very slow anyway :

Research into Music Video Findings

Research Findings

I conducted some initial research into music video production in order to develop understanding with what audience's find amusing and classify them as successful in music video's. I have looked into many theorist to try and rationalise my analysis to proven theorists, the few I looked into were Andrew Goodwin, Carol Vernallis and Sigmund Freud and applied them to various music video's. From summarising their theoretical approach's and using them in my work I had a grasp on what most music video's contain and the main 3 found were Performance, Narrative and Conceptual. 

To start my research I began to apply the theorists theories (Goodwin, Freud and Vernallis) I had analysed to a variety of music videos from a few different genres. Doing so allowed me to produce more valid findings, as opposed to looking at just one genre of music I would have a range to compare my findings to. As well as alining them to the theories used I also picked them apart shot by shot to analyse the deeper hidden meanings and researched deep into the artists, their general style and why they decided to make the music video how they did- What does it really say about the artist.

Another thing in which I did in preparation of the music video was formed story boards with pictures to represent some of the shot types I will use and to really help me formulate what my video will look like and envision it before I actually make it. I also looked up on youtube critically acclaimed easily made music videos which I really took a lot of inspiration from; special mentions would be 'Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve' and Fatboy Slim's 'Praise you'. These videos in particular really stood out for me as they are so simple yet so well made, Fatboy slims especially by only using one take, won many awards for how creative yet simple it was so effective. As well as the bitter sweet symphony video by using a street in Manchester and forming such a simple but amazing video which will be remembered in everyone's minds. That's why I've decided to take a bit of inspiration from the Bitter Sweet Symphony Video and add a simple but effective intertextual reference to it by doing something very similar.

I have formulated a short questionnaire to allow me to get a range of primary data and asked people within my HNC Creative media group who would actually be seeing the video screened, I also asked family and other friends to see what their preferences were. I decided to produce the findings in pie charts to formulate the data easier to present my findings in a clear way.

I made sure the question's being asked were thoroughly understood allowing me to get precise data. I tried to get as many responses as possibly so i took to instagram for more results as well as asking family and friends.
These were my results in screenshots of the instagram 'poll's' I used, the main age range here is 18-23 which gathers the audience who is most targeted for the type of music I am using is more aimed at the youth rather than the older generations as it is more lively and upbeat.
I have then formulated them into graphs clearly showing the clear answer for each category.

1. What is your favourite style of music video?

- Narrative (portrays a use of connected events to formulate a story)

- Performance (shows the artist/bad performing this can be singing or playing an instrument)

- Conceptual (based around a single idea, usually obscure or unusual/ an example is the music video for Somebody that I used to know - Gotye)

























- By using this as an opening closed question it gets the audience to understand music videos even if they don't know what they mean in particular I ensured by using examples they would mot likely know or that they could search to find out themselves, the examples are typically world renowned so I'm sure they could easily understand the question. The top answer winning by 16 people being narrative which is why I mainly decided to go with a slight narrative on my music video because of how high the score was in this instance and also because narrative is also MY personal favourite type of music video so I know I would excel more more in this.

2. Do you think star image is important to convey in music videos? (includes the artist/band's faces)

- Yes

- No

- Unsure

aces) The second question I asked was do you think star image is important to convey in music videos, now I asked this to link back to the theory .....!HDHEKFJGWRWGEJKJJFHWEKUJDBHREFJSKKBVFJKW

 who conveys that star image is an importance in music videos and establishes a good connection with the audience by using the main singer/artists/band of the song in particular . The results which came back mainly 'No' which shows that anyone could be on the screen to make it interesting not just the main artist. So i did then decide from here to do more of a narrative sketch and plan rather than performance or abstract.

3. Do you think lyrics of the song should be conveyed throughout the video through use of images? (so each lyric represents the thing you see on screen e.g 'all my friends are turning green' and on the screen you see a person in green or a green object)

- Yes

- No

- Unsure

- My next question asking whether I should base the narrative on the actual lyrics of the song. I had again the top answer as 'No' which shows to me that the audience were not bothered and wanted to see more of an abstract type narrative which pulls away from the song title and has ore of it's own storyline which I then did incorporate into my own music video.

4. Do you enjoy indie-folk music? (to classify Indie-folk with some common artists and bands you may know: Mumford & sons, Bon Iver, The Lumineers, Ben Howard, Jake Bugg, Vance Joy)

- Yes

- No

- Unsure

- My next question was toward wether i should use the indie folk version (normal) or the remix version (hyrbid minds) of the song, the poll did in fact come back 32 yes and 23 no however I decided to use the remix version because after listening to it it will still have the same chords in it which classify it to be indie folk as the remix doesn't change the singing it changes the beat so I could possibly engage the 'no's to be 'yes's by using a remixed indie folk song which personally you can't tell that the genre is indie folk.

5. Is location important to you in a music video?

- Yes

- No

- Unsure

- The final question I asked was is location important to you in a music video, the main answer being yes which showed that I had to plan my location well and make sure places were free at the time's I needed them etc. 

Survey monkey

I also decided to formulate another survey type thing but this time using surveymonkey.co.uk which indeed helped me gather more accurate results. Instead of asking more closed questions I decided to ask a few open ones to help me visualise more how i was initially going to produce my music video. Survey monkey is really good as it engages with laptop or mobile devices so it's really compatible and used by many companies. I in fact had 27 responses from just one day. So i decided to cap it at that and remove the links so I could read most of the open questions and decide how I would visualise my film.




Question 1. Listen to this song (the link) did you enjoy listening to this? I started with a closed question to initially engage my audience, once they'd listened to it they may want to really carry on because they enjoyed it or it could in turn make them not want to carry on. However the majority of the results were average or above average which tells me that the song was more a hit than a miss.

Question 2. 'What imagery does this create in your head? you can just put 2 or 3 words or how it made you feel if you are struggling'. By asking this question It mean that people could answer openly and freely and be as honest as possible, The main answer I feel was relaxation and freedom. I think this does describe mainly how the song makes you feel, by asking this very open question the people i would be aiming my music video at will be answering what they personally see so I would be able to nab little idea's or convey into words how it made others feel as well as my own feelings. As sometimes you need more than your own opinion to be able to back something up. You can see in a lot of the answers what people thought about it anyway (I didn't put all the answers up as some were a bit immature and silly.)

Question 3. 'How much do you like liquid drum and bass?(the song I attached was a form of it).' This main closed question was used to show how many people I would be aiming my music video at. Less than 5% saying they didn't like it at all which meant I was more than happy to be able to use the remixed version in my final project.

  

Question 4. 'What age group do you fall under?' As you can see the closed question was pretty basic but also useful in knowing what type of people are answering the survey and luckily the main target audience was 16-21 I was hoping for and that's who ended up taking part in the survey which was really useful to help me to get to know the people i was aiming my product at. 

Question 5. What is your gender? This wasn't essential (of course) however I personally wanted to know if it was more girls or boys (however they decide to identify them selves) who would be interested in my product, the survey produced that it was mainly a male target audience rather than a female (or other).

Question 6. 'How often do you watch music videos?'. I asked this to decide wether the people I was targeting it at would be avid music video watchers or not so much, I suppose people nowadays don't have time to sit and watch music video's and are rather more interested in the music itself than the music video. However for artists in particular when they release new music video's I am the first to watch them and research into the process behind the music video and the meanings (especially the 1975 ones.) However the results for this one came back as 'less than once a week' which shows me that music video's today are not as important as they perhaps used to be and a lot more effort goes into the producing of the song rather tan the music video itself and that my target audience weren't so bothered about even watching music videos.

Question 7. 'Do you remember music videos you have previously watched?'. This one came back very handy as more than 10% of people have remembered at least more than a few which tells me that even if people don't necessarily watch music video's they remember the ones that they do so it's best to have one that could maybe be really randomised so it sticks in people's brains so that they can remember. This closed question was followed closely behind with an open one to gain more information on this subject.

Question 8. 'If so which one's have stood out in particular to you and why?'. This open question really helped to engage the consumer and helps to tease out their brain and really rack it of the music video's they have watched and if they could possibly explain why they were so successful in remembering part of them I could get a possible insight to what makes a successful music video. The results came back mostly helpful and good with some people giving a deep explanation as to why they stood out which really helped me gather a lot of information.

Question 9. 'What genre of music do you listen to the most?' by gathering this information I could possibly take it further and research the most popular music videos and the conventions of them to maybe see why they're the most successful in engaging the audience. The top answer being Hip-hop.

Question 10. 'Do you prefer narrative or abstract music videos?' (then explaining each in depth so they understood clearly). The main answer for this one was clearly narrative with some abstracts, I then confirmed with myself narrative was the way forward to go with my music video and that it would be more beneficial seeing as though my target audience think narrative's stick more from not just this survey but the other too which shows narrative to be top for both differing audiences.

I think overall I did really well in getting a lot of evidence for my music video and a lot of research into music video's by not asking just general questions but closed questions too where people can personally say why and explain their answers thoroughly. I think this was the best way to do it as I gained mass information from my target audience and by using two separate survey type things you can see I really dug deep into trying to find out what is best for my audience and who they would entrail (genders, ages ect.) Another good thing about my surveys is that i asked 15 questions overall which I believe to be really useful in helping to add to my own knowledge. I believe this was definitely very helpful into finding the decisions that I needed a bit of extra backing up for myself, It helped me to gain a lot of quantitate and quality research from the main target consumer. The con's I had were some immature people answering with silly responses that would in fact hinger my results instead of add to them. Another thing I could improve in this sense is asking a lot more questions that are open rather than closed off answers which won't really give me too much insight into what they're thinking and some answers could be just clicks.

Focus Group

Focus group findings/report:

During the focus group I had planned out and decided to use my family in this instance as it was during our time off college so I didn't want to have to badger people from the HNC group to meet up as we all live in different areas so I decided to make one with people from the same household as me and family members. I decided to do this focus group to get more open answers and see what other conclusive data I could get. 

Participant 1 - 50 years old / female.

Participant 2 - 55 years old / female.

Participant 3 - 22 years old / male.

Participant 4 - 23 years old / male.

Participant 5 - 18 years old / male.

I had now explained that from my surveys I had decided to run with the narrative storyline with a lot of abstract meanings under laid and I was going to have a lot of experimental factors in my music video to because it would be a lot easier for me to film.
I had also described a short little snippet of my music video what the overall look was going to entrail by reading a very brief and short synopsis so I could get further details from them all to help decide exactly what I want.

The brief I read: In my music video my underlying message will entail a boy 

'Trying to escape this hyper reality dream of mobile phones being gone forever when he put's his music on but its unescapable - mobile phones being replaced with fortune tellers and 'riddles'.

'My plot line will basically consist of, my main character will be listening to the song through his earphones, subsequently he falls asleep wakes up and everyone's phones have changed into these fortune tellers. He faces challenges along the way in which he is given a number and colour and then decided to use the fortune teller and when he does, it reveals a lyric in them at the same time that the music is saying the lyric, however he then wakes up and reveals himself to be just dreaming, he gets home and thinks it was all just a dream but his parents are oblivious and his mum is playing with one, slight twist.'

I decided to play them the remixed version of the song and the normal version to see which one they all preferred.
Question 1. Which song do you think would fit the narrative/experimental brief I have given you more? Which song excites you more and would make you want to carry on listening?

P1 - I really like the idea, it's exciting and cool, personally I prefer the slowed down normal version as the beat is already really nice without changing it up.

P2 - I agree the idea is really good however I would say to use the remixed version because it's a bit more exciting and doesn't just drag on and on like the normal version, it creates that happy and upbeat element which you could use to your advantage to make the main character upbeat and fast editing.

P3 - I way prefer the remixed version, it's more fun and good to play around with, I still enjoy both songs but the remixed version sounds better.

P4 - Remixed version and the brief is nice I think it can work you just need to plan a lot.

P5 - I prefer the remixed one, I think it's best to choose the one you prefer listening to more too as you will have to hear it countless times, personally I would go with the remixed one like most have said.


Question 2. How many people could you imagine being in this? just one and then the parents at the end of more people? (I explained how personally it's easier with just one person as it's less people to let you down in the end).

P1 - I think it would be best to use just one person because then you can plan it more effectively jut solely based around one person rather than making dates for people to meet and potentially no-one turning up, it's sad but true.

P2 - Yeah I agree, I mean it would be good to get more people involved because it will look better but if it's a struggle to plan and get people to turn up then it's best to just rely on one person.

P3 - I disagree I think that it will look better based around one person because you're trying to mess with his mind and think that everything has essentially 'disappeared off the face of the earth' I think it would look much better and be much easier to just use one person and then the parents bit at the end too.

P4 - I can see both sides but I think I'd have to go with just one person after the mood boards you've shown us you've created the lonely ideals so I think it would look best to use them.

P5 - I think use just one person would be easier for you to just have to rely on one rather than a whole group, because if they show up great but if they don't then you're left with nothing, you could always make a main plan to use people and then a backup with just one in case you are left with just one.


Question 3. Is location really important to you in a music video, would I need to really plan and think the places I'm using if my video will be half experimental?

P1 - I suppose it's not vital, but everything needs planning and time so best to just plan for it.

P2 - Definitely it's apart of your plan, you need to storyboard so definitely needs mentioning or at least one preferred location thought out specifically.

P3 - Yes it should be important, you need to plan specifically so it can look the best or how you personally want it to look, you can't just use anywhere either because you have to think of times.

P4 - I think it is important and you should think about filming in very open areas but at times where there isn't anyone around, but it is still light enough outside for you to film.

P5 - I think it's somewhat important, but if you have a base plan you should already know the locations you might be using.



Question 4. Do you think it's essential for me to use lyrics in the fortune tellers rather than a riddle or clue to something else?

P1- I think it's a cool idea which is different from anything I've seen before, it will add a personal element to it, your own idea and bring a lot of yourself into it as it's very different. So I think yes stick with that idea.

P2 - Yeah it's not essential I'd say but it's what the main idea kind of it presented around so would be good to stick to it.

P3 - I think they would both work well but i agree with it having a personal element will help you produce it better because it's something fresh and new.

P4 - Not essential, you could use any idea as long as you plan it precisely.

P5 - Either one sounds good yeah as long as it's planned and thought through thoroughly it will look good.



Question 5. Are there any more queries or things you think I should add to my music video?

P1 - No, I think you should just try and expand on the details of what you already have make them personal and bigger until you have formulated an entire plan.

P2 - I agree, I really do like all the things you've come up with just try and get as much footage as possible because the song is quite long.

P3 - Nah, I like the idea and think it can work well with good timing of planning.

P4 - The idea is good it just needs to be storyboarded so you're not left with just filming anything towards the end.

P5 - I think its a cool idea, something I haven't heard of before and will look good if filmed properly and planned the right way.



Focus group analysis

I believe the focus group worked really well in setting in stone what I wanted my music video to look like and the final personal touches I wanted to add, I think it will look really cool when it's all filmed and I've just had that basically said to me which makes me feel good that others like what I'm thinking of producing before i have produced it. I think the under lying message they gave me was to definitely plan shots and locations plan timings and everything I am going to use, It's made me think more of storyboarding rather than just going with the flow and the results have really helped me to put my brain in gear for the future music video. I think it would have been a lot better to in fact record the group rather than just writing what they said down, because there were things said that I probably missed or things people might have said extra if they didn't have to wait for me to write the notes down, a very silly mistake.

Question 1 : I already did know what music I was going to use, I just needed it to be kind of justified by the group so it would help me personally. I prefer the remixed version way more so for me there was no clear competition I didn't think the older members of the group would like it which I'm surprised that they have chose that one. The answer was pretty much unanimous and just set clearly what I was going to use.

Question 2 : I think this question helped me a lot because I was unsure of how many people to include and definitely it showed me that they saw the music video in the same way I did that I was only wanting to really include one person as I thought that it would be best for me to do that so I don't have people bail last minute and leave me on my own.

Question 3 : I knew that location would in fact be really important, especially if I did decide to go down the route with using more people, location would be important to make sure everybody gets there on time and made me think that I really do need to plan it exactly right just so i can make sure that my actors arrive on time and it has definitely ensured me that planning will make it all worthwhile at the end.

Question 4 : I was very unsure at this point wether i was going to use lyrics to convey in the song or if I was going to just use classic riddles, but I believe the group do believe in me to trust my own ideas because it's something that again did come back pretty much unanimous which just then solidified it for me to use the lyrics, which also links back to Andrew Goodwin's theory of the lyrics being illustrated and amplified by the visuals on screen so will definitely help me link back to that.

Question 5 : Asking this was a way for them to express their own feelings so that I could get multiple findings and then in turn get some outside knowledge into how I wanted my film to look in the end, however I didn't get too much back from this which was slightly disappointed however made me believe in myself and my own ides a bit more which is always good.