Audience Research

From the questionnaire my group conducted through survey monkey, we found that our audience would be a 60:40 split, rounded. With this in consideration we now have to think about how we can appeal to both sexes as it is almost an even split. This could include using male and female actors. Therefore the male gaze has been addressed as well as an equal representation of gender.However we feel the need to appeal to the males in particular as they had the favouring side of 60%. In addition, we will include conventions to appeal to the female audience. However we will not have to include stereotypes of females such as using lots of pink and high street clothing as the female’s responses given were similar to the males when giving an opinion on what they like about a rock video. We will try to address the male audience by including masculine props and effects such as, fire, darkness and heavy guitars. We also plan to film in the woods which links back to the first humans and the idea that the male is the hunter and he should supply for the family. This will be shown by the all male band playing in the woods.

From our results of the age question of the survey we found that we had a wide range starting from below 17 and 55 and older. However the results showed that our target audience would mainly be focussed within the below 17 and 24 range, as this is were the results favoured most.In addition it will be in our interests to mainly focus on the younger audience as they have given us more feedback for us to work with and they make up for the majority of the results. Now my group can look at what 17-24 year olds like and what their interests are. Researching in to this will help us understand what they like and expect from a music video and how we can appeal to them, this is why we chose a popular rock song because it is well know and the band has been going for a while, therefore older generation may know of the band and song. Also the older audience may like the chosen band as their sound is old school rock and this is especially portrayed through their new album ‘Hail To The King’. This therefore unties the old and the young, bringing them together as rock generally tries to deter from discrimination and it also gives out the message that no matter how old you can be a fan of rock therefore we are still appealing to everyone without discriminating or leaving people out.

The results we received about nationality were all the same; from our 23 responses. All of these responses where under the White (British) category. This is a negative and positive response in one. Firstly, Negative as we do not have a range of nationalities and we will have to research some more in how to attract different ethnicities and what may appeal to them. On the other hand it is positive because they all answered the same, my group now knows what sort of target audience we have and we now know to include conventions that stereotypically go with Britain such as; bad whether and countryside, this links well for our initial ideas as we had originally planned to film in a forest/woods to link with the whole idea of using elements within the rock video as we found this is a popular convention within the rock genre. Now we have our results we know this is a definite plan when filming as it shows regionality and we can now go forward and really get into detail about how we are going to film in the woods and how to appeal to our audience.

My group felt the need to ask how our audience accesses music videos as this will give us a clear idea of what to include in our music video because if say mobile phones was the most popular result we would have to think about picture quality and narrative because when they are on the go they would want good picture quality but not too much narrative that if the miss a bit if the video they wont understand the rest of the video. From our result we found that computers and laptops was the most popular way to watch music videos, with television and mobiles closely following. Knowing this information we can use these types of technology in our music video to relate and appeal to our audience as these are used by our target audience . Technology such as smart phones, laptops and tablets.This shows that we are also in the know of what technology is available and we can manipulate it to appeal to the audience.

From our results we found that our audience watch music videos fairly regularly and therefore our music video project must be good in order to get the views we are aiming for. The results are quite split but the largest percentage of people watch music videos everyday, therefore they will be aware of what a good music video consists of. This will either work in favour of our project or against it because if the video is of a high quality and we really appeal to the audience they will appreciate all of the effort gone in to make the music video and hopefully it will be of a professional standard. However this can have an opposite effect because if we don’t appeal to the audience and if it doesn’t look professional then it will reflect badly. As a group we aim to make a professional, realistic product that our target audience will recognise the metal genre within the video.

Here we asked what appeals to individuals when it comes to rock videos. Whether they are a fan of the genre or not they will have an opinion of what looks good and stereotypically goes with a rock video. A lot of the results were not particularly useful as there weren't many specific results about what appeals to the audience. However we did find that some like to see the band and others like a narrative. Overall most results said they like to see the band and like to see them rocking out and having a good time, therefore we will include this within our video. We will aim to do this by setting up a staged performance of a local band as they will have the instruments needed as props. Also because the local band is of a rock genre, the guitarists already know the guitar solo, hence making the filming of the staged band more believable. Which we can then include close ups of the guitar. This will make our video look a lot more professional as we will use common rock conventions.

From the previous question we found that the audience was split between a staged live performance and or a narrative. Therefore we asked whether the audience would like to see a live performance as we have to plan our music video we want to appeal directly to the target audience to attract more fans. Listening to the audiences views will help us in the long run as we will get a better understanding of what they like and dislike. Therefore it will make it easier and more focussed when planning the storyboard of the video as we will know what to include and what not to include.The majority of results would like to see a staged live performance as almost 60% said yes to our question. Therefore we will include sections of live performances but not the whole video as there is still the remaining 40%. My group has to include another convention in the video as we want

to appeal to as many people as possible. Therefore there has to be a mixture to keep it entertaining for the audience because the song is quite long there can not be just one convention as the audience will soon lose interest and we will not be able to apply different techniques and effects to a scene of just a band playing. although, because we know a majority like to see the band it will definitely be included within our rock video, mainly to mix the video up and to show the audience what the band looks like, hypothetically as they band we will use will be imitating Avenged Sevenfold. Showing the band will attract to the female audience as it is a male band, but also the males as they will be playing instruments. Fans of the rock genre tend to collect posters, t-shirts and go to many live performances therefore they will know what the band members look like; we have to try and recreate the style of Avenged Sevenfold as the audience knows what to expect.

As a group we had researched different rock videos and found that they like to mix a staged performance in a secret isolated area with a narrative to explain to the song, which made it interesting for the viewer. We also found that the audience sometimes forgets the name of the band and the song name but can remember the video which they will explain to their friend and will then recognise what the song was. Music videos play a crucial part in promoting the song especially when listening to the song at home whilst its on telly or showing their friends on their phone via YouTube. Furthermore it is in our interest to make a memorable video that people will talk about as our audience is of a younger generation they are stereotypically seen to use social networking sites and also know to spread news and gossip. We then asked the question do you like videos with a narrative and why? We did this to understand why people like narratives and how important they really are to the viewer. There was a mixed view on this question which was actually unexpected. However the people who would like to see a narrative said they liked it because they can relate the lyrics to the video which then helped them perceive the song better and could then relate to their own life. Also it is more visually appealing and interesting. On the flip side people said no because they would rather see the band and also because once you have seen the video, you don’t really need to see it again because it just gets boring.

From analysing these results me ad my group concluded that we can not directly appeal to everyone's subjective choices; everyone likes different things. One thing we did decide on was that we would try our best to include something that everyone will like whether it be a staged live performance or a narrative. Therefore we are going to mix a staged performance with a narrative because of the 50:50 split from our results. We have found that it is difficult to particularly define what the audience expects from a video, again because everyone is different and likes different types of genre. However when concluding this, we found that this is what the rock genre is about such as expressing individuality, being different, speaking your mind and standing out from the crowd. With this information we now know that the audience will still appreciate the video because of their like for the song but also because we are going to try to appeal to as many different interests as possible, aiming to bring different styles, ages, individuals, likes, interests and preferences together without trying to clone people in the sense of making everyone the same by liking the same stuff. We aim to keep individuality whilst uniting the rock genre. Personally, I think from my research that the rock genre is all about promoting individuality within a certain style and genre.

From our results of this question we found that the audience actually expect many different things from a rock video because of how versatile the Rock genre is. We realise now that maybe we should have narrowed the question a bit more maybe we could have asked What do you expect from an Avenged Sevenfold music video? This would have given us a better understanding of what the audience expect from our music video and what we need to include. However, something we have learnt from this question is that a Rock video has to show passion, whether it be about what the band is passionate about or everyday scenarios that can sometimes get us down. Rock videos are all about expression and making the audience feel like they aren't alone. The video gives the audience that sense of belonging to a group and that they aren't the only individual who has gone through a bad time. Some results mentioned being in the dark, anger, rebellion, seriousness and violence. These results link to the stereotype of the Rock genre, especially when people don’t know much about the genre. Rather, fans of the genre understand the emotion behind this anger, seriousness and darkness and can connect and relate to the band as they are expressing what they fan is feeling through music. Personally I feel that is why Rock fans are so committed to bands and always would rather go see them live so they can show their appreciation to the band who have brought their feelings to light.

Most evidently from these results the audience would like to see a female in the video, this links to male gaze as they would like to see an attractive female within the narrative. However the largest result was to see both male and female in the video. When coming up with initial ideas for our video we are now thinking we should represent and show a female in the video, we will do this by making her the main character within the narrative. We will then represent the males by showing the all male band playing in the woods. This way all viewers will be happy with the equal representation of the sexes.

It is especially important to me and my group that equality is evident throughout our video as Rock is all about forgetting prejudices and coming together as one big rock family. This result has been particularly helpful as we now know where we can go from here as to selecting actors as we know we will have a female main actress and a male band. This is going to help us progress because we now how to thinks about how we are going to equally represent the sexes.