Audience Research

I have conducted a questionnaire, in order to find out more about the type of music videos that people like and what they specifically like about them. I will use these results to aid my understanding of what works in a music video and what my audience prefers when it comes to watching music videos. Here are all of the results...

So from this questionnaire, I found that the people in my target audience (15-30 years old) are interested in a range of music. However, a recurring element throughout the results from the different people is that most people thing that the song is rated above the music video and that they prefer a music video to  have some sort of narrative. Some also state that they like to see a performance element within the music video, as it shows a different aspect of the artist/band and portrays a range of skills and the different side of them.

I will try to incorporate my audience's preferences into my music video, in order to appeal to my target audience. I will perhaps try to base the video around the lyrics of the song that I choose to use. This will ensure that I get the message of the song across in the music video. I will also make sure that the music video has both a narrative and a performance element to it, in order to convey two different sides to the band and what the song actually means.

Here is a video that I created, addressing my target audience and obtaining their opinions in relation to my questions.

Album Advert Analysis

Album Advert 1:

 

Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends:

Album Advert 2:

 

Florence and The Machine - Lungs:

 

Album Advert 3:

 

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night:
 

Album Advert 4:
 

Linkin Park - Meteora:

Digipack Analysis

A Digipack is a style of packaging, which is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums. Digipacks typically consist of a gatefold (book style) paper board or card stock outer binding, capable of holding an attached CD.

Digipack 1:

Imagine Dragons - Night Visions:

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

Inside Cover:

Digipack 2:

Kid Koala - 12 Bit Blues:

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

Inside Cover:

Digipack 3:

The Black Keys - El Camino:

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

Inside Cover:

Video Director - Darcy Prendergast

Darcy Prendergast is an Australian animator, whose passion can be traced back to a young age; with Darcy claiming he could always be "found with a lump of clay in his hands". Since then, his creativity has grown and, with the aid of the £20,000 Nescafe Big Break Prize, Darcy was able to buy his own studio, camera equipment and an abundance of plasticine.

Darcy’s animation can be seen across a range of work, from commercials for Cadburys and ABC kids, to music videos, working with bands, such as All India Radio and Gotye. He was even personally selected by friend Adam Elliot to work as lead sculptor on an animated feature, Mary and Max. In addition, Darcy’s own short films, such as the darkly humorous Ron the Zookeeper, have received international recognition, being selected for festivals including the Annecy International Film Festival, the Stuggart Festival of Animated Film, and the San Francisco Film Festival. Darcy has also recently formed his own production company, Oh Yeah Wow.

A lot of Darcy's work contains a fairly dark sense of humour. When talking about Easy Way Out - Gotye, Darcy stated, "I guess an audience is generally used to seeing escapism in animation and the beauty of the medium is that you can get away with creating things that you can’t in live action. I guess the audience comes to expect something different from animation, as a medium. For me, the ability to stylistically exaggerate in different ways allow for this kind of humour to work. An audience isn’t going to simply find coughing up smoke humorous - but when the smoke is made up of hundreds of cotton balls- its something fresh and unexpected. Same with the abundance of plasticine blood thats seen as Wally slams his head against the typewriter".

Darcy's work appears to have a very distinct style. In particular, Easy Way Out - Gotye, is very clever in the way the shot has bee constructed, to suggest a continuous spinning shot. Darcy also appears to try and capture the mood, tone and message of the song, in order to demonstrate the depressive elements of repetition, as the audience see the main character, unable to break free of his own routine. Darcy said, "I wanted the rotation to be almost like a clock - turning in accordance with the day, but on every pass, he falls slightly behind and before long becomes a victim of his own making." Darcy has used many different forms of inspiration for this video, one of which being a 1980s animation 'Tango', which became an initial point of reference, due to it's clever use of loops.