Pre-Production analysing survey results -audience research

During this week myself and Sam thought up questions to put into a survey using Survey Monkey for our audience research. We asked questions involving topics such as age, race, style, clothing, camera movements, design and typography to help us see what our audience is interested in viewing. 18 people answered our survey and gave us feedback on what they would prefer seeing or what they think would be the best route to choose regarding our music video.

The first question we asked was "Do you like the concept? if not please specify why." and the response we recieved for it was mainly positive. 57% of people thought the initial idea was an interesting one. The question had a choice of 'No, it has no appeal what so ever' but no one gave us a verbal response- but we are quite happy with what we already have planned and seeing as the majority of people like the idea, we feel it will be successful. If we had an explanation from the person who answered with "no, it has no appeal what so ever" we would have taken into consideration of how to approve our initial idea. This is one of the problems of using a survey, not everyone are interested in answering or typing anwers into boxes which give them flexibility to express their opinion.

The second question was based around style and costume to see which 'look' the consumer would prefer to see in the video. We will definitelty take forward what the feedback suggests. All the options have almost gotten the same amount of responses, there was a verbal response of "Levis Jeans with a Hugo Boss shirt to indicate that he has everything apart from his love". I discussed this with sam and found out what his opinion is on the matter and we decided to create a compromise and instead of wearing one style of clothing, during our production stage we can arrange to take numerous outfits including the one suggested by an audience member.

 The font we intended to go with was something along the lines of 'InkBoy font' or 'ArtBrush' on dafont.com but we recieved feedback saying otherwise. We wanted to know what would stand out more to our audience and seeing as the majority of them thought "bold and colourful font" would suit the brand of the artist best, we have made the final conclusion to use 'ArtBrush'. The answer to this particular question has influenced us but not made us change anything we have already planned out. We aimed to learn what the consumer wanted and our feedback reflects that our decision is wise.

The next question aimed to ask the audience what they were most interested in seeing and the two answers which were most voted for were "Narrative (A story) line involving the band" and "A performance and narrative"- this boosts our confidence in our plan to do a three dimentional video with two sets of performance, one by the artist, one by a person playing a guitar and the last as a narrative. We learned most people enjoy watching a story with the video- I find that it could be because they like seeing something in corrolation to the song so they have something to imagine or remember when they hear the song.

The artist most compared to Balloon Ride Fantasy are the 'Kings of Leon'. They have a very strong rock theme to their videos and songs. The style we have chosen to go with is quite different to the kings of leon, but we will take certain things on board. The kings of Leon have very tasteful, modern indie clothing, sometimes their choice of fashion is quite subtle but sometimes it is bold, we will follow the same path and make our 'artist' look like a young adult with a 'rock and roll' flair as well as a subtle indie look. The audience replied with some feedback saying that "Blink-182", "Guns and Roses" and "Neon trees, owl city, the killers" are similar to our artists as well. We have decided to have a slight childish flair as 'Owl City' has- (we will use a balloon in our ancillary products and in the end of our music video.)

The mise-en-scene we had already decided on was 'local' and 'central london'. This doesn't influence our decision but it does enforce that our initial idea for location is strong and people will appreciate it. We are limited with location to begin with and using london city (its main land marks) will be significant in setting out the 'london rocker' setting. No one voted for 'inside school' meaning we will definitely not be incorporating high school teenagers, instead of a boy or a teenager, we will use an office with in the school and make it look like a business work place for the narrative section of the video.

The age group that would be most interested in our theme, style, concept and song would be people between the ages of 16 and 24 as they are most voted for. We would round it up to a generation of about 10 years, so we are going to aim for the target audience of 15-25 as this is the age range for all prime 'love problems' that our video will be demonstrating. Some teenagers propose too young and get rejected and some young adults propose and are rejected by their partner because they want to experience life. Not everyone will be able to relate to the video because everyone do not necessarily have the idea of marriage denied, but they have had some sort of a rejection. Whether if that is being rejected by a person they like, a person they had a crush on, a long term relationship that may have ended. Our video sets up a situation where the audience who haven't experienced heart break to feel sorry for the person who has. 

Most people listen to music through youtube, as this is the fastest and easiest recourse to use. Not only does Youtube allow you to listen to the music it allows you to enjoy the music video for free, along with being able to interact with other people in the comments section. It works as a playlist as well because of certain features youtube has introduced into its interface. Our video will definitely be posted on to youtube, we had finalized this since the beginning.

We are going to use Sam as our 'artist' due to easy access, although most people voted for 'brunette hair' we have no choice but to use someone with ginger hair. This was our initial idea and although people expect brunette hair, we can give a 'shock factor' in our video by having the unexpected. With this question we wanted to know what type of a person the audience imagine and which type of a look they are most interested in seeing. A lot of people did actually answer with "caucasian with ginger hair".

From this we have learnt that people like movement. They like to see constant panning or tilting movement which we have already planned out. We are going to use a number of high and low angle shots as well as zoomed images and close ups of the artist singing. The plan for editing is to keep the camera moving until the very last few seconds where the camera remains still to connote the heartbreak of the main character in our narrative. We will have a few close ups of the artists face as well as his hands and a 'side on' close up from a high angle. Through doing this the hair will be quite highlighted therefore boosting the slight 'shock factor'. One person responded with 'fade ins and outs' which we will use at the beginning and at the end, then through the middle when he is on one knee proposing to his lover, and she rejects him. The black outs will seem almost like time speeding up and moments going so fast its like a flash.