Focus Group - Audio session

Before producing any storyboards or detailed planning work for my music video I want to listen to the ideas of others to see what they would expect from my selected song, "Stressed Out" by Twenty One Pilots.

I spoke to various people that fitted into my target market group and asked them to listen to an mp3 of my song. This meant they would hear the lyrics and beat of the song but wouldn't get any visuals. I then asked them to write down any visual images that they thought of when listening to the song as this gave me an idea of how the song makes people feel. It was interesting to see what people thought of the song because they didn't know much about the artist before I told them more about the indie rock genre. 

Seb (left) said that the lyrics of the song made him think about time and childhood and how the artist is saying how much they miss their childhood. He also thought there was a reference to family with the line "when the momma sang us to sleep..." and thought this was something that could be focused on in the visuals of my music video. 

Will (middle) told me that he liked the song as a whole and thought it had a powerful beat that could be used to great effect. He also told me how he thought the song would work well with a narrative based music video rather than a performance based piece because there are some clear lyrics which could be represented through artistic and cinematographic techniques using camera angles, performance and editing. 

James (right) told me the song has a changing rhythm which is different to some other songs he's listened to recently. This is something he thought I should focus on and thought maybe I could try to use different speeds of editing to reflect on the changing speed of the song itself. 

I will take all of their advice forward into my project and will try to include some of their ideas, or elements of their ideas in my final music video. 

Indie Rock Questionnaire - Online Audience (Send Outs)

Having already gathered some basic target market group information I needed to develop my knowledge on more specific aspects about my audience. I wanted to find out more about the people answering my survey but also what people knew about my chosen genre, indie rock.

 One way of doing this was by creating an online survey which I constructed using the website "survey monkey.com". I created a short questionnaire which asked questions such as 'Have you heard of the indie rock artist Wolf Alice?' and 'In what form do you usually purchase music?'. These more detailed questions will give me a clearer picture of what my target market group would want from my media product and will therefore allow me to make a more suitable and successful music video.

 Once I had completed the creation of the survey I used my social media accounts to share the web address. This link provided a way for people who follow my Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook to navigate their way to the survey quickly and simply. This will help me to increase the amount of feedback I receive from people online and will add to my final results making the data more reliable. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are commonly used in the professional media industry because it provides a quick and easy way to contact hundreds of people with barely any cost. I used my personal accounts to share my web link and several of my friends shared my post and retweeted my tweet meaning more people will see it and therefore I am likely to get a greater amount of feedback.

The Tweet I sent from my Twitter account @The_Wiseman98

My Facebook post sharing the web link

Target Market Questionnaire - Online Audience (Send Outs)

Social media is a huge tool in all fields of design in today's creative industry. Advertising and marketing techniques have developed to suit the digitalisation and advancements in technologies as well as the ways in which we communicate.

With billions of users, Facebook and Twitter were my two main ways of getting my target audience to complete my survey. Using my personal account I was able to reach a wide spectrum of potential audience members. Friends, family members and friends of friends were all able to see my post and having had my post shared by several of my friends I was able to reach into the community even further. My post (right) and tweet (below) told people why I was doing the survey and how they could help me in my A Level coursework. I also added a link to the online survey which made it easy for people to access it quickly and easily.

Twitter is a good way to reach a lot of people because many people retweet more than they share on Facebook. This means my tweet would be likely to reach more people than a Facebook post would and would therefore boost feedback levels. My tweet (left) shows my short message and the survey link I left for people to follow. It was difficult for me to say much about my survey on Twitter because of the 140 character limit. However, I was able to compose a tweet which should increase response numbers enough to get a large amount of feedback to produce good quality feedback.



Getting some of my survey results online meant I could use the site 'survey monkey' to collect and analyse my results quickly and easily. This efficient work would mean I could progress to develop my ideas for the music video. Having the results easy to read would also make it much easier to compare answers and get a better representation of my target market group. This is important in the media and music industry because the producer must understand their audience in order to make sales and be successful.

I was able to reach a large number of people as I spread my message across several different social media sites. Some of my friends also shared the post (below) which meant the total people reach was greater. This means I will get much more results from more people completing the survey.

I will also carry out some research using printed questionnaires and surveys to ask in public however these will be more difficult to collect results for. Although, for some people, using a computer to do the survey may be difficult, especially if they have little knowledge of using this technology.