Audeince interivew

The Echos target market is girls aged 10-17 years, who watch the Disney Channel, Like the Twilight Saga, there spend their weekends going to the cinema or shopping with their friends. Their favourite musicians include, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato.

According to rubicame and young ideas they are explorers looking for the need to discover themselves, wanting to do ‘Great Things’ they are aspire wanting to be perceived as the best and being popular and also belong in the mainstreamed category by following what is popular.

For my audience research I interviewed a couple of people from this target market.

Interview:

1. What do you expect to see in a music video that is made by a group like the Jonas Brothers, but instead they are girls?
A: lots of instruments, a handsome guy and to have the video made in a school.
E: for it to be something like High School Musical, very Disney and fun.
C: I expect to see an attractive person and the band having a good time.
M: I would expect to see people being happy.
R: I would expect to see, people dressing up, having fun, getting chased and handsome guys.
J: a chase seen probably and lots of close ups.

2. How would you expect an album cover to look like?

A: bright and bold something that standout of the shelf.
E: something with the bands faces, and a girly colour.
C: Bright, with writing that catches your eye.
M: Something that's bold.
R: something that catches your eye, maybe a purple colour as they are girls.
J: something that has the band on it.

3. How much would you pay for an album?
A: £10
E: probably about £8-£10 depending on how popular the band is,
Rest: yeah probably £10.

4. What costumes do you expect to see in the music video?
A: dresses.
E: classic prom dresses.
C: yeah, I agree defiantly dresses.
M: Dresses but have a casual look to.
R: yeah like jeans and a plaid t-shirt, like Demi Lovato.

5. What locations do you expect to see in the video?
All: school.
E: like High School Musical, especially if it is low budget because schools aren't very expensive to shoot at.

6. How do you hear about bands?
A: through sites like myspace and facebook,
E: through word of mouth, my friends usually like a band and then tell me about it or the other way around.
R: through interviews in a magazine, or adverts of concert dates.
M: through my friends ipods, or they might send me some of their downloads by email, of bands they like.
C: though radio stations or MTV and the Disney Channel.

7. What do you think of piracy?
M: I think its a really bad thing, however we are students and don't have a lot of money so can't really spend money on getting albums,
E: I agree, however i think that we should be able to buy a couple of songs that we really like from I-tunes even if its not the whole album.
J: I feel that piracy is a really bad think, and maybe more musicians should be like Radio head and let their fans decide how much their music is worth, hopefully that would put a stop to so much piracy.

8. What do you think concert tickets are too expensive and how much would you spend on them, also where do you get your tickets from?
A: I think the price of some artists/bands tickets are ridiculous such as Mylie Cyrus, the majority of her fans are children, yet her ticket prices are £60, that like saying to a parent, even though my music isn't really for you, why don't you pay £120 for tickets to see me.
E: I agree some concert tickets are really over priced, however I wouldn't mind spending £10-£20 for a new band and £30-£40 for popular bands I mean the Jonas Brothers tickets are £40 and their as popular as Mylie Cyrus.
R: yeah i agree £10-£40, i also get my tickets at Ticketmaster.
C: yeah i get my tickets at Ticketmaster or on the bands website.

9. How much money would you spend on merchandise? And do you write your favourite bands name in your notebooks whilst doodling?
J: i would definitely by the bands t-shirt or hoddies, yeah I do, so it helps that the font isn't to complicated.
A: band t-shirt, no not really.
R: I would buy everything such as t-shirts, hoddies, bags and calenders, yeah the Jonas Brothers are my favorite band, so I like the fact that their band logo isn't to complicated and hard to copy.
M: yeah i would probably buy the a band t-shirt.

10. What you like about bands like the Jonas Brothers and what do you think other bands that are like them should do?
A: i like the fact that they make web casts for their fans on face book, as it is a great way of interacting with them, so it would be cool if another band did that.
E: yeah i like the fact that they have a twitter account, so a band should defiantly have one so that their fans can interact with them.
R: The Jo Bros are really charitable to if a band had their own charity or gave money to one, I think that will gain them popularity as it would show that they are good people, also Kevin is very good looking, so the band should have attractive people in it.
C: no Nick and Joe are really good looking, and I don't think that really matters as long as their music is good. Also they make really funny videos on you tube, so it would be good if the band did that so that they would come off us very funny and relatable, or maybe host a few award shows like the 'Teen Choice Awards'
J: I think the way they have different competitions are good as fans can win merchandise, I think it would be good if another upcoming band did that, it would also get them more noticed.

From doing this interview i found out that, the music video should have locations in a school as in High School Musical, and include fancy dresses such as prom dresses, the album should be bright and bold and maybe be the colour purple, the name of the band shouldn't have complex writing as fans won't be able to copy it, the album also it should be £10, that tickets should be priced at £10 and then slowly rise as the band gets more popular, and the band should also do different competitions in which fans can win merchandise, have live web cast for fans to interact with them, also have a charity, and have a twitter page like the one below.

www.twitter.com/TheEchosCoombe

Having done a rough cut I asked the same group of girls what they thought and this is what they said.

J: I think there needs to be a lot more close ups, as it looks more like a movie rather then a music video.
E: I think there needs to be a lot more cuts, as it is too slow passed.
C: It kind of looks boring and to simple.
A: there needs to be more instrumental pieces.
R: yeah like close ups of Kate singing, and it also looks to confusing, how did the band reunite? maybe you should include that in your video.
M: may you should include different locations.

Therefore i started to film more close ups, and instrumental bits, with different locations, such as the scientist bit where she is studying, as well as more complex stories such as the love triangle and the reunited sisters.
After I made the video I had them watch it and this is what they said;

1. Did you like the music video and if so what did you like?
R: I really liked it as it was fun and happy, and I especially liked the chase scene which showed the bands success.
A:I thought the editing was done really well, I also liked it because it showed a true portrayal of 'Great Things', I thought the guy was very handsome.
M: good, happy and fun rather than depressing and I also liked the bit when Kate threw the phone.
E: I really liked it as it was happy and fun and very High School Musical.
C: I liked it a lot, it reminded me of High School Musical, the location fit, and you saw the right amount of instruments.

2. What didn't you like?
M: the weird love triangle.
rest: nothing, we all thought it was really good.
A: the burring of the paper bit.
E: I thought the narrative was a bit confusing as it had to much going on.
R: I think you should have used more variety of close up shots.

I feel that I had overall positive feedback, and hopefully my target audience will see more of the under laying plot lines, as they watch the video more, getting it more viewings.

As a class when we had finished our music video we presented to the class and then we wrote good point and bad points about each others music videos.
my comments were:

'I liked the spirit of the video - it feels young so made sense to set it in a school setting. However I found the narrative a little confusing at times, why was the band being chased by girls?'

'Good: some nice edits. Bad: I didn't understand what was happening'

'I liked the editing, how it was all fitted together like the narrative, I don't think the location was right for the song and costume as well.'

' I thought the narrative was good, but the location was bad as you can tell that it was in a school'

'I thought the narrative was good, but the instruments were a bit out of synced'

'Edits were good, casting was quite believable and costumes was nice, but I didn't understand all of it, some drum bits were a bit out of synced'

'I liked the match on action edits, i thought when she threw the rose it worked really well.'
But I think the different narratives in the video weren't very clear'

'I liked the narrative, but the location could have been better'

'Narrative near the end was a little confusing, although I liked the way you told a story through the whole video'.

'like the pace of edits as it suited the music's pace, Kate was very good as lead singer as she was very believable, the music video was fun and interesting. However I didn't understand the story, the video had random close-ups, the drummer was bad, there was also a lack of imagination in costume and location as you can clearly see what they are.'

'really nice edits, but I lost the plot/narrative by the end'

'Singer looked believable, I also liked the edit where the phone is thrown and it cuts to the flower being thrown, however I was a little bit confused by the narrative'

'the edits were well thought about and constructed, but the narrative is confusing'

'good casting, good narrative through the whole video, should have filmed in other locations and synced the instruments better'

'edits are really fast and snappy, really fit in with music casting is quite on point, however you should have used different costumes as a black prom dress don't really combine too well together, you need more narrative.'

'I liked the shots where he rose was used by the wall, however I didn't understand the narrative or characters'.

The main points taken from the class quotes (above) is that the narrative is to confusing however I feel that this problem can be over come by the audience watching the music video multiple times, all I feel that having a complex narrative will gain the video more viewings as it will help the audience to deduce the plots. However I feel that I could have made the narrative less complex by showing all the girls starting off in school then, becoming their different careers. Also if I had more access to different actors, then the different characters in each short sketch could have been played by someone other then the people in the band for example, when Aysia is asking for Kate's autograph, the 'fan' could have been played by someone else. Some people also said that the ending was confusing, however i wanted to show the band becoming successful and being chased by fans, (inspiration was taken from the 'Jonas Brothers 3D concert experience' film). However some people liked the narrative which is a good thing and proves that in the media industry some people will like your work but others wont. Everyone liked the edits as they thought it was fast paced and liked the cast choice, which proves that I made the right decision in casting Kate as the lead singer.
Some people didn't like the location, however I wanted to attract the Disney 'High School Musical' loving teenagers, therefore thought filming in school would go well with my music video, also many artist have had their music video's in schools such as Taylor Swift, Mylie Cyrus, Paramore. Shooting in a school also goes with the youthfulness of the song, so is retable to my target audience.