Music Video First Edit/Focus Group

Music Video First Edit/Focus Groups

Music Video First Edit

This edit of my music video is an early version, I want feedback from my respondents. So I can make changes before the final version.

Focus Group

The focus group was used for the goal of obtaining feedback on how to better improve this edit for the final music video for my respondents by being given specific examples from my respondents that I can remove or expand on in the final version.

It consisted of a small 3 person group of non-listeners to the music videos song by "I Monster" that were sampled randomly from a set of volunteers that said they were not fans of the artist in the questionnaire I conducted previously, this was because I wanted information that was unbiased/separated from the artist and the song itself, thereby gathering the fairest and unbiased opinion on how to improve the video, that wasn't focused on the artists brand identity.

Questions:

1.  Did You Find the Music Video Engaging?

If so why and what elements stood out to you?

Response:

The participants said they both enjoyed and engaged with this edit of the music video. The main thing that they cited as their main source of enjoyment was the performance segments and specifically the saxophone solo, which they said: "synched well with the music". Meaning that I successfully achieved an engaging use of match editing, they also said the "juxtaposition" of the slow start of the video with the performance segments created humour due to its clash in tone with the style of the video.

They also felt engaged from my use of colour, by using "darker" tones and shadows to match the feeling of the music.

One of my respondents remarked that my costume reminded them of John Lennon in the Beatles music video for Paperback Rider, which was unintentional intertextuality that could provide engagement for Beatle lovers who watch this video.

Another one of my respondents remarked on my use of text to highlight the narrative as they said "it kept it from becoming confusing" as it established a baseline for what was happening on screen so they weren't lost in the experimental segments of the video.

Overall, it seemed my focus group enjoyed the performance segments of the video above everything else.

2. Does the Imagery Link to the Music?

Despite your answer did it affect your engagement, could the video be improved with more match editing to the lyrics.

Response:

My respondents said that the imagery linked well with the music, as my use of colour coding and the overall tone of the visual matched the music, they also stated that my use of match style editing created engagement with them as viewers. They once again highlighted the performance segments as they felt this best-linked music to visuals literally as they saw the instrumental performances.

Seems like my use of match editing/synching the visuals with the pace/lyrics of the song created engagement with them as viewers, and I should focus on that for the final edit.

3. What Elements of the Video Could be Improved?

Such as a more linear narrative style, more edit to the beat editing, etc.

Response:

They "struggled" according to them to look for improvements in the edit, this meant I successfully created an engaging and enjoyable video for the audience as they found it difficult to find faults. Thereby achieving my goal of creating an entertaining piece of media for my audience. After some open discussion, they then stated that my use of colour in my video could be more consistent, leading into the next question on the list about my use of effects.

Overall it seemed that I didn't need to add anything extra to the video just build on the things I had already created.

4. The beginning of the video uses film burning effects and colour to mimic silent films, should the final video have these throughout or should these be removed from the video in favour of a consistent black and white style?

Response:

The respondents felt I could better incorporate my use of colour and burn effects to be spread throughout the video rather than just at the beginning, through discussion it seemed they wanted me to use these effects for some purpose of the narrative with one resident stating that I use the technique seen in Schindler's List (1993) with the little girl with the red coat being the only thing colour by having a black and white setting colour pallet but colouring one thing. This could be the man being tormented by the vampire in the video as it could be to highlight him as the protagonist.

Overall, they felt I could use colour to further the narrative of teh video forward with its use to imply emotions like blue for sadness, etc.

Changes I Made After the Focus Groups

My open questions for my focus group allowed me to collaborate a significant amount of data to use in my final edit. I successfully achieved my goal to find out if my audience was engaged with the techniques I choose in the video, I discovered that they enjoyed the performance segments of teh music video that created a humour juxtaposition with the german expressions style I was trying to achieve.

After this focus group I expanded my use of colour in y video which made it more constant throughout the video rather than occurring just at the beginning, this according to my sample would cause better engagement due to the visual focus on the colour standing out in the black and white colour pallet of the video, possible causing teh narrative to be more compelling/easy to understand.

I also tried to better create more edit matching visuals that my respondent's said they found engaging, so I added more footage to the beginning of teh video that better matched that slow place of the song at that point.

Overall, I feel that my focus group was a successful asset in the creation of this music video, as it helped me figure out what bits to focus on in the final edit which happened to be compelling match editing and the instrumental performance segments. However, I think I could have benefitted from a larger sample size as it meant I didn't get a varied opinion from people of different backgrounds and age groups, however, my questions for this sample size worked well despite being open-ended due to the small size of the group the data was still reliably easy to harvest/collect. This would not be the case if I had the group size above 6 people.