Survey for the music video.

I advertised my survey via Facebook via http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HWSD5LY

For this I only survey people who were interested in Indie music, to find out who my target audience were and what they preferred. This is so I can construct the music video to appeal to them.

I asked a range of open and closed questions, using surveymonkey.com to create the survey.


These were the questions and the responses:-


1. How old are you?

Our target audience are people between 0 and 35. However, 83% were 16 to 25 years old.

2. Which gender?
The majority were girls: 67% female vs. 33% male.

3. Would you prefer to watch a video that had a male or a female as the central protagonist?
67% said they would prefer a female as the protagonist. I received comments like "men are horrible" and "a bit of eye candy" and "I have no real preference, but I like bands with a strong, exciting female lead singer e.g. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Crystal Castles, Blondie".


See below a screenshot of some open responses.
























4. Tick which stereotypes you would associate with Indie/Alternative listeners.


5. How would you prefer women and men to be represented? (Tick TWO please)

The survey said: -

Women should be pretty, fun loving, attractive, but not sexualised. = 100%

Men should be represented as confident, fun loving and good looking. = 33%


6. Which sort of dancing would you prefer to watch and expect of an Indie video?

80 % said they'd prefer and expect to see a group that dance that dance naturally and spontaeously, playfully and carefree.

7. Do you prefer the cuts used in Bloc Party's 'Helicopter' or Coldplay's 'Stawberry Swing'?

100% said that Helipcopter's jump cuts and variety of angles were better than Strawberry Swing's stop animation from a fixed angle.

8. Do you feel that special effects intice you to watch a music video?

67% said yes to this.

See below some open responses to this.
























9. Which do you think is 'indier' to wear at a party?

83% said that animal masks were more conventional of the Indie genre.

Party!

Today, we felt uninspired to start out story board, as we were having doubts about how to construct our idea.

We discovered problems such as:

• Where would we shoot it?
• How could we get the camera so high that it would fit in the character and its surroundings?
• How could we suspend it? Would it be dangerous for us, and the equipment?
• How could we find a way to keep the camera in position while we move the objects for the next shot?

Billie was busy showing us videos that she'd seen over the weekend.

We particularly fell in love with this video:

We loved its fun nature; the dancing!; the fact that it was upbeat (compared to our current, dull song choice); the fact that it mixed real and non-real footage much like we wanted in the first place.

Our new plans are to stage a house party. We will have a set of planned actions for the guests to perform (such as, a routine dance; playing spin the bottle, etc). We will film these first, and then take turns to film general candid party-behaviour. Between real footage, we will insert short stop frame animations of, for example: a growing pile of shoes (as guests arrive) and emptying beer glasses.

Our movie will reflect young life: a scene that listeners of Indie music will be able to relate to.

Choice of Song!!!

From the last post, you will be able to see that I have posted two sets of lyrics for two different songs: Castaway and Hold On.

We have as a group decided that they were not suitable for our production (see the reasons why below). Instead, we have decided to use the song from Jamendo.com that I found and introduced to the group.

It is called LOOK AT THAT RABBIT GO! and is by a band called HAPPINESS.


Why I didn't choose the two first songs that we found:-

*The beat was too slow and therefore depressing.
*This depressing nature doesn't reflect the ideologies we associate with young, fun, Indie followers - like ourselves.
*The ideas we had for music videos to accompany them were unrealistic to produce.
[1). A time consuming chalk-drawn stop animation, inspired by Coldplay's music video]
[2). A bird's eye view of someone dancing on a bed/grass, using stop animation. This would require a boom to attach the camera, which is not accessible].

Why I chose Happiness' 'Look at that rabbit go!':-

*Happiness reflects the happy-go-lucky disposition of Indie followers.
*''Look at that rabbit go!' is a quirky song title. Quirky things appeal to Indie followers.
*The song was upbeat. This would allow us to have fun with editing to the beat; thus creating an upbeat feeling.
*The lyrics inspired an achievable idea for the music video: "Occupy my empty house" inspired the idea of representing a house-party.

Lyrics for inspiration

HOLD ON - Gareth Johnson

stand tall my friend

we will back again

hol on hold on

it's the same for everyone

you've walked for miles

inside these shoes

never gave up

got nothing left to lose

hold on hold on

it's the same for everyone

hold on hold on

it's the same for everyone

hold on hold on

it's the same for everyone

CASTAWAY - Barrie Gledlin

summer love

oceans still left to cross

cast away

on a moment

friendly word

whispers left unheard

on a shell

out of mind and out of reaching

a change in me

a change in you

funny how fragile change is

seasons ripe

seasons fall

pass me by

ocean left to cry

no one knows

where the hurt is

hidden smile

i know ill breathe alright

sun will shine

close my eyes and feel you breathing

a change in me

a change in you

funny how fragile change is

seasons ripe

seasons fall

Target Audiences

1. Do you think that a Text creates and audience, or vice versa?

• Audiences shapes the outcome of the text
• Text has to exist first
• The relationship is not direct, it is complicated, as the audienc'es preferences vary.

2. We watched, on Youtube "A Short History of Marketing"

• It showed that brand loyalties used to exist.
• But then, the number of companies escalated.
• For example, there are now lots of ways to access music, instead of just one.
• Many different music distributers exist today, and some offer more narrow genres (e.g. just RnB).
• You can buy CDs, download, go clubbing, music channels, word of mouth, adverts, myspace, youtube, radio, shops.

3. Where would we reach our audience? We'd broadcast our music video on the music channels: Mtv2 and Q. And on radio channels: Radio 1 and XFM.

4. Does music create an identity?

I researched whether music tastes say something about your personality.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7598549.stm

INDIE

Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle

Whereas,
SOUL
High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease

5. Are we secondary or tertiary users?

• We are secondary users when we choose to play the music - when we play music on our iPOD.
• We are tertiary users when we walk into a shop, and the music playing in the background is not chosen by us.
• We are, however, given the choice to be secondary users in some cases. For example, in some shops, jukeboxes are available. They are intended to entertain the boyfriend when the girlfriend is taking forever in teh changing rooms. But the main preferred reading is to keep the people in the shop, to heighten the chance of them buying something, too.

Audience. (Media Concepts)

Hypodermic Syringe Model

It refers to the media being like a syringe that injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who are powerless to it therefore are under the influence. This theory is based on the actions of people after watching films, especially violent ones, such as A Clockwork Orange. An example is Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer, who watched a clip of his favourite film to excite him before a murder. This example also rejects the theory as others who watched the same movie, Star Wars, did not have a similar reaction.

Cultivation Model

This is an advanced take of the hypodermic syringe theory. It states that although one viewing may not have much of an effect years of viewing may make people become desensitised. This means people may become less shocked by real life violence making it become ‘normal’ especially if the violent behaviour goes unpunished. The opposite to this is sensitisation where the violence is so shocking it puts people off and makes them more aware.

Gratification Theory

According to this theory we all make our own choices concerning what we watch to satisfy our own needs. It is has been scaled down into 4 types of gratification.

Information: we want to find out about society and the world.

Personal Identity: we watch television to look for someone to model our behaviour on.

Social Interaction: to find out more about other peoples circumstances e.g. empathise

Entertainment: we use media for enjoyment, relaxation and to fill time.

However it ignores the fact we do not always have complete choice as someone else may have chosen the programme we are watching or the posters that we are objected to as we go about our daily business.

Reception Analysis

This insinuates that the audience themselves create the meaning of the media text they are looking at therefore even though people are watching the same programme they still have the opportunity to find a different meaning in it. Factors that may influence the meaning we create are gender, our place in society and the context of the time we are living in. David Morely stated that there are three different groups based on the readings of peoples texts.

Preferred: the meaning media producers hope people will take from the text.

Oppositional: people who reject the preferred, and receive their own alternative meaning

Negotiated: people acknowledging the preferred reading but modifying it to suit their own opinion.

_________________________________

Market Research

We've set out to survey a group (of FORTY??? people) to gather some market research.

The aim of the survey is to discover, in brief, the habits of

The History of Alternative/Indie Rock

RESEARCHING AND UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY OF MY CHOSEN GENRE: -

[[[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_rock ]]]

Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s. The term is often used to describe the means of production and distribution of independent underground music, as well as the style of music that was first associated with this means of production. Indie rock artists are known for placing a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, releasing albums on independent record labels (sometimes self-owned and operated) and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, airplay on independent or college radio stations, and in recent years, the Internet for promotion. Musicians classified as indie rock are typically signed to independent record labels, rather than major record labels, although there are many examples of indie musicians switching to major labels mid-career. This practice blurs the lines between indie and mainstream music and is often the subject of debate amongst fans. Indeed, some bands that have spent most of their careers on major labels are still occasionally referred to by the press as indie rock because of their sound or aesthetic.

Stylistic origins	Alternative rock, Post-punk,Electronic music
Cultural origins	Early 1980s, United Kingdom,United States and Canada.
Typical instruments	Guitar – bass – Drums –Keyboard – Synthesizer
Mainstream popularity	Widespread worldwide in the 2000s.

[[[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_rock#British_genres_and_trends_of_the_1980s ]]]

Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative; known primarily in the UK as indie) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop.

One of the key alternative rock bands to emerge during the 1980s was Manchester's The Smiths. Music journalist Simon Reynolds singled out The Smiths and their American contemporaries R.E.M. as "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day", commenting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". Despite the band's limited chart success and short career, The Smiths exerted an influence over the British indie scene through the end of the decade, as various bands drew from singer Morrissey's English-centered lyrical topics and guitarist Johnny Marr's jangly guitar-playing style.

The C86 cassette, a 1986 NME premium featuring such bands as The Wedding Present, Primal Scream, The Pastels, and the Soup Dragons, was a major influence on the development of indie pop and the British indie scene as a whole.

Other forms of alternative rock developed in the UK during the 1980s. The Jesus and Mary Chain wrapped their pop melodies in walls of guitar noise, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with technoand house music.

Shoegazing bands dominated the British music press at the end of the decade along with the drug-fueled Madchester scene. Madchester bands such as The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays mixed acid house dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop.

Stylistic origins	Punk rock, post-punk, hardcore punk
Cultural origins	Early 1980s United Kingdom and United States
Typical instruments	Electric guitar – Bass – drums
Mainstream popularity	Limited before the success of grunge and Britpop in the 1990s. Widespread since then.

Unsigned = Uncopyrighted?

Having failed the other day at finding inspiring music from Jamendo.com...

I have been hunting down Unsigned bands/artists that classify themselves in the Indie/Alternative genre.

I assume that Unsigned bands' music would be un-copyrighted - which would help us over the Copyright issue, and thus the obstacle of making our own song via GarageBand. It's not out of laziness, but rather lack of musical talent within the group that we have come to this decision. Also, it would mean that we could use this time to realise our ideas for our music video.

I found a range of artists via Myspace.com. They are as follows: Two Door Cinema Club; The Filthy Youth; Olivia Broadfield; Bombay Bicycle Club; Slow Club.

Being unsure about whether unsigned bands = un-copyrighted songs, I decided to tackle the question firsthand by e-mailing each band with the following. I'm awaiting replies.

"" Hiya,

I'm an A2 student, and have been given a project to make a music video, website design, and album cover for a band.

But, it has to be sans-copyright. Am I right/wrong in saying that Unsigned Artists' music is un-copyrighted?

I really love your music, would you be okay with me using it for this task?

Thanks, and be in touch...

claudiagardnerpickett@gmail.com ""

Jamendo.com - Researching Indie Songs

Jamendo.com is a site that allows you to download uncopyrighted music.

I searched through a few Indie/Alternative artists.

I found: Happiness; Garp; Hello Citizen; Not From Georgia; and, VANDA.

I sampled a song, and then downloaded each of their albums.

However, after listening to their albums again, I didn't feel any of them inspired me.