Research Methods - Key Terms

Key Terms

Production Research (Textual Analysis): The research conducted to inform the production process of a media product, eg, techniques, locations, genre ect.

Market Research (Qualitative): more thorough investigation into the reasons why products are produced and how they appeal to the consumer
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Audience Research (Quantative): the analysis of who consumes what the media produces and why.

 Types of Research

Primary:
Involves material and information which has been found ‘for the first time’ by the researcher.
This would include material found using techniques such as:

• Observations made when viewing a show, performance or on visiting a location
• Interviews with people
• Reports of meetings/discussions with people
• The collection of information from quenstionnaired or surveys
• Focus group activities

Secondary:
Information or material which is collected by looking at the findings of others.
Secondary research techniques would include:

• Referring to books, journals, magazines and newspapers
• Gathering information from the internet
• Making notes on information presented on audio visual formats like DVDs, videos or CDs

Reliability and Validity
There are many techniques that can be employed when researching. However it is vital that you choose the right one to ensure that your information is:
Reliable: whether this can be trusted as a source of information. Could it be biased by peoples opinions or effected by flaws in their research methods? If this activity was done again, would it get the same results?
Validity: the relevance of information to your investigation. Can you determine that it proves what you think it does (Ie. If an interviewee reveals something can you give a direct quote that backs this up?)

Survey Evaluation - Music Video

I believe the results of the survey went well as the data proves a wide variety of people with different views completed the survey making it fair and unbiased.

To improve my survey I believe I could have included better questions to get a larger variety of results which could have helped my adjust and develop my music video.

I also feel that I could have targeted more people to allow my survay to gain more accurate and trustworthy results. I should have allowed myself more time to broadcast my survey andcollect more data. I could have shared iton more social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and linked it in my personal social media pages. I only shared my survey via email which resulted in a smaller reach of people and less accurate and reliable results.

Music Video Survey Results and Comments

This shows us that the survey reached mostly the age group that will also be my target audience, therefore the results will help me more with how I will change and develop my music video.



My music video will not be targeted at any specific gender and will not include anything such as the male gaze theory or content that could only target one gender These results will not waver the development of my music video but have helped me distinguish the differences in feedback from men/women.

  
The two most popular choices for this question were Indie music and Chart Music (mainstream), bothreaching 60%. Second were Hip-Hop, R'n'B and Pop at 40% andClassical, Rap and Reggae drew at 20%. I am happy with these results as it confirms that there is a large variety of music preference between the people who took my survey making the results less biased. Also, the results worked in my favour as I was hoping to use either an Indie, R'n'B/Hip-hop track to do my music video to.



This data shows that my survey has reached the right people and will be helpful results.



This result shows that moslty people prefer an abstract style music video (conceptual/experimental) with no clear storyline. I have been planning to show a very basic narrative to my music video just showing progression of the characters through the woods but these results have made me reconsider.

My Music Video Evaluation - Rejjie Snow - Purple Tuesday

I decided to shoot my video in a wooded area near Binley in Coventry. I made sure I planned it for a sunny day so I could get bright, clear footage. Downsides to choosing this location was that it was quite out of the way and my GoPro battery life would have to be used sparingly as there were no other sunny days to shoot. Limiting myself to one day to shoot all the main footage resulted in the outcome to be a little bit messy. I chose to film my video hand held as I hoped for it to turn out to be more personal to the audience and to be more upbeat and "playful". I tried to capture the essence of adventure by running with the camera and trying to shoot everything I love about the outdoors. This included various shots and pans, closeups of flowers and wind blowing through leaves. I hoped to lift the spirit of the audience and encapsulate them in the footage giving them the allusion of being there, running round with us like kids in the forest.
An issue I had with the GoPro, was that I was not able to zoom and it auto-focuses. I had to connect it to my phone to view what I was capturing (while I was capturing it ) and overall it just turned out to be a bit of a nuisance. Positives of the GoPro is thaat I had created a mount that wrapped nicely around my hand making it easy to run around and climb trees with.

A problem I encountered was that I did not have a tripod. I tackled this issue by resting the camera on trees or on the floor. This ended up working in my favour in the cartwheel shot as the grass peeks through in the foreground creating a more earthy feel to the video. It conformed to the forest and nature theme.

EDITING 

Overall, I found the editingprocess for this specific piece the most difficult. This is so because I edited last minute and didn't allow myself any time to fix any set backs. One of my set-backs was that my laptop was not good enough to fully support the high quality footage. This resulted in freezing during editing and it tripled my editing time overall. It resulted in me making changes such as cutting, making shots slo-mo etc and not actually being able to watch my changes back. This caused messiness and I felt like I was editing blind and guessing what I was doing to things. Shots becameoff-beat and I just ended up completely disappointed with the outcome of the video.
I now intend to use a different, faster, laptop to brush up and fix the piece, hopefully resulting in a better product. I will discuss changes I can make with my tutor and will post the results on my blog.

An aspect I was happy with was that I decided to use footage to illustrate the lyrics "blowing bubbles". I found some uncopyrighted footage of underwater bubbles and overlapped it over a tree shot. This worked really nicely. Also, using over lapping, I combined two shots, one of a spinning buttercup, and the other of Ray putting a flower in my hair. I did this by adjusting the opacity of the overlapping flower shot, and using a transition effect of a fade in and out.



Overall I feel the music video itself was filmed and edited well, , but I believe that, with more time, it could have been perfected and hopefully will be. For the space of time I created this in, I am impressed with the outcome, and am mostly impressed with the camera and lighting techniques I used; I made sure it was filmed on an extremely sunny day so it would conform to the natural vibe I was going for. I have become more and more competent using the editing software and the filming settings on the camera. This experience has allowed me to make more executive decisions about lighting and camera angles. The hardest part of this unit was editing, as I wanted to experiment with live editing, but as my laptop couldnt handle the quality of the footage, I didn't get round to experimenting with this. Next time, I aim to experiment with and become confident with live editing.

My Music Video: Rejjie Snow - Purple Tuesday

Music Video Survey - Quantitative Data

I have created a survey on survey monkey to collect quantitative data. This will help me to see what kind of music videos different people prefer ans the collective results will help medecide what I shall do for mine. 

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RV82RJL

Andrew Goodwin and Music Video Theory

Andrew Goodwin was a director of music and a media theorist. Upon spending his years analysing and developing upon music videos and their production, he published a book entitled Dancing In The Distraction Factory. This book told the audience all of the theories he believes reside inside music videos. He came up with some codes and conventions that he states are most typically found in every music video that has been uploaded.

Record Label Demands

Record labels often have certain high demands, that can include things such as close ups of the artist or require a certain theme or style that recurs across their work. (For example The 1975 with their black and white era that portrayed them as sad indie musicians in order to bring in the teenage crowd that have a disposable income)

Genre Characteristics

Music videos more often than not, include a demonstration of typical genre characteristics. And certain genres will have specific codes and conventions. For example if you were to watch a music video of a live performance, nine times out of ten its a rock or metal video, this is so the audience get an idea of the amount of energy they put into their music and just by watching the music video they see a demonstration (e.g All My Life by Foo Fighters)

Also film genres can link into this as they can have a huge impact on producing music videos, for example a lot of rock videos get inspiration from horror movies and the horror genre. 

He stated five key setups for a music video that help to analyse it

-Stadium/studio Performance

-Location

-Narrative

-Conceptual/ Experimental

The stadium performances, as mentioned, are mainly used for rock music to highlight the enthusiasm and (with the use of close ups) the physical endurance. But studio sessions are more stripped back, usually used for sad and meaningful songs that will show the artist in a more vulnerable state. 

Voyeurism

There are frequent references to the notion of looking and the voyeuristic treatment of both genders in a sexual manual in order to sell records. This can also include the use of props, for example items such as TV screens, telescopes, binoculars or mirrors.

Intertextual References

This point is the use of other texts (such as films, TV shows, other music videos) within a music video. (e.g The Kill by 30 Seconds To Mars and their video inspired by The Shining) This can bring in an audience that are fans of the interxtual reference but also gives more depth to the production and shows there has been more thought behind it