Primary research
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3QK5Y6J
I have created a survey to find out the type of audience that like the band I have chosen. I am hoping to find out their age, gender and the types of music videos they like.
From my survey I have found out that their audience is mixed gender 15 to 20 year old, but more female than male fans.
From the small amount of respondents I have had, I have found out that most people that listen to Our Last Night are in a relationship or are single.
The second thing I have found out from my survey is that most people prefer to either watch narrative based music videos. This strengthens my music video as most of it will be narrative based.
One final thing I have found out from my survey is most fans who listen to the band are students.
Proposal for focus group
My idea: The main character has been cyber bullied for years now. The first half of the music video is showing her getting hate messages and showing that shes starting to give up. The cyber bullying gets so much that she attempts suicide. the girl puts up a post saying “I hope your all happy” There is then a chase scene here
As someone on Facebook saw the GPS location and then runs to try and find her before she kills herself. There becomes more and more tension as the girl gets closer to suicide and the guy gets closer to finding her. I have ended it with the girl and the guy sitting on the tree, with guy comforting her.
Focus group Q & A
1) What do you think about my idea?
Person 1: I really like the idea. I think it’s good to acknowledge that social media is a big issue when it comes to suicide. Your idea shows that you cant escape social media and being bombarded with hate messages.
Person 2: it’s a really good idea because your taking a real life matter and telling everyone about a serious matter.
Person 3: I like that it acknowledges how a single person’s actions can affect another’s. How you can completely ruin someone emotionally and mentally or make them feel better without trying too hard to do it.
Person 4: I think its a really great idea because there is nothing worse than a boring music video so as there is tension through out and still ends with a happy ending i think it will keep the viewers entertained from start to finish and will be left content with the ending.
2) Do you think it suits the song and genre of the band?
Person 1: It does suit the genre of the band, even though they wouldn’t use asocial media influence to suicide. But I think it suits the genre of the band because it portrays the emotions and reactions which is what rock bands sing about.
Person 2:
Person 3: A lot of rock bands talk more of serious and personal issues so it’s very conventional.
Person 4: Yes I do as it is quite typical of the genre as bands from the genre typically talk about quite deep and dark subjects.
3) What do you think about the way I have ended the music video?
Person 1: It’s a good ending but will probably be hard to achieve.
Person 2: It’s a good ending which shows the audience that there are people out there that can help people that think about suicide.
Person 3: More of a positive outlook, which could give people more hope(?) however, it’s not that shocking and doesn’t impact a viewer in a way which they feel guilty. So, it may have only an impact on someone feeling this way.
Person 4: I think its a good ending as people generally prefer a happy ending in videos.
4) What should I improve on?
Person 1: Film the chase scene when it starts getting dark to add suspense.
Person 2: don’t know
Person 3: add symbolism so it comes across less basic.
Person 4: Not sure
Focus group summery
From my focus group I have found out that I have a strong idea and people like that I have have gone for a happy ending rather than a sad ending. A strength I am going to use is using symbolism so it doesn’t bore the viewers. I can achieve this by creating fast paced montage for just the chase scene and the rest more slower and use symbols to build up meaning, for example a grave.
Secondary research
About the band:
Our last night have been active since 2004. The origin of the band is Hollis, New Hampshire, united states.
The genre of the band was post-hardcore. (meaning) A punk rock music genre that derives from hardcore punk but emphasises a greater degree of creative expression, initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. The style of the music has changed and is now more alternative rock and pop punk. Similar bands of this genre are Sleeping With Sirens and We came with Romans.
The sort of subjects they sing about are; love and relationships, sad emotional experiences e.g death and the band travelling and touring, getting in the way of relationships and friendships.
Labels: Epitaph
They have 4 studio albums and 6 Ep’s, 3 recent albums Including Younger dreams and Oak Island.
Social media: On YouTube Our last night have nearly 950,000 Subscribers, Nearly 200 million channel views and 10,783,919. Their most popular song by them is ‘Sunrise’ (10,783,919 views) as a pose to “Home” (3,505,507 views) because more Teens can relate to being bullied than being in a long distance relationship at that young of an age.
They have 484,709 Likes on Facebook, Making Facebook their most popular and active use of social media.
On Twitter they have 97,000 followers with over 11 thousand tweets and on Instagram 106 thousand followers.
The band has a smaller fan base than most, eg sleeping with sirens or A day to remember which have quite a large fan base.
Their fan base is a mix of male and females but more males than females. From this photo below you can see that there are more male people commenting than females.
From this research I have found out that young teens can relate to being bullied rather than a long distance relationship, therefor I feel I have quite a strong idea and that I have chosen the right topic too create a music video for. This research has helped me to understand the viewing habits of Our Last Nights fans and the types of topics the band sings about.
As I expected I have not got enough responses from my survey. I will therefor have to do some more in depth research about the bands fan base.
In depth research:
I have looked at some reviews and have found the album “Younger dreams” had very mixed views. The main review stated this . “For Younger Dreams to be a truly outstanding record with the style they seem intent on writing, and capture the qualities found on their hugely popular covers, they need chorus’ that are as strong as the songs they cover, and only achieve this twice with White Tiger and A World Divided. The rest of the album is inoffensive, surely. Catchy, even. But larger than life? Firing on all cylinders? I don’t think so.”
In the comments section of this review there were many different opinions on the album ‘Younger dreams’ For example LoLifant said Totally disagree on almost everything in the review. Ghosts was their weakest imo. Also this is their first self-published album, so if anything, that is exactly the band they want to be.
Some of the heavier sections may feel out of place on the first listen but overall they have some nice heavy moments such as the awesome bridges on ‘Road To The Throne’ and ‘Living Now’. The falcetto sections of Matt also give some songs an extra little touch I wouldn’t want to miss and sometimes are essential (e.g. ‘Home’). Also, while relying on traditional song structure most of the time, it offers enough variation to keep things interesting (violines on ‘White Tiger’, choir on ‘Home’, several electronic openings, changes in pace + closer track is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before).
This proves that the band have a contradicting fan base and still have a lot of old fans who like their heavier songs.
http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/68008/Our-Last-Night-Younger-Dreams/
I have also looked at some reviews of the album ‘Oak island’ as the the song I am creating my music video for is from this album.
http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/64121/Our-Last-Night-Oak-Island/
From this review I have found out that most people were happy about this album as this was the reviewers summary, “All in all Oak Island is a standout for the lighter side of the genre. Every song is catchy enough to become ingrained in your head but lacks the sort of accessibility that could turn it into a guilty pleasure. Our Last Night is a rare example of how to make a simple and catchy album without sacrificing a moment of creativity. With this kind of output from a mere ep, one can only wonder how their next full length will turn out but if Oak Island is any indication, Our Last Night could be turning some heads.”
One final thing I have looked at more in depth is the types of fans that listen to the genre alternative rock/pop punk. From this research I have found that Lyrical topics that are common in pop punk include love, lust, drunkenness, adolescence, cartoonish violence and drugs.
I have found a lot of useful information from a prezi by Robyn Nicholls.
“The Pop Punk target audience would be boys or girls, but with the majority of the audience being females aged between 14 and 25. Their interests and hobbies may include listening to a lot of music, going to music festivals and gigs, playing video games, watching movies and TV, particularly channels such as scuzz and kerrang, reading magazines such as kerrang and spending time on the internet, particularly social media websites such as Facebook and twitter, which allow them to follow the latest news and updates on what their favourite bands are doing as well as allowing them to connect with other fans and band members. Their clothing style often reflects that of pop punk band members e.g. casual clothing is common such as jeans, t-shirts (particularly band t-shirts) and hoodies, with popular footwear. The target audience often have a fun and outgoing personality and enjoy socialising with friends, as well as having a good sense of humour. One final thing I found out was they often use the music to help them define their cultural and visual identity by dressing in a similar fashion to the band members, as well as getting piercings, and getting alternative, or edgy hair cuts or colours. Its also common for fans to get tattooed to signify their devotion to a particular band by getting a band logo or song lyric.”
Fans of the genre are usually very big music fans,
https://prezi.com/xi9q6yhp9hpk/the-pop-punk-genre-is-generally-aimed-at-a-niche-audience-si/
Audience profile
From my audience research I have found out that my audience of this genre is 14-25 year olds more being females than males. My audience for my band is 15-20 year olds, more male fans than female fans. My audience tend to wear casual teen clothing for example converse shoes and they prefer to see narrative and performance based music videos.
References
Wikipedia (2013) Our Last Night. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Last_Night (date accessed 09/04/17)
Facebook (2004) Our last night. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ourlastnightband/?fref=ts (date accessed 09/04/17)
Twitter (2009) Our last night. Available at: https://twitter.com/OLNband?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor (date accessed 09/04/17)
Instagram (2012) Our last night. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/olnband/?hl=en (date accessed 09/04/17)
Sputnikmusic (2015) Our last night, Available at: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/68008/Our-Last-Night-Younger-Dreams/ (Date accessed 21/04/17)
Sputnikmusic (2015) Our last night, Available at: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/64121/Our-Last-Night-Oak-Island/ (Date accessed 21/04/17)
Prezi (2014) Pop punk genre, Available at: https://prezi.com/xi9q6yhp9hpk/the-pop-punk-genre-is-generally-aimed-at-a-niche-audience-si/ (Date accessed 21/04/17)
My FMP work 