What research was useful and what was least useful and why?
I think the research that has helped me the most is the technical, because it has given me the ability to achieve different skills which will then improve my music video. Researching into different ways I could show self harm sensitively really helped as flares and smoke bombs are hard to get hold of. Another part of my research I completed that has helped me is the Contextual research. This has helped me understand why the directors of some music videos have deeply chosen what they did. For example in Sleepingwalking by Bring me the horizon, they have used a number of red items to add to the surrealism effect, making the music video seem like there’s more to it than there actually is. This has helped me be more creative with my idea and add more surrealism/symbolism as most music videos in this type of genre use a lot of symbolism to tell a story, as most music videos don’t literally interpret lyrics.
There was one major part of my research that wasn’t very useful. My survey didn’t get enough respondents to have accurate enough data. This is because the band I have chosen is such a small band. I therefore had to conduct some more in depth secondary research, looking at album reviews and the conventions of the genre and a focus group to get more of an understanding of what people like want to see in my music video. This proved quite time consuming as I had to do even more work due to not enough respondents. Everything else that I researched about was useful to me as it expanded my knowledge and my idea. For example, the secondary audience research helped me find out the types of people who will want to watch my music video.
How did it inform your idea, change your idea, inform your style, understand your audience?
Completing this research has made me change and think about different bits of my idea.
For example instead of using flares I have come researched multiple alternatives and will now be using ink/food colouring in a bath. Another thing I have thought about changing is filming the chase scene when it’s starting to get dark to add suspension. I will not be doing this as unfortunately under trees are quite dark already and with the sun setting I wouldn’t be able to get enough light to shoot my scenes. I have thought about using artificial lights, however have realised that it will be to difficult to complete as most lights need electricity and the aperture lights are usually booked weeks in advance.
What have you learnt?
The technical research has taught me the most as I have overcome many flaws and now have more skills to produce a better quality music video. I now know what type of audience listen to the band and what is the typical person who listens to that genre. This information has helped in my ideas as I now know what type of clothing my actors should wear and what types of music videos consumers like to watch.
My FMP work 