Target Audience Profile

After my research into what the primary audience of the indie genre enjoy, I decided to finalise my own target audience. This means the decision I make after now, will all be specific to one target audience rather that the indie audience in general.

How will this help me?
This will help me as now I understand my own target audience, the future research and decision I make regarding my final product can be specific to this. I can also consider artists who have a similar target audience and concentrate on them, for example, Lorde.

Target Audience Feedback: Audience

After my initial research into which genre we should chose, I decided to conduct another survey with my group. This time, we decided to make it more specific in terms of gaining feedback to help us decide on our target audience and what they enjoy. Therefore, before asking people to fill out our survey, we asked what their favourite music genre is. We only asked people who said 'indie' to complete it, allowing us to gain genre specific research. We also made sure to ask the age and gender of the person to make sure that we can decide our target audience based on the responses.

The first question was 'What Is Your Gender?'. Out of the 23 responses we gained in total, 16 of them were from females and only 7 were from males. This tells me that females may enjoy the indie genre more than males. Also, of these females 13 out of the 16 were within the 16-21 age range category, along with 4 out of the 7 males. Overall, this shows me that the primary target audience that appeal to the indie genre the most, are within the 16-21 age range.

The third question was 'Who Is Your Favourite Indie Artist?' and to make sure that our feedback is relevant to what appeared to be the primary audience of the indie genre, we filtered the results to only see the 16-21 age category. This left us with a total of 17 out of 23 responses. For this question we received answers of: Lana Del Rey (5), Lorde (3), Sia, Amy Winehouse, The Kooks, The 1975, The Arctic Monkeys and Hozier. When we looked at which gender had chosen which artists there was a very clear correlation between the gender of the respondent and the artist they’d chosen; females picked female single artists and males picked male bands.

Question four was 'What Is Your Favourite Indie Sub-genre?'. The options for this question were: pop, rock, folk, alternative and other. The most popular option was 'pop' with 8 responses. However, the distribution was still fairly even between 'rock' and 'alternative' gaining 4 and 5 votes each. the other two options gained no votes. This shows that pop is the most favourable however, it is very varied.

Question five was 'What Type of Artist Do You Prefer?'. For this question there were five options: single female artist, single male artist, female band, male band, mixed band. Out of these options, 'female single artist' was by far the most popular with 11 out of 17 votes. This is consistent with the answers for favourite indie artist; ten of the responses were female single artists. The other popular options were a male band with three votes (again conforming to question three’s responses), and all other options got one choice each.

Question 6 was 'Do You Prefer a Music Video That...' with the options being: features mainly a live performance, features mainly a narrative including the artist, features mainly a narrative with other actors, features a mixture of both live performance and narrative. The most common answer was, 'features mainly a narrative including the artist'. The options, ' features mainly a narrative including other actors' and ' features a mixture of both live and narrative performance' received four and five votes each. The least common was 'features mainly live performance'. This shows me that the audience prefer a music video that features some sort of narrative performance instead of just live performance. They also prefer for the artist to be within the music video themselves.

Question seven was, 'Do You Prefer a Complex or Simple Narrative?'. The 'complex' option for this question received 13 out of the 17 votes. This was expected as typically, the target audience for the indie genre has psychographics of enjoying intellectual topics, things with complex and deep meaning, and controversial topics.

Question 8 was, 'Do You Prefer a Narrative with a: sad ending, a happy ending or a narrative that isn’t resolved.' This question refers to Todorov’s narrative theory and after analysing existing music videos, there is a mixture of all three options. This was reflected in the answers as the 17 responses were split fairly evenly through the three options, with 'a happy ending' being the most popular with 7 votes.

Question 9: 'What Tone(s) Would You Like to See Whilst Watching an Indie Music Video?', showed a variety of different responses. This question was a multiple choice option meaning that the person could pick any option they wanted. This means that the options were fairly even as people could pick more than one. However, the most popular with 10 votes was 'emotional'. This was also expected as indie music videos conform to Barthes codes theory suggesting that there are semiotic and symbolic codes throughout creating a deeper meaning. Also, as indie artists are typically represented as 'normal' and as social mediators (Deborah Holdsteins theory), they become more relatable and explore topics that the audience may have gone through themselves or can relate to on an emotional level. The least popular option was 'humour' which is also expected as it is not a code or convention of the genre.

The final question: ‘What Do You Expect to See in an Indie Music Video? was a comment box. Some answers were:
• Black and white because a lot of indie music videos have black and white in them
• I want to be able to watch the artist because I like them and want to emphasise with their life.
• Something that other artists won’t do like referencing controversial topics.
• I like it when you don’t see the artist and they’re trying to deliver a message instead of having the audience just focus on them. For example, in Chandelier when the actress dances to represent poverty.
• Something that has a deep meaning and not something materialistic and stupid like in pop videos
All of the responses conform to the codes and conventions of the indie genre and are what you would expect to see in a music video. The answers can help me to decide what to include in my video when I create it.

How can this help me?
Overall, the responses have played a big part in choosing my target audience for my music video. I have learnt that the gender that enjoys the indie genre the most is female and the primary target audience should be 15-21. The fact the majority of the responses throughout the rest of the survey were from these two categories, the responses will help me decide further details about my music video as I can use this survey as a reference point when making decisions.

Copyright Permission

To ensure our group have copyrights to use the Lorde song, a member of our group emailed her production company requesting the rights. Here is a copy of the message:

I am an A2 media student from the UK requesting permission to use Lorde's song 'Sober' from the album 'Melodrama' for my A Level Media Studies coursework. I will be making a music video as part of my coursework, and would like to be able to use this song without being copyrighted. Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,
Liv Mclean

It is necessary for to me ask for copyrights as it makes it legal for me to use the song and publish it publicly. Without asking for copyright permission, our music video could be removed from the internet under the copyright act.

Initial Idea Developed

Initial idea:

As a group so far, we have all collated our research into the indie genre and have come up with some initial ideas to help focus our research further.

Genre- After discussing our findings about the genre of music we would prefer we have decided that we want to focus on indie and in particular the sub genres of rock and pop. We feel that after analysing videos, artists and song lyrics from these sub genres that they are the ones in which we feel most comfortable filming in.

The artist: after our research making it clear that stereotypically, indie artists consist of either male bands or female single artists, we have decided that we would prefer to create a brand identity for a female artist. After researching other female indie artists eg. Lorde, Lana Del Ray and Amy Winehouse we will use these as inspiration and a point of reference. Also, the fact my group are all within the target audience for the indie genre and are female ourselves, we believe it will make our decisions easier as we know what we enjoy and relate to.

The song: so far we have researched songs from our favourite indie artists and have analysed the lyrics. This has helped us decide on an initial song: Lorde 'Sober'. We have chosen this song as the lyrics have representation of drugs, alcohol and addiction which are all social/moral issues which conforms to the Deborah Holsteins theory that an artist is always a commentator/mediator.

Narrative: So far as a narrative we haven’t got a solid idea. Instead we have a few ideas of what we want to include and represent but have decided to conduct further research into existing music videos specifically in our sub-genre to give us inspiration.

The ideas we have so far are:
• We want to explore homosexuality and hetro sexuality- we are thinking of having a female actress who is also our artist who is initially in love with a male but ends up in a relationship with a female.

• We want to challenge the stereotypes of women but also explore them- we want to have the artist represented as a victim and as a result conform to the stereotypes but her female lover will challenge the stereotypes.

• Have a motif of freedom throughout- as the song is about drugs and alcohol we want to have a symbol of freedom throughout the video representing the fact that the artist (who is singing about her own experiences) feels consumed by her addiction. This can also link to the fact we want to represent her as the princess in terms of Props character theory.

Moving forwards:
Moving forwards I have decided to analyse further into existing music videos within our chosen genre to get more inspiration. I will also do more research into the branding and brand identity of female indie artists and decide on a unique style for our own artist.

Editing and Prop Practice

To help me improve my skills of which I can apply to my final product, I decided to do some practice filming as this will help me realise what my strengths and weaknesses are and highlight any issues we may have when filming the real thing. This will also give me editing practise.



 The filming:
The camera: When I was filming I decided not to create a narrative. Instead I decided to concentrate on the technical aspects. The camera I used was the IPhone 7 camera which is the same as I used last year in my final product. However, after analysing existing indie videos, I realised that a lot of them use low key lighting which is something we didn’t get chance to try last year. However, I remembered that last year when we tried to film in low key lighting the quality of the image instantly decreased. This meant that I was trying to find a way around this. In the end, I decided to try and play with the brightness and focus lock on the camera. I used high key lighting but locked the focus onto the black backdrop I was using and turned the brightness right down. This meant that there appeared to be no lighting or a spotlight on my actresses face. Also, when I watched the videos back, the quality was better than using low key lighting.

The actress: In terms of the actress I decided to use for this, I asked my friend who is a drama student. She also was the model and actress in some of my practice last year and I know she takes direction well. This time around she was again very good to work with and she followed instructions very well which gave me chance to practise and improve my directing skills. Therefore, she is someone I would consider using in the music video this year.

The equipment: because I knew I wanted to create the effect of low key lighting and conform to the stereotypes of the indie genre, I decided to use a black backdrop. To create this, I used a black-blackout blind and stood the actress in front of it.

One problem I did come across when filming was that I didn’t have access to a tripod. This meant that I had to be very careful to try and be as steady as possible throughout filming so when it came to editing after, the stabilization wouldn’t be too obvious.


The editing:
The cuts: when doing my research, Goodwin’s theory suggested that a code of a music video is that the visuals and sounds create a relationship and are used to emphasise certain aspects. After I analysed this I realised it was something I enjoyed and would like to incorporate into my final product. Therefore, when it came to the editing stage, I found a song that had a specific beat to it.

This meant that throughout the video, I tried to make sure the cuts were on the beat. I did this by, using multiple different clips and cutting them on the beat and using the actress to do certain actions that emphasised the beat. Eg. She goes from looking down to directly at the camera on the beat. This helped to build tension and drama throughout the video even though there is no narrative.

When I was doing this I came across a few issues:
• At times the music was so quick I couldn’t tell exactly where the beat was. To help me with this, I looked at the audio analysis and looked at it so that the beat was the peaks in volume. I therefore cut the clips at this point.
• Because the music and beat was quite fast, there were some clips that were too slow (eg. the stop motion of the rose growing) therefore I had to play around with the speed of the clips quite a lot.
Other than this, this gave me the opportunity to practise some of the editing tools on Final Cut Pro:
• The blade tool- I used this tool a lot last year and again was very useful. It meant that as I was changing the speed of the clips, I could cut the clips at specific times to continue the continuity when I used the same clip later on.
• The transform options- This allowed me to do the zoom effect at the end of the video on the actresses face. I could crop and resize the image.
• The speed option- this allowed me to speed up and slow down the clips if they were too slow to have enough effect in the fast cuts.
• Stabilization- I used this to help me get around the fact I had no tripod when I filmed.
• The reverse tool- I used the reverse tool in certain parts of the video (for example the dove) because I still wanted to emphasise a beat bout the time between the two beats was too short to add a different clip as the audience wouldn’t have enough time to see what it is. Therefore, I used the same clip but reversed it to emphasize the beat with a visual change instead.


The props:
The props I used I chose specifically from some stock footage. This allowed me to concentrate on the symbolism behind the clips to conform to Barthes theory. I tried to create a frustrated and anxious tone in the video. I did this by choosing certain stock clips that could have connotations.

For example:
• The dove: this clip began with the dove in the bottom left corner of the screen as it flies closer to the top right of the screen throughout the video. The dove itself has connotations of freedom and purity and I added the black border which wasn’t around the other clips to make it seem like the dove was encased. This created connotations that the actress was trapped and desired the freedom and purity that the dove represented.
• The rose: I chose this because the red has connotations of danger and love. This can infer to the audience the actress is in a contrasting situation. Also, the fact the rose was growing at the beginning of the video can represent growing as a person and life in general. However, in the end of the video, the clip is reversed so it is seen to be shrinking. This again can suggest how she is in a place of conflict and is regressing as a person.

How has this helped me?
Overall this has helped me because I have had practise putting certain theories into practise. For example, I was forced to think about the symbolism behind the props I used (Barthes' Theory) and I focused on the relationship between the visuals and sound throughout (Goodwin’s Theory). As well as this, it gave me chance to learn new editing skills and practice the ones I had used previously. Also I now know I have an actress that I could use in my video if I decide to include a female in my narrative. Moving forwards, it would be beneficial to create another video as practise to try and generate a narrative so the audience can emphasise more with the actress and song. This would give me opportunity to try and challenge stereotypes of props and their representation whilst allowing me to create a greater meaning behind them.

Camera Movement Analysis

To help me see what camera movements are typically used within the indie genre, I decide to analyse the camera movements in The Lumineers ‘Hey Ho’. This will help me understand what camera movements I can feature in my own music video.

In the establishing shot, the camera is show to track from left to right across a wall showing fairy lights on a wall. When the camera pans to the right at the end or the corridor, it shows a male character in the centre of the frame. The fact the camera tracks from left to right can represent a progression as the camera moves in the right direction. This is confirmed by the lyrics ‘I’ve been trying to do it right’ suggesting that ‘trying’ has been successful. This conforms to Goodwin’s theory that the lyrics have a relationship with the visuals and also foreshadows that the music video will be showing a positive progression, possibly conforming to Todorov’s narrative theory of order disorder, order. The fact the doors shown on either side of the symmetric frame are closed, can represent the beginning of the character’s journey as all doors are closed, having a symbolic meaning of there being no hope or opportunities (disorder).

This however, is juxtaposed as the camera begins to track the character walking away from the ‘dead end’ corridor and it stops as the camera walks past an open door. Within the room the audience can see a window showing high key lighting to represent hope and opportunities. However, the prop of fairy lights are hung across the doorway and there is a prop across the window, creating a physically barrier between the character and the hope/opportunities. This continues to show progression but connotes to the audience that the character is still on a journey to reach his hope/dreams.

As the camera cuts to a low angle hand held shot, the low key lighting is contradicted by bright flashing lights. This can represent the character looking at his goals brightening. The fact the camera has also moved closer to the lights, shows that the character is closer to reaching his goals. When the camera cuts again, two more characters are introduced which can represent the support he has as they are positioned on the right and left of him, showing he is surrounded by support. Also, the characters are walking towards the camera as it tracks backwards, this can show the character is catching up to his destination; what he aims for.

How can this help me?
Overall, the camera movements in this music video are used as symbolic meaning of a progression. This conforms to Goodwin’s theory that the visuals have a relationship with the lyrics and visuals as the lyrics are about two characters coming together. This has helped me as I know that when I plan/storyboard my music video, I will have to ensure the camera movements symbolise what is going on within the narrative/lyrics. I could also challenge the way the movements have been used in this video if the song I chose is about regression by tracking the character moving away from the positive symbolic codes.

Representation Analysis

How will this help me?
After looking at how reoccurring themes throughout the indie genre are represented, it has helped me as I now understand how they are portrayed to the audience. For example, through the more controversial topics like alcohol and drugs, I have learnt that they are typically symbolised through lyrics, visuals and props rather than being shown themselves. Eg. A melting clock is seen in the Arctic Monkeys video which has connotations of the effects of drugs but it never shows any substances. This conforms to  Barthes narrative codes which suggests things the audience see have deeper meaning. Also, I have realised that the gender of the person in the video is represented in according to what the gender  of the artists is. For example if the artist is male then they represent males as strong and dominant (conforming to stereotypes) and females as being sexualised and conforming to the male gaze theory. If the artist is female, typically, both genders are represented as being more feminine and emotional which challenged male stereotypes.