To understand what people liked to see in music videos and how much people actually watched music videos I made an online survey. I posted the survey online and these are some of the results. 

In this question I asked if people liked to see actual performance shots in the video. 45.45% of the people asked said that they liked to see performance shots, 18.18% said that they didn't like to see them featured in videos and 36.36% said that it didn't bother them if it had performance shots or not. 

For the second question I asked if people thought that music videos should follow a story line or if it should be more of a montage of clips.  Most of the responses said that they liked to see a video follow a story and actually have a meaning behind it. Although there was some responses that said that depending on the song tone and theme, there were some videos that should be fun and just showing the members of the band and the artist having fun. 

I thought it would be good to see just how much people actually watched music videos to see what sort of coverage my video would get. The answers were very varied and ranged from people saying that they only watched music videos occasionally to others saying that they watched them everyday. Certain audiences would give a better coverage and view rating of my video, than others.

Humorous parody videos have becoming increasingly popular and is a style that in being used more and more everyday. I wanted to know if the increasing popularity of the humorous videos was something my audience liked or not. Most the responses said that it really depended on the song that the video was for and that they liked both humorous and serious music videos. 

I wanted to see if the music video could actually affect a persons view on the song, and could actually lead someone to not liking the song. People didn't seem to think a video would actually affect their liking of the video but they did say if the video was awful and badly made, they would be tempted to not watch it again and could possibly be turned off!

I thought it would be good to see how often people watched music video channels on TV. It seems with the rise of online platforms such a YouTube people haven't been watching music channels, as a lot of the responses said that they used to in the past watch the channels daily but now it can be weeks before they watch them on TV. This mean my video would benefit from being put online  and not just leaving it to get shown on TV as a wider audience would be able to access it online.

I wanted to get a more definitive answer as to what people really liked to see in videos, so i thought it would be a good idea to have people leave comments on some of their favourite things to see. The answers were very mixed and I think it would be a good idea to try and include lots of the suggestions without making it look over done and too cluttered.

Lastly, I thought it would be good to see if people actually thought a video could create a bands or singles success and to see if people really felt that videos were important. The most common aster was Yes as 63.64% thought videos were very important and that they do help a singles success. 

The second music video I analysed with a female vocalist is Everybody's Fool from the band Evanescence. Much like the other videos I have analysed, this video has dystopian elements and a general theme of isolation and being outcasted.

The video starts of with and has clips of the main character in some of her modelling and acting jobs, each one she needs to take one a new persona and adapt to the role. We see the character being glamourised and sexualised in order to sell a product or a role. 

The video later shows us the characters real life away from the cameras and the makeup. The character has a dark and lonely life and is fed up with having to pretend to be someone else and feels as if she is being haunted from her personas. 

The video is very dark when its based in the characters reality. When looking at her personas the colours are very enhanced as if to give a false and hyperreality tone which the audience later find out is the case.  The general tone I got from watching the video is that the character is only loved when pretending to be other people, her personas are famous whereas herself as a person is still being tormented and hated (as we see when being laughed at in the lift). The theme of isolation is shown from the character being trapped in her apartment out of fear of going outside and dealing with people who are using her for fame. 

I have been looking at other music videos within the same genre of my artist and narrowed the investigation to female artists, as I am using a female artist. One band I decided to look at was Paramore, a rock band with a female lead vocalist. The style of the music and lyrics are very similar to ones my artist writes and performs.  The first video I analysed was Brick By Boring Brick by Paramore. 

One of the main elements in the video is the super natural and hyperreality. One of the main characters is a little girl with butterfly wings, exploring a new world she has found. Although it seems exciting at first the character soon realises just how scary and lonely it is and she then she's the dark and corrupted parts of the world.

In this video there isn't any band performance shots which I found was uncommon in videos in the genre. The vocalist is shown throughout the video and looks like she is the older version of the little girl who got lost in the new world. The audience get that impression throughout the majority of the video but later realises that she's not when they cross paths. The video has a very mysterious tone to the video as it only reveals secrets in the video towards the end. 

The colours in the video have been very over enhanced, giving it an artificial look. The audience and tell the world has been created and the over enchanted colours show that maybe everything is not as it seems and adds a slight dystopian tone to the video.

Song/video analysis

The song I am creating a video for is a cover of the song 'Radioactive' from the American Rock group, Imagine Dragons. I investigated what themes were used throughout both the lyrics and the bands official music video. 

The video starts off with a tracking shot of a hooded girl carrying a covered cage, the video is a mini story of her travels to find the exclusive club and her victory. I really like the idea of having a mysterious person and have the video following them and their story.

The video is shot in avery run down shed, people place bets on competitors and they fight to the death much like gladiators. This gives the video a very dystopian tone. Instruments are in the underground holding place where the competitors are held, suggesting that the band may have once been held here.

The video does have a dystopian element to it but also introduces humour to it by making the competitors puppets, instead of actual people. This makes the video more of a parody than a pastiche to gladiator fighting and fight clubs. 

Later in the video the under dog puppet (one that the girl at the start of the video was carrying in the covered cage) beats the champion and then attacks the bad guys when they try to catch him. The bear actually kills the guys and we see their skeletons when they are being attacked. This adds to the dystopian element that has been used throughout the whole video.

I really liked the idea of the video, I thought having the a video tell a short story and actually follow a character and her journey was a really good idea as the girl creates mystery at the beginning by being hooded. I think when I make my version of the video I will include the mysterious and dystopian themes but present them differently. I think I will have my video telling a story just like the original video does. The video doesn't have full performance shots of the band but it does have the singer singing in some parts. Im not sure if I will add the performance shots to my video as I feel it will distract the audience and take attention away from the story. 

Where would my advertisement be placed?

I've been thinking about where my advertisement would be shown, I decided to research music magazines and look into their audience and see whether the magazines audience are the appropriate audience for my artist. I decided to see what bands are signed with Rise Records, the label that I thought my artist would be suitable for and the label they would be singed with. Rise Records has signed bands such as A Day To Remember, Hands Like Houses, Memphis May Fire and Issues. As the label is based in America, most of the singed artists are American, but the label do sign British artists as well. I investigated what magazines these bands from Rise Records had been featured in and magazines such as Kerrang!, Rock Sound and NME. 

         

• When looking deeper into the content of the magazines I realised that not only did the magazines show album advertisements but also included interviews with new up and coming artists, album reviews, performance reviews, cover opportunities, posters and much more to promote bands and albums. The amount of coverage my artist would get from being in these magazines would be a good move for the promotion and selling of the new album. 
• Using popular magazines such as Kerrang!, Rock Sound and NME means my artist would be shown to a much wider audience than if I decided to place them in local magazines such as Crack, a free music magazine available in Bristol. 
• By selecting more than one magazine that would be suitable, I have exposed my artist to a enormous audience, and can get maximum coverage. The brand Kerrang! not only have a magazine that is sold every week but also have a website, music channel and a radio station, meaning that not only will my advert be shown in the actual magazine but also online, and would possibly get mentioned on the radio and on the tv. 
• The only disadvantage of advertising my album in paid magazines is that I'm only targeting the majority of the target audience that can afford to buy these magazines weekly, where as free magazines are available to any one in the target audience. 
• But by signing with companys such as Kerrang! my album has the potential to be put online, on tv and radio meaning that it could also be exposed to the part of the audience who can't afford to buy the actual magazine. 

Advertisement

• This is the magazine advertisement I made for my digipak. I decided to use a similar theme as I used in the actual digipak, on the advertisement so it would the audience would be able to make the connection when looking in a magazine or in a shop for the album. I used the same background which I used throughout the digipak and changed the colour variation. 
• All font on the advertisement were used in the digipak. I decided to include some names of the songs on the album that would have all ready been released and ones that already have created a 'buzz' about the album and the artist. 
• I included the label that the artist has been signed to, so when people look at the advertisement they will be able to see what sort of genre the artist is, purely by seeing the label and linking them to previous artists they have heard signed on the same label. 
• I put where the album would be available online, such as iTunes, and MyMusic. I included star ratings on the advertisement as well as quotes from magazines that cater to the audience of the rock genre, where I feel my artist would be placed. 
• Instead of using the same picture as the one on the digipak and have it as part of the background, like a lot of other advertisements I have seen do, instead I decided to place the actual album cover on the advert and put a black border around it so it lifted of from the background and was more visible as both have leopard print backgrounds. 
• I'm really pleased with how this advert has turned out, it has a very similar design to the whole of the digipak, but think it has enough differences to ensure that it doesn't look like a copy of one another.
•  I didn't use the same techniques I have seen on a lot of advertisements such as having the actual picture used on the cover or one very similar and blending it in to look as if its part of the background and instead decided to to have it completely separate as I feel it puts more focus on the actual cover and makes it more recognisable when in a shop or online.