Research Evaluation

When it came to producing a music video, at first I had to analyse the codes and conventions of music videos, this way I would have a better understanding of what is needed to produce an effective music video. Therefore, the first thing I did was conduct some research on Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis, this wholly consisted of secondary research. At first, I took some basic notes down from sources provided by my teacher but after this went on to research the both of them in more depth, I did this by searching for them on the internet and reading their books, Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' and Vernallis' 'Experiencing Music Videos: Aesthetics and Cultural Context' and 'Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video and the New Digital Cinema' The main information I got from other people's summaries but I then checked that this information was correct against the relevant book, I felt this way I got basic points which I could then use the books to expand upon and validate. Due to this, the books themselves were definitely the most important part of my secondary research, I used them both as sources of information and also key texts that I could validate other sources with, this as a whole made the research I had found more reliable.

The next step of my research was vital in the production of my own music video. After researching Vernallis and Goodwin, I used their information to conduct my primary research of music video analysis. When it came to choosing music videos to analyse, I decided to choose two within the same genre of my track choosing two indie/alternative songs and then also choosing a pop song, I felt like this would give me a wider variety of research than just analysing the codes and conventions of the genre that I will be producing a music video for. Analysing the music videos within my genre allowed me to gain an understanding of how music videos of a certain genre are constructed and how they differ to that of another genre, this all helped me gain inspiration and allowed me to form ideas about my own music video.

I also conducted primary research which I then validated with secondary research in the form of lyrical analysis of my song. I decided to analyse the lyrics of the songs that I had chosen to produce a music video for as I felt this benefit me when it came to ideas about how to use the visuals to either amplify or illustrate the lyrics. After analysing the lyrics myself I then used the Internet to see what other people had interpreted the lyrics to mean, I shared very similar views with that of genius.com, a lyric website dedicated to finding the meaning of lyrics. Seeing that my own interpretation matched that of many others on the Internet, I felt like this piece of research was as valid and reliable as it could be for a subjective piece of research.

If I were to undertake this research project again I would definitely analyse a few more music videos, including at least one by the band that I will be making a music video for. This way as well as identifying the codes and conventions of the specific genre, I would have also been able to identify any particular codes and conventions that the band themselves may have when it comes to their music videos. I also would have done some more research into the band themselves but because i am very familiar with the band I felt this was something I could afford to miss when it came to my research project, but with more time I would have been able to identify the band's star image and iconography and tried to incorporate this into my own video to get across that it was still very much a Front Bottoms music video.

Following on from my analysis of music videos and the lyrics for my song, I felt that I needed quantitative data to compliment my qualitative data that I had gained from analysis and so went on to create a questionnaire, the questions and results of which can be found here: http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/music-video-research-questionnaire.html
This questionnaire formed the bulk of my quantitative data as I structured the questions in such a way that the majority of answers given could be used as hard facts and statistics, for example I asked 'Do you prefer a narrative or performance based music video?' With the options being either 'performance/narrative/mixture' Questions of this style allowed me to gain quantitative data that I could use to inform my own video. When looking back at the data that I gathered, I had only asked very basic questions and as such the data that I gained from it I used as a very beginning of planning my own video, such as using  mixture of both narrative and performance and that people would prefer a fast and energetic music video rather than a slow-paced one. The genre that came out on top was 'rock' closely followed by 'indie', as the music video i'm producing falls under the genre of 'indie' I felt that the other results of my questionnaire should definitely be used to inform my own production. The questionnaire I produced was answered by a total of 37 people, these people were a mixture of all ages, genders and had a variety of different favourite genres, because of this I feel like my questionnaire is quite reliable even though I did have to limit the possible answers given by using multiple choice.

Having gained quantitive data from a  primary source, I felt that the next logical step was to gather some qualitative data, I did this in the form of a focus group with my fellow HNC students. This consisted of me playing an excerpt from the song to the other students, telling them some of initial ideas and asking for further comments on these initial thoughts. At this time I had decided on doing Maps by The Front Bottoms and had done analysis of the lyrics and found that the song was about travelling the world but being reluctant to leave your old life behind. This would form the basis of the narrative of my video but I was unsure of how to incorporate traits of a performance music video into the production. The majority of the focus group agreed with my idea of a music video rooted in travelling and felt that a good mix of industrial and natural locations would be ideal for the song. When it came to incorporating a performance element to the video, a brilliant suggestion was made to include a busker in a few of the locations that the traveller visited. I initially was going to go along with this idea but decided to combine the performance and the narrative, making the busker the main subject of the video, so that he is the one that we follow on his travels. The focus group was recorded as I could only make quick notes when people were discussing ideas with me and as such didn't take it all in, listening back to the recording allowed me to gain more data, all of which I took into account when I began to plan my music video.

Overall I felt that all the research gained helped me get some inspiration and form ideas for my own music video, which is why I had undergone the research project in the first place so I couldn't really ask for anything more. My initial research into Goodwin and Vernallis allowed me to gain an understanding of the theories which could be applied to my work straight away when it came to in depth analysis of music videos. Although the quantitative data was useful in determining basic concepts for a music video such as pacing as narrative/performance mixture, it would have been useless without the qualitative data to expand on these points. The focus group was probably the biggest help as it allowed me to conduct a piece of primary research, the results of which would directly inform my own production. I tried to use a variety of sources when I came to conducting this research project using books and the internet as well as people's opinions, having gathered from various sources I could check my own findings with that of others, this meant that the research I gathered and presented was both reliable and valid. The major improvements I would make would definitely be to my questionnaire, I would ask more questions directly relating to the production of the video and expectations of the people answering the questions, for example I could ask 'What do you think makes a music video appealing?' giving options such as 'lighting/narrative/star image' but also including an 'other' option, this way as well as gathering quantitive data from my questionnaire I could also have gathered some qualitative data.