Focus group analysis

I will be analyzing the focus group. We decided to do a focus group because, we thought it would give us a more broad representation of our target audience. Although we only asked 3 people they helped get a image in our heads. When we constructed our focus group, we had to sit down and decide what questions we wanted to ask, these are the questions we choose;

What is your name?

·         How old are you?
·         What is your favourite genre of music?
·         Do you prefer narrative or performance? (Why they preferred this option)
·         What would you expect to see in a pop/rock music video?
·         How often do you watch music videos?
·         Where do you watch music videos?
·         What costume design would you expect to see in a pop/rock music video?
·         Do you feel star image is important in a music video?
·         Would you prefer to see the links to the lyrics and image in the music video?

We asked 3 teenage boys. The participants favourite genre of music include indie/pop, rock and rock/pop so this was good as they all had an interest in our genre of music which makes the results more valid when we are considering ideas for our music video as these people are a part of our target audience.

When we asked whether they preferred narrative or performance all of the participants agreed that they would like to see a mix of both performance and narrative in a music video because 'it is good to see both sides' and one participant went on say to that 'every artist gives a sense in every music video'. This was something we were very happy to hear because, it meant we could link it to Goodwin's theory. When it came to construction stages we sat down as a group and figured what parts of the song belonged to what. One thing we hadn't thought of was about the personality being portrayed, the second and third person mentioned this. So we agreed it is important that we get the artists personality across in the music video as our target audience would be able to create a personal identity and relationship with them.

When the participants were asked what they expect to see in a pop/rock music video they all expected to see the band performing on a stage, lots of shots of the band playing instruments and many shots of the band in general. They also said they expected a dark atmosphere so we could do this by having low lighting to get across the pop/rock element. One participant also said that the narrative should be based around the main member of the band. This was a trend we discovered both in the questionnaires and focus group, which just proved to us it was a key thing we couldn't afford to miss. Additionally after looking at case studies like, The Script, Lawson, 5 seconds of summer. This just backed up the research we had received.

Another question we asked was, do you watch music videos and where they watch them? Overall our participants didn't watch music video very often which suggests that the music video isn't very important to them but it stills needs to be enjoyable to watch when they do watch it. An overall consensus we got was that YouTube was the main place to watch videos was YouTube. This was a very good for us because, this was so accessible to us and this meant that we could get lots of feedback for out evaluations. It also relates to the active participant theory, this is when "ameteur" producers makes films / music videos. This is what we are so we were happy to hear that people didn't mind that.

When asked about the costume design they expect to see in a pop/rock music video they all agreed that the clothing should be casual such as jeans and t-shirt so the audience could relate to the band. When planning our costume design we will very likely to go with casual clothing because of our audience research and research into other music videos as all the bands we have looked at dress casually. This was a good support to our earlier research, when we done the conventions at the beginning of the year, one convention we found was the jean look. To support this we looked at similar case studies like, Lawson. Each band member looks similar but have that one significant thing which means you can tell the difference, this is what we wanted to achieve.

Finally when the participants were asked about their feelings towards the importance of star image (relation to Goodwin's theory) in a music video, there were mixed responses as dependent on the song they feel it is important however another participant said that it isn't important but it is good to see what the person singing looks like so when we are planning our music video we will include the band as our target audience would like to them in the video. Additionally each participant said that they would like to see the links to the lyrics and image in the music video so again when we are planning our video we will try to include links to lyrics when it is suitable.

To conclude, we found doing a focus group was very helpful and beneficial for the research stage. Although there were some responses what didn't find our genre, it was good to hear the criticism so we were prepared for the construction stage. We plan to take the advice on and act on it all.