Research

Target Audience:

Primary Research: Survey 

Survey Link

For this section I will be showing my findings on my target audience, I did this by collecting a survey that I uploaded online and shared through social media. I also put it within groups that were relevant to my survey. For example the fans of the musical that I chose the music from. The following are my findings within that research.

This graph is showing the age of participants, it shows the main age is split with > 18-24-year-olds. This is showing my audience to be an average age of around 18 as the youngest would be around 13.

This clearly shows that nearly 3/4 of the audience will be female but I will put at least some male characters within the piece for the males to relate to as there is a clear 1/4 of my audience that identifies as 'not female' so I do want to address them too. However, I will focus on more female and young people problems. Some of the things that I will cover will be applicable to both genders and is more about being a young person in this day and age. 

This shows my audience to be from the United Kingdom but also coming from the USA, and a small percentage from Canada. This confirms the hypothesis of my target audience is in the UK or the US. 

This was a simple question about if I had reached my target audience with where I posted the survey and as you can see from the results that this survey actually reached almost 3/4's of its audience. exactly 1/2 of which claimed to listen to the song all the time. 

This is a small segment of the 20 responses, this is showing what songs the target audience like the most. This is not a graph as I made this an open question. After going through all the responses, taking out the 1/4 of people who didn't know the songs it was around 3/4 of the 3/4 of the audience chose you will be found, the other 1/4 chose various other songs from the musical.

Then with knowing that I wanted to know what other styles of music they listened to get an understanding of what style my target audience listened too. This chart shows that pop and rock are around equal at number 1, pop just winning and country being the lowest. This gives me a view of what style my video should reflect. 

This is the simple yes-no question on if musical songs should have music videos and it was a close near 50/50 but yes was the overall result. 

Then I went on to ask people what makes a good music video to them, a lot of people said a clear plot or point to the video. This shows that my choosing narrative theory was a good idea as a lot of people like having a story told within the music and showing a meaning behind the lyrics. I also had surprises and giving the audience 'something they wouldn't expect.' Some other comments were like good quality footage and seamless editing, these were helpful but things I already planning to do.

This was to see if music videos were still watched by my target audience or if it was more of something like a Spotify, live streaming. As this shows that just under 1/4 watch videos all the time 2/3 watch them around 1 or 2 every other week. at 1/3- around a couple times a year. I did put in the option I don't watch music videos ever in but none of the participants selected this option.

This was another open-ended question asking why do you watch/ do not watch music videos. Most people said it was because they wanted to see what the artist of the song was thinking visually and what they thought the song should mean. They also say that they wanted to see the narrative behind the song that the visuals of the music video provide them.  

Focus Group:

Now that I know my target audience, I also now need to find where they watch their music videos and where they listen to music. I am going to create a short focus questionnaire for people of the target audience's age to answer, I am also going to send it to some people who live in America as well as test it with other nationality to compare the results. The questions will be asking about where they watch music videos, what they like and dislike about the other platforms and which is, in their own opinion, better.
My focus group consisted of half of my target audience and the other half were variously not my audience. For example male, different age est. I had a total of ten people participating.
The results were that my target audience liked the idea and gave back almost identical feedback as the online participants, that were part of the target audience.
Whereas the people who were variously not part of the target audience didn't agree with some of the questions. For example, they didn't get the reason the song linked with mental health. They didn't know of the song or the importance of it, or of the musical and what the message of it was.
What I then did was compared my two results and found that my target audience, and even some that weren't fully my target audience, wanted more people to make covers of musical songs and that a female cover of you will be found is something that would be amazing for the message I wanted to portray. I also found that even though my audience is primarily female there is a big portion of the audience that is male too.

Secondary Research- 

Essay Research:

In Unit 12 we had to write an essay on a subject relating to our FMP, because of the idea development I had to change my question slightly but overall I went for 'Are Narrative Theories needed to make a successful music video in the 21st Century?' As I had been looking into Narrative theory for my old idea, short film, this also got me thinking about was narrative theories needed in all media productions. In this section, I will be summarising my essay, what I learnt and how I am going to put this research in to practice. 

Todorov's Equilibrium theory- 

The following is a direct segment of my essay I wrote about this narrative theory-

There are 5 stages in equilibrium, which are:

1.       Equilibrium

2.       Disruption 

3.       Realisation 

4.       Restore Order

5.       Equilibrium Restored

The example music video that shows the equilibrium theory is ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry. This is showing a narrative, it starts off with Katy singing at the camera she is on her own and it is quite peaceful.  Then the music video goes to the disruption stage quite fast as you see different struggles people are going through, the realisation is shown when Katy gets to the chorus and seems to be singing to those individuals and they see the problem, they see what they have to do to fix the situation and prepare to take on their own battles. This is another way the music video creators saw a successful way of selling the music and the video this was to make it relatable to them. This showed the audience that ‘someone understands’ them and made them want to listen to the music more. The next, restoring order happens soon after the realisation happens for some of the individuals. This is showing that it takes a different amount of time to realise and to fight their battles and this would differ from person to person. This restoring order section lasts through the next verse of the song until they get to the second chorus. Then the equilibrium is restored. This is shown with a big group of people running and creating a formation, them smiling and dancing. They are showing a new light with the visuals of the fireworks being their confidence and their weapon when facing their battles through the last stages of the narrative. Going over the five stages using the song firework and its music video’s narrative shows that music videos with structure can sell the song in a subconscious way. 

The other music video that this essay is going to cover is ‘OK Go- upside down, inside out’ This music video doesn’t have any narrative, the beginning says how they shot the video but other than that it is the same point in the narrative. In Todorov’s theory it states that disruption is needed and in the music video there is no disruption, nothing is ‘going wrong’ and there is no progression in the plot. This is also meaning there is no realisation or need to restore order as there was no problem, to begin with, and the video ends in the same frame as the start. The character learned nothing and they didn’t gain new experiences. When this video was made it was successful, however if both these videos were to be released now Katy Perry’s video would be way more popular and OK Go would have to rely on their current fans to make the video a hit, whereas Katy’s music video would get more publicity because of the topics it covers and how they are portrayed. This shows that even though OK Go’s video was successful it wasn’t, like Katy’s video, moving forward and creating a fresh look on music videos. Therefore, her video would still work now as it would back then. 

After looking into this I saw that the theory did work for music video but the rules of Todorov's theory could be bent and not all of the staple characters but some of them had to be there within the video to keep the audience's attention and make it engaging the audience.

My Conclusion:

Going back to the original question do music videos today need narrative theory to be successful, after looking at my socks and the arguments within them, simply put yes, they are. However, looking more into it as this essay did develop, I do think that unlike film, music has an advantage over these theories in the fact that they can bend and break these theories to how they want to use them. As time moves forward and the new way of making music video goes on the do seem to be making more and more similarities to film and soon it is highly possible to be able to take the music away and watch it see a short silent film, rather than a music video muted. Overall, music videos today are getting more narratives within them. They are bending the theory but it is clear to see the theory being used is there in most if not all of the modern-day music video especially within popular and successful music videos that end up going viral on the internet.

History of Vevo channels:

Now that I know the audience I am catering to and where they watch music videos the most, YouTube specifically Vevo channels, I am going to go into more detail of how 'Vevo' channels came to be the 'New music channels' for the young people of today. I will look at the following, who make this concept, how and who can get a Vevo channel, Why people watch music videos their now than watching them on TV music channels?  I will also look into the timeline of Vevo to see when it truly became more popular than TV music channels and if it is truly the better way to watch music videos.
When looking to the history of Vevo, knowing it is only around 10 years old, there wasn't a lot of history to find. This was no surprise when I found this ebook stating that 'Nickelodeon’s aim of “preserving put television heritage” aside, there are no stable archives for music video. YouTube and MTV organisations are often not responsive to inquiries from scholars. Music video history remains uncharted, even though we may feel we know video styles and out access to videos have waxed and waned: the academic literature is thin.' (Vernallis, 2013) this showing us that not only Vevo, who are published on and managed by YouTube are getting few to no records kept once the channel either gets deleted by its owner or because of breaking regulations meaning all heritage of that channel, all the history is gone, but channels and companies like MTV do the same. 'In October 2010, Vevo attracted 47.6m unique viewers, the fourth highest among US online video channels that month, providing serious competition to MTVN, the reconfigured son of MTV.' (Hardy, 2013) This shows that not only was MTV and it's newer version MTVN almost instantly struggled to keep viewers but that Vevo's convenience took the public by storm instantly becoming such a success. Hardy goes on to say 'Vevo is the most successful major-record company-initiated content distribution platform to date, principally because of its relationship to Google and YouTube subsidiary.' (Hardy, 2013) Because of this relationship, it seems to be the new and most used platform for music especially since that youtube released a specific app for ios and android called YouTube Music in November 2015. This is just showing users music and specifically Vevo channel music. Making a crossover to the premium of the app Spotify and iTunes unlimited also having competition giving the free and premium option, premium like Spotify and iTunes to be able to listen off wifi, but also adding a unique feature that you can watch the music video as well as listen to the song. This, if anything like when Vevo was first introduced, will become big competition for these companies as it has extra features that they cannot offer as youtube and the Vevo companies have the rights too. This would make it next to impossible for the other apps to get rights to the same type of features as well as the videos than trying to get a profit would just be that little. 'Vevo achieved this near-instant prominence almost entirely through its deal with Google. Having withdrawn access to its videos and YouTube and established its rights Vevo then licensed YouTube. Since 2010, internet users seeking any UMG, Sony or EMI artist videos have been directed straight to Vevo Channels, within YouTube to Vevo’s own portal on that site. It’s estimated that around 90% of Vevo streams are generated through YouTube searches, a fact the company has said it is not concerned about.' (Hardy, 2013) Even though they are not worried the two companies have their own cut of the profits, these channels are always in the recommended for any user of the website because of the amount of revenue they get for people watching the videos. Finally, the reason I am going to say this video would be released on the official Dear Evan Hansen Vevo channel is that if this was a real scenario, I would have been making it for the publicity of the musical and it would get the most pushed not only by the company Vevo or YouTube it would get further around into more recommended than if it were on a 'normal' youtube channel. I also think the numbers and quotes I have shown clearly say that Vevo Channels on YouTube are becoming the New and improved versions of MTV and MTVN.

British Young people Problems:

 In this section of my research, I will be looking into the problems of young people within America. I am also going to go into it even further by researching into young people's problems around the world, then compare them to see how different they are, if at all. This research is important because I want the problems that my characters to be relatable to the audience.

The most reported issue with young people is having depression and mental health problems. In 2010 college counsellors reported an extream rise in students needing mental health support, commonly either depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). These diagnoses are getting more and more common within the young people today, to popular belief it is because it is getting easier to be labelled with this type of sickness as the symptoms cannot be properly shown in blood, CAT or any other medical test that shows a chemical result happening. However, doctors see otherwise they treat the patient accordingly and have many follow up checks. It has also been proven that the 21st century is indeed harder for the young people of nowadays as through psychology studies

Bibliography:

Hardy, P., 2013. Download: How Digital Destroyed the Record Business Paperback. 1st ed. s.l.: Omnibus Press.

Vernallis, C., 2013. Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema. 1st ed. OUP USA: Oxford University Press.

 What I Have Change because of this research:

I changed many things throughout my ongoing research, for example, I decided on a different ending because of it looking too scripted and metaphorical for the message. My original idea was to have the main character of the music video walking away from a fire, the camera would focus on her legs and then focus on the fire which would show the fire is all of the different insecurity cards used in the video. This idea was not used as of the candid piano playing and smartphone recording ending that is used at the end of the song feels like it is ending a journey that the video showed. The video starts with darkness and a single person in a room singing to a camera, then it shows that video online and that person in their room recording a youtube video, as the video goes on more and more people share their experiences with their problems and them getting over their insecurities because of others. Then the ending credits show bloopers of everyone having fun and were, production wise, fidgetily and literally where it started as a someone singing and another who began to make the instrumental and it all comes together to make the emotional piece that the viewer watch. This shot really brings it back to the emotion of the beginning of the video.
Another thing I changed was the orbs of light, originally they were only going to appear in once in the instrumental part. I decided to add it to less visually busy scenes to add more of a technical and interesting shot. I did this because when I edited my first draft of the video the orbs were requested more. 'They add an interesting unique aspect to the video'- Cat Barns and 'I really would like to see more of them'- Tom Sparrow was some of the feedback that I got from peers. 

Testing:

Public testing:

So I uploaded my video to the public, since I can't monetise the video and that it is educational the video is completely legally allowed to be public because I thought I could use the results to show a real and public reaction to this. Some of it may be considered bias as my family and friends, too watched this video. However not all these views and analytics are from people I know, so I will show you the YouTube tracked analytics from the 28/05/19.

Each paragraph is going to be explaining what is in the pictures above. These are all actual analytics from when I posted the video on the 21/05/19 to 28/05/19. These results were over 7 days (1 week) of being on a small independent channel, rather than a Vevo channel as I do not have access to one, these charts show: Like dislike ratios, real-time activity (who was watching while I was reading the analytics), Overall watch time, gained subscribers and total views, and lastly the audience retention rate (how long the average viewer watched for).

Like-dislike ratios- 88.9% like 68.4% dislikes, bare in mind that these are overall and have to add to 100% all the time, I only have one dislike and I have 8 likes.

Audience retention- this lasted around 50% of the video or at the 2:32 mark.

Views-171

Subscribers gained - +2

Overall watch time (in minutes)- 435

These graphs show who my audience was because not a lot of them had their accounts public YouTube couldn't collect age or gender results but the over graphs show:

Unique views (total people who watched not how many times the video had played), if they were subscribed to my channel and how long they watched for, top countries and if people watched with subtitles and which language they are in.  

Over these graphs, most viewers weren't subscribed to my channel and the ones that were didn't watch as much as the non-subscribers did. Which was what I expected, as the people who would watch this typically would not actually be subscribed to my channel beforehand.

The top two countries, like in the results of my survey, are the United Kingdom and the United States.

Lastly here, 98.1% of people watched the video with no subtitles and 1.9% watched with English subtitles.

These graphs show how people are finding the video these include: traffic source types overall, traffic sources external, playlist and where and how much it is getting recommended to others. 

Traffic source types overall:

External-
Suggested Video-
Browsing Features-
Other Youtube Features-
Channel Page-

Traffic sources external:

Facebook- 91.8%
Wattsapp- 1.2%
Google- 1.7%

Playlist- 100%- TBD

Traffic source: Suggested videos-

All of the following are videos where my video got recommended at least once.

Dear Evan Hansen, You Will Be Found (Lexi Walker)

Dear Evan Hansen - You Will Be Found Lyrics

You Will Be Found

"You Will Be Found" from the DEAR EVAN HANSEN Original Broadway Cast Recording

Be My Friend (Facebook)

A Diehard iPhone User Switches To The Google Pixel 3 XL

She Used to Be Mine

"You Will Be Found" Dear Evan Hansen // Tyler Meacham & Abby Franklin

"You Will Be Found" Cover (Dear Evan Hansen) [for Mental Health Awareness Month]

You Will Be Found cover (Dear Evan Hansen)

"You Will Be Found" Virtual Choir | DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Dead Pixel/Stuck Pixel Screen Fix (1 Hour Long) (Seizure warning - See description)

Sad Multifandom - You’ll be happy again [You will be found]

You Will Be Found Lyrics- Dear Evan Hansen 

Dear Evan Hanses “You Will Be Found” Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade 2018

Meant to be Yours

Lyrics for Life "You Will Be Found" (Cover from Dear Evan Hansen)

Could Be Jewish for You - Alysha Umphress

Where and how much it is getting recommended (Impression) :

89.6% are from youtube impressions, 2.8% click-through rate. 32 views because of those impressions and the overall minutes watched are 68 peoples average from that was views lasting around timeline 2:34.

This video was the recommended after my video since it is linking to other dear evan Hansen videos this shows that the right audience is finding it for the analytics to put this video in the up next.

Finally, these are the comments that are on the video, the description I put for the video. These are the actual comments that people left and the description show what this is for, why I created it and also have credits for everyone involved.