Audience Feedback on Music Video Ideas

I invited members of my target audience to take a survey, asking for their opinion on which music video idea appealed to them the most.

Based on my responses, I have chosen the first idea.

Music Video Ideas

1.  1. Narrative video following one character’s journey. He walks towards a house, pleading with the inhabitant to “let me (him) in.” Unable to enter, he wanders around frustrated, before returning to the house. He again seeks to enter, and this time becomes progressively more frustrated as he can’t open the door. Resigned to failure, he begins to walk away. Then, he glances backwards and sees a hand opening the door.

    2. Video featuring only footage of the band playing together. It is filmed as though they are practising the song to make it seem ‘natural..

    3. Equal footage of the band playing a gig and the band walking around together in a deserted area. Therefore, promoting both the band’s music and the band members as people, conforming to the idea in Indie music of the people being ‘outsiders’ but also, as a group of ‘outsiders’, they are appealing to their demographic, who would also have a ‘select’ group of friends.

Initial Digipak Design

  Below is a rough sketch for my digipak.

  The general theme ties in with the band name, juxtaposing the working class images (bricks) with more fragile and "artistic'" images (lilies). 

  The font used for the title is Arial Black, a plain, harsh, and bold font which ties in well with the image of bricks it is placed on. Furthermore, most bands within the Indie genre use consistently plain fonts on all of their products.

  The gazes of the band members are all directed away from the camera. This coforms to the idea of Indie music being for "the outsider" as their poses convey and awkwardness and shyness in front of the camera.

  The panel showing the band playing music conforms to the idea that Indie bands have a commitment to live music.

  I plan to put the tracklisting on the back panel. It is not drawn on the sketch because it would be hard to make out in a pencil drawing. 

Band Website Designs

  The font used for the title (Verdana) is plain, like the fonts used for most other websites within my genre. Gigs are advertised quite strongly on the home page, as live music is an integral part of my band's genre. The general layout is very similar to the websites of Arctic Monkeys and Chapel Club. I felt it was important to make my website design similar to other bands' in the genre, as the target audience are likely to find it more easily accessible if it's a layout they are familiar with. I also felt it was important to have links to "trendy" websites (Hype Machine, Tumblr etc) on my band's webpage because the typical target audience member would be very up to date on the latest trends.

  The font used for the title (Bauhaus) could be construed as quite "quirky" and therefore in keeping with the genre. In this design, there is a link to Flickr, as I noticed quite a few bands use the website to store and share their personal photos. I thought this might help convey a closer connection to the band's fans (Indie is a genre in which bands try to come across as "close" to their fan base. I also made the web design "personal" by making the blog posts section central to the design.

  In this design, a simple font (Arial Black) is again used. There is also a video embedded into the background - a feature I saw on the websites of Bombay Bicycle Club and The Maccabees. As well as being a feature of other bands in the genre's websites, I chose to include a video embedded into the background as it makes it instantly noticeable and is therefore an effective tool in promoting my band.

History of the Music Video

One of the most significant music videos ever made is Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Although it usually just aired bands and artists performing live, Top of the Pops aired the music video for the song, and, subsequently, made it hugely famous.

The song was not a huge commercial success before the video was aired - it was arguably too lengthy to be a commercially successful song. However, the music video proved to be a successful tool in promoting the song.

The launch of MTV in 1981 was another significant development for the music video - its original output consisting of solely music videos.

. Over time, the actual channel MTV has become more known for reality television, however, sub-channels - such as MTV Rocks and MTV Dance - focus on particular genres and play music videos almost all of the day long. These sub-channels are arguably more useful for broadcasting music videos, as they target the desired target audiences more effectively.

MTV Rocks is one of the channels that broadcasts music videos within my genre (indie). However, arguably the main channel that does so is NME.

Music Videos

http://www.slideshare.net/LukeH14/music-videos-9979110 This is a link to a presentation I created, which shows my research into music videos.

Digipaks

http://www.slideshare.net/LukeH14/digipaks-9546244  Here is a link to a presentation I did on digipaks.