Target Audience

Who are my Target Audience?

My target audience are teenage girls aged 14-18 who have a musical preference for POP/RNB.

Research: I conducted some research by giving out surveys to my target audience so that I could get an me an idea of how to appeal to them in my music video. Each person was to write down five main things on the form: their likes/dislikes, musical preferences, ambitions and media consumption

habits.

This is the most important factor in deciding the content of my music video from the camera shots to the costume and the overall setting...so having looked at this piece of research I can't say I'm pleased with the result. I can't conclude anything with these answers, they are too idiographic - too unique, so although they are useful individually they haven't helped me to draw up conclusions overall. I'm going to either need more survey results or I'm going to need to find a way to put these answers to greater use.

ANNOTATION OF LYRICS

So far I've done the annotations for the lyrics and after I have to start applying them to a storyboard format. I'm quite happy with the annotations but I know I'll end up changing a few things such as the setting for certain scenes, for example, the bit where she sings "Saturday comes, it's just another day to me..." in the second verse is intended to be somewhere like in a mall or a public place of leisure but as stated in one of my previous posts, this is very unlikely to go to plan and permission may be limited, I'm going to need to choose my settings wisely as I'll be filming over a period of time with my cast members, so they need to be accessible, quick and easy to get to.

I have a feeling there are so much more editing aspects I can use to really bring the effects I want to have in the music video to the audience, perhaps I could be a bit more original and stop sticking to what I know, for example, fade transitions and black and white filters, maybe I ought to step out of the box a little, but I guess I should leave that until the editing stage and focus on the actual filming part more because if the quality of the film isn't good, no amount of editing will overcome that.

I'm aiming for the mood of my music video to be cheesy, somewhat playful and innocent which will hopefully relate to my target audience as teenage girls are familiar with possessing these attitudes and know how to have fun. =)

MYXX LYRICS

‘I’ll Be Waiting’

I-I-I-I'll Be
I-I'll be
I-I-I-I'll Be
I-I-I-I-I'll be [x4]

[VERSE 1:]
Some say its the greatest thing
How I wish that I could agree
Been waiting for my turn
Seems love just skipped over me
I really wanna know what it feels like to be involved
With someone who can make the stars fall out the sky
I'd give anything to have it right here in my life
I know there's something waiting for me
Waving a sign

[CHORUS:]
I'll be waiting for your love
To come and find me
Could be right beside me
I'll be, I’ll be waiting
I'll be waiting for your love
To come and find me
Could be right beside me
I'll be, I’ll be waiting
I've never been in love
But now I’ve got a taste for it (taste for it x3)
I've never had someone
To help me get the hang of it (hang of it)
(I’ll be waiting)

[VERSE 2:]
Saturday comes
Its just another day to me
Some call it day and night
But that’s never been my routine
Just once I’d like to feel the way people say it feels
I heard that its incredible, the ultimate right
I'm sure I’ll come across it sooner, maybe later
In the mean time, I’m gon wait my turn
I'm first in line

[CHORUS:]
I'll be waiting for your love
To come and find me
Could be right beside me
I'll be, I’ll be waiting
I'll be waiting for your love
To come and find me
Could be right beside me
I'll be, I’ll be waiting
I've never been in love
But now I’ve got a taste for it (taste for it, waiting waiting I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be waiting)
I've never had someone
To help me get the hang of it (hang of it, waiting waiting I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be waiting)
(I’ll be waiting)

[RAP:]
I'll be waiting, waiting
For the l-u-v to come and find me, find me
It could be right beside me, right beside me, I’ll be waiting
I'll be waiting, waiting
For that l-u-v to come and find me, find me
It could be right beside me, right beside me, I’ll be waiting

Need love like yesterday
And the day before and the day before that
I'll be waiting, I’ll be waiting, I’ll be waiting, I’ll be waiting
Clock ticks the time away(7 ticks)
No pressure, sign off with my heart beat
Yes I rhyme of it(of it x4)

[CHORUS: X2]
I'll be waiting for your love
To come and find me
Could be right beside me
I'll be, I’ll be waiting
I'll be waiting for your love
To come and find me
Could be right beside me
I'll be, I’ll be waiting

I've never been in love
But now I’ve got a taste for it (taste for it, waiting I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be waiting)
I've never had someone
To help me get the hang of it (hang of it, waiting waiting I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be waiting)
(I’ll be waiting)

I’ll be waiting.

Storyboard

Music Video Treatment

The whole narrative will be based on the general life of a teenage girl living in London and waiting for love. So during the scenes I think it will be important to capture this in environments that teens my age are familiar with, for example, a friend's house, central London or the city streets etc. I also want to have fun with these ideas, which is why I wanted to include some comical aspects in the music video, but I'll go into more detail with it in my next post.

Ideas for the video!

From the analysis of the 3 music videos I have gathered quite a lot of ideas about the filming aspects I would like to incorporate in my video.


CAMERA SHOTS & CAMERA MOVEMENT:

• In two of the videos I analyzed (Jojo's - 'Get Out' & Beyonce's 'If i were a boy') I noticed the frequent presence of shots that connoted power and control in the female identity. Although i like this convention, I would like to challenge it and stay away from shots such as up tilt shots on the main character, mainly because the whole idea of the song is about 'waiting' and time - which you cannot control, therefore I want to convey the spontaneity of the narrative. In addition i think that I want to emphasise the innocent,vulnerable characteristics of being a teenage girl and not knowing when you'll find 'Mr right', hopefully this will appeal to the target audience of teenage girls more as it makes it more relatable. So I'm thinking using of lot of aerial/serial view shots where the main character looks up at the camera.
• I intend to use many close-ups and/or extreme close-ups of the character, maybe desirable facial features such as the mouth and eyes on her like in the Mariah Carey - 'We Belong Together' video I analysed. Hopefully this will produce the same effect as it did in that video, attracting the 'male gaze' and at the same time encouraging the audience to pay close attention to the lyrics that are being sung.

• I think Panning movements would look great at points in my video. For example when the female protagonist is sitting at the bus stop and turns to see her not-so-idyllic version of 'love', the camera should pan left to right or right to left to illustrate that she is looking at the person. It would probably be a good idea for me to use the tripod whilst doing this to ensure a smooth and less jerky movement.
• Zoom shots - on significant objects such as the clock or love heart candy to emphasise the importance of what each object is symbolic of. The clock for example is symbolic of the theme of passing time so having a zoom shot of it embeds this recurring theme in the viewers mind. The love heart candy relates to the young teenage audience who will be more likely to consume candy on a daily basis, the fact that they are shaped as love hearts further highlights the one of the main themes of love in the song.

LIGHTING:

• I am aiming to use natural lighting. I've decided the majority of the video will be set during the day time so that the lighting levels do not become a problem, from filming my AS thriller coursework I've learnt that filming at night is risky in terms of the amount of exposure that will be reflected in the lens, also video filters will be harder to see if the lighting is too dark.

EDITING:

• Fade and fade dissolve transitions are great editing transitions I would like to use throughout my whole video. I think the fade transitions are a smooth way of carrying the narrative along as they are quite ambiguous and can portray the days,weeks or months that go by, this fits well with my narrative and song choice as the main theme is time. I would like to have a fade in transition at the beginning of the video and maybe a fade out transition (which fades to black) at the end of the video to signify the ending and beginning of 'waiting'.
• I've found that the idea of a time-lapse effect would be very appropriate for my music video seeing as the prominent theme of the song is 'TIME', and waiting.
  
  Right now I'm thinking of using the weather as one source of time-lapse. I quite like the idea of gradually seeing the clouds in the sky part and the sun turning into the moonlight. The second time-lapse i might have is one of filmed raw traffic. I think it could be used as a very effective technical code, symbolizing the passing of time as the waiting occurs.

These are very good examples of what I am aiming for my time-lapse to look like!

• A soft focus on the main character in the video would be ideal. I want to use this as a form of voyeurism as well as a way of illustrating the beginning of the narrative and the active point of view.
  
  COSTUME:

• Uniform? - since the beginning of the story is intended to start in a school it would make sense for my character to be shown at the beginning in typical school wear, so a blouse, a tie, a checkered skirt or even just plain black trousers would be nice so that the target audience (teenagers aged 14-18) will make that instant connection to her position as they also attend school.
• Outside of the school i would like the singer to be wearing trendy, fashionable 'in the now' clothes, in other ways nothing that looks too expensive or that is too revealing but ordinary, ever day clothing most girls my age would wear, for example, jeans/jeggings and a long tunic. I'll probably have her wearing some jewellery or props to glamorise her outfit, hopefully this will provoke an admiration in the target audience by allowing them to admire her sense of style.
  
  
  
  PROPS:
  
  
• Modern day devices - I-pods, mobile phones, i-phones, camera's etc to reflect the modern, lively, young atmosphere at which teenagers tend to possess in pop/R'n'b videos.
  
  MISE-EN-SCENE:
  
  
• Locations will be city based to present the modern western society. I have ideas about filming at a mall, or a cafe/restaurant or any other general public place where teenagers are likely to socialise (to make the target audience feel they can relate to the character) but these are public places so I may face issues in terms of getting permission.

So this is it, these are the main ideas for my music video. I'm quite keen of most of them apart from the locationspart because it may not go to plan, but if I can make the costumes look as intended and make use of editing skillsand improve the whole filming process in general I think I'll be on the right track.

Mood Board

The mood board shows the key aspects I want to include in my music video.
RNB/POP is associated with urban culture hence I want to make an emphasis on trendy, fashionable costumes and maybe props too, the theme of the song is TIME and also LOVE so the video has to be fast-paced in some points to emphasise this, the passing of time should be presented visually via symbolism e.g.ticking clock or editing - time remapping.
Modernity: To represent modern day youth I think modern gadgets or devices such as i-pods and i-phones should be prominent throughout the video. And a city environment highlights the cultural environment and it's effect on the youth of today, (e.g. the way they think, their actions and their general way of living).

Analysis of an RNB/POP Music Video

Analysis of a POP/RNB Music Video

Analysis of a POP/RNB Music Video