Second Focus Group

Planning

 I have decided to conduct a second focus group as I felt as though the data gathered in the first focus group was inconclusive. This time I want to focus on planning out what the specific goal in mind for the questionnaire is and I want to have structured questions in place to help the participants form a well thought out response which will actually help me improve the product. As I am father along in the production stages of my product, I will not be using the focus group as a basis to gather ideas but instead to make improvements to the product I am already making. This focus group will act sort of like a beta test for  the video. In order to find participants for the focus groups I will be sending out posts and direct messages in online groups dedicated to the Arctic Monkeys, I am doing this as they are already fans of the band therefore they can offer me feedback which is most valuable as they are the target audience for the product. I will be showing them a draft version of the music video in order to gauge their reaction from their response, body language and tone of voice. 

Questions

I want to make sure the questions are specific enough that they properly represent the video however, I don't want the questions too specific that they confuse an audience making them less likely to answer truthfully or correctly. The questions will just be starting points in order to get the group conversating and coming up with valuable ideas. Although I want the participants to be discussing and sharing ideas I also want to make sure to try ask individual people how they feel in order to get a real response out of them rather than a response which they have been influenced to give based on other participants answers. 

Do you understand the concept of the video, if not inform us on what you found confusing?

I have asked this question as I believe it to be the most important, if the audience doesn't understand what is going on in the video they cannot enjoy it which means I should work on making it clearer what the message of the video is.

Do you enjoy the editing style used within the video?

The editing in the video is important it is what blends sounds and images together seamlessly to make and audience feel emotionally connected to a production.  Editing helps determine the pace of the video, as it is a music video the pace of the edit should match the pace of the song, if not done correctly it could make the video seem confusing and hard to watch because of the lack of synchronisation, it is always good to get feedback on the editing in order to make sure the audience will truly engage with the music video.

Tell me something you did not enjoy about the video?

Often, it is very easy to gather information about what people like and what they enjoy however, they may be less likely to point out the flaws because they are scared of disagreeing with the rest of the participants or scared of disappointing the people hosting the focus group. Criticism is the best information as it gives you a note to improve on. 

Do you believe the video reflects the lyrics of the song well?

As I am producing a narrative piece which illustrates a lot of the lyrics therefore, a lot of the visuals in the song should represent the visuals fairly well, however, I cannot tell the audience whilst they are watching what approach I was going for therefore, I will ask my audience in the focus group if they do not believe I have done a successful job at representing the lyrics visually then that tells me that I must go back and film some more footage which represents the lyrics better. When asking this question if they answer no, I must make sure to ask them expand upon their answer and give me specific examples of where they didn't think the lyrics matched up with the footage being showed to them.

Do you believe the video reflects the music well?

This question is similar to the question above but this time it isn't based upon the lyrics of the music it is the sound in itself. The song is an up-beat song therefore, the editing style and the visuals need to present the same about of energy as the music. For example, if I was producing a video for "Take Me To Church" I wouldn't be using fast paced editing with lots of hip-hop dancing footage I would have slow editing with a meaningful emotional visual style to attempt to match the theme of the music.

How do you feel about the VHS style editing technique?

This is a very specific question which I felt was important, I chose to use a VHS style overlay on most the footage to represent the man turning into this cliché creepy obsessive male out of the movies that becomes so infatuated with a girl that she is all he thinks of and all he sees. If the audience doesn't understand why I have used this edit style then this is an indication that I should either drop the editing technique or change the footage to make it clearer why I'm using that editing technique.

How well would you say the video represents the image of the band?

The video should represent the codes and conventions of the genre and of the brands image. I have studied the bands image and the genre conventions in order to make sure my video does represent the band correctly however, it is best to get a second opinion from a fan that has more knowledge on the band than myself to make sure that the mis-en-scene, editing and camera shots/angles reflect the artists and the genre.

Results

Above I have posted a recording of the focus group that I have conducted, I believe that I gathered a lot of valuable feedback on my draft video which I can definitely used to make some changes to my music video. Throughout the focus group I constantly tried to ask individuals about their opinion to make sure the participants are just agreeing with things other participants have said instead they all offered their own unique feedback. I believe one way in which this focus group could have been improved is if I had more available participants as only two where able to join the call on teams. The feedback the participants offered was valuable however, it is always best to have at least 5 participants so that I can judge based of all the answers given what I should actually implement into my production. I believe this focus group went a lot smoother as it was a lot more structured, I had questions ready in advance to ask my participants which all had a summary to them to help the participants better understand the question so they could answer as accurately as possible. The good thing about only having a small amount of participants is that it meant I would have a lot more time for question answering therefore, I was able to ask them quite a few without the call dragging out too much. I found all the feedback from this feedback very hlpful for example, I found that my participants found the VHS edit confusing therefore, I believe I must make it more obvious in the video what the meaning of the edit is, some of the participants wished to have a more comical light hearted nature to the video which I believe can be done by illustrating lyrics with literal meanings rather than the metaphorical ones in the video for example when it says "simmer down" I could use shots of water simmering instead of some more serious footage. The participants also informed me that maybe implementing text in the video could be a nice addition. Base on the feedback received I will go back through my video and edit in some changes based on the feedback.