Q&A with Alice, a member of our target audience.

Alice is 17 years old. She is a student and a part-time barista at Starbucks.

Deanna:
So, Alice- firstly I'd like to take the time to thank you for agreeing to take part in this Q&A session with Parisienne Records!

Alice:
That Is Okay, I'm More Than Happy To Participate!

Deanna:
Firstly, what did you think of the video in general?

Alice:
It Seems Quite Fun, Light Hearted, Which Matches The Song Really Well.

Deanna:
Do you think that the light-hearted mode of address would appeal to the target audience of females aged 16-24?

Alice:
Definitely, It's Funny, It's Quirky, And Tailored To Someone Who Just Wants A Little Fun.

Deanna:
Would you say that Parisienne Records have followed the conventions of a female solo artist?

Alice:
I Believe So, The Song Is A Catchy Poppy Tune That Most Can Bop Along To With An Amusing Video To Match

Deanna:
Have they broken any stereotypes associated with the genre? Something that other people have commented on is that the storyline involves the girl being the 'player' whereas a lot of songs focus on a girl being dumped, or being too shy to show her feelings...
What do you think of this opinion?

Alice:
Most Female Solo Artists Often Sing About 'Sisters Doing It For Themselves', Which I Believe Is Shown Throughout. There Is A Slight Role Reversal, Yes, But Not Necessarily A Large One.

Deanna:
Do you think that this would have made females aged 16-24 more likely to watch it?

Alice:
Quite Possibly, That Target Audience Would Certainly Enjoy It More Than Others.

Deanna:
Is there anything else that could have been done to make it appeal to our target audience even more?

Alice:
If I Was To Add Anything, It Would A Couple Of Shots Of The Female Discussing Her 'Dilemma' With Her Friends.

Deanna:

Ok. So what did you think of the ancillary tasks? (The poster and digipack)

Alice:

I Thought They Were Excellent, Very Up To Date And Fitting With Similar Artists Today, Like Katy Perry and Rihanna. I liked the use of the colour red with the fonts because it symbolised passion and confidence, which is what I would associate with the video.

Deanna:

Did you notice the branding? Can you guess what it was?

Alice:I think it was the belgian bun- it was used quite heavily in the ancillary tasks and I thought this was very effective as it gave it a retro feel.

Deanna:
Correct! Okay Alice, thank you so much for your time!

Alice:
Glad I Could Help!

A2 Media Studies.: Target Audience Case Study - Sidonie

A2 Media Studies.: Target Audience Case Study - Sidonie:

Here is a link to my partner, Dora Lynn's blog where she closely examined a member of her target audience for research purposes.

Creating a brand

Although Kanye West, a male rap artist isn't in our genre- he knows how important it is to create a brand. His teddy bear logo has been featured on every single one of his albums to date, on merchandise and even on limited edition Bape trainers. This means that we can immediately associate the teddy bear with Kanye West- increasing his popularity and making his presence felt in all aspects of life. In our questionnaire from last week, we found out that our target audience believed that a cake should be our 'Kanye West teddy bear' and although this seemed a little odd- we took on the challenge and sought to find a cake to represent the KIRA KITSON brand!

Luckily it didn't take us long, and whilst popping to the shops before a Media lesson- we managed to pick up this beauty!



It was perfect! A traditional Belgian bun- it had something very retro about it, which is a common convention of both the female solo artist genre and indie music. White and red was a colour scheme that we would like to follow. Immediately we could see that with a little bit of editing, we could easily incorporate this bun into the ancillary tasks and music video to make a consistent link throughout the entire project. The cherry on top also led to us deciding that red was going to be Kira's colour, and her name would always be written in red font on album covers and the colour of her lipstick in the music video- red was also found to be the popular colour with our target audience. We've also decided that a very pristine, Stepford Wives feel for an album cover would really tie with the genre and appeal to our audience!

Just finding our logo, the Belgian bun- sparked off many other ideas in regards to giving Kira more of an identity, and now we have a lot more to work with within the creative process.

EDIT: Also, Katy Perry wears a set of them in her video for 'California Gurls'!
My analysis can be found here :)

Mis-en-Scene Questionnaire!

How was everyone's Christmas?! Now the festive season is over, Parisienne Records is back with a survey into mis-en-scene. Being in a college made up of 16-19 year olds, and approximately 50% of us girls- we are very lucky to be surrounded with our target audience. I created this short survey to try and get a feel for what our target audience likes to see in a music video in regards to colour and even other celebrity influences and compiled them into a graph on Microsoft Excel to see what appeals to them in a more easy to read format.

I asked...What colour would you like to see used in mostly in a Kate Nash music video?

As we probably guessed, from asking teenage girls- colours like pink and red came out on top with no one choosing beige as the idea colour. From this, we can tell that our target audience would be attracted by brighter, feminine colours and we need to take this into consideration when creating our ancillary pieces and the final production.

I asked...What type of scenario would you prefer in a Kate Nash music video?

From the look of the results, it's apparent that serious subject matter à la Christina Aguilera but something silly and little bit more light-hearted that will make people laugh! We are pleased with this result as we hurried into making a humorous narrative, and it is one thing less to worry about as we know this will please our audience.

I asked...What artists should we look to for inspiration who you admire the most?

Katy Perry came out on top for this one, and we were again very pleased by this as we had already done a lot of research into her album covers and music videos- this shows that both me and Dora know our target audience very well (perhaps this is to do with us being members of our own target audience?!). This makes it clear that we need to delve further into what makes Katy Perry so appealing by researching a few more of her music videos and looking at her own personal conventions- as this is clearly a sure fire way to appeal to our target audience. Ellie Goulding came second, and this was expected as she is, like Kate Nash- more indie/pop so we need to see how she balances the two genres and perhaps try to emulate that in our own project.

I asked...What do you think should be the 'symbol' of the artist 'Kira Kitson'?

We thought this was a slightly odd result as we thought perhaps sweets or stars would be the most popular with our target audience, but they seemed to be quite adamant that cakes would be the best logo when it came to creating a KIRA KITSON brand. Obviously, we want to appeal to them and make something that they will like- so we will endeavor to try and use a cake as our logo!

Target Audience Research

Target Audience Researc by parisiennerecords

Target Audience-Vlog

We compiled all of our research into a short video, looking at our target audience in depth and examining exactly what they'd want from a music video.

Ellie Goulding- 'Your Song': analysing existing media texts

In the video for Ellie Goulding's song, 'Your Song'- it's simplicity is what makes it beautiful. I've tried my best to analyse very different music videos, and this is unlike anything that I've ever seen before. It has a muted colour palette of soft beiges and greens from the trees, and a bokeh effect has been used on the footage to give it a dreamlike feel.

There is no set narrative to the music video, it features Ellie in situations with her friends and family (walks in the park, playing on a piano, on a train) but the bokeh effect, but this is interjected with a scene of her in the woods on her own- much sharper in effect than any other scene in the music video. This suggests that she is reminiscing of a time in the past.

'Your Song' is very ballad-like and slow in comparison to the other songs I have analysed, 'California Gurls' and 'Foundations' and therefore the conventions most likely wouldn't apply to our video for 'Pumpkin Soup' but something we could take from the video is the use of close ups- as they were especially effective at drawing us into Ellie's story, and the indie styling in terms of clothes and hair- as we can't forget about about the indie half of Kate Nash's music.

Katy Perry- 'California Gurls': analysing existing media texts

Katy Perry's video for California Gurls is set in a fantasy land called Candyfornia, where Katy and a gaggle of confectionery themed girls are players in a board game owned by the Candy King- Snoop Dog. It has a very vibrant and sugar sweet colour palette which is presented to the audience in the Willy Wonka style setting and Katy's costumes; throughout the video she is wearing a confectionery-encrusted dress with a lilac wig, wrapped in a candy floss cloud, a girl scout outfit and a pair of sparkly blue hot pants and a cake bra! This shows that Mis-en-Scene is really important in terms of costume, this is probably down to the target audience of Katy Perry being young girls- so looking good (even if it is a little crazy!) is very important, we need to remember this when making our own music video as we share the same audience as Katy!

The narrative involves Katy battling through the board game, adding to her team of candy girls and eventually taking on Snoop Dog- however, like many other music videos- it incorporates a scene, usually a studio, which will interject between the narrative where the artist is solely lip syncing singing. We will most likely follow this pattern too as it keeps the piece true to the form of the music video.

At the end of the video, Katy goes back to basics and fits the conventions of a traditional female solo artist- with a racy dance routine with a legion of back up dancers! I don't think this would be horrible appropriate for a Kate Nash music video, but it kind of told us that even though Kate Nash's music is a little bit more 'feminist' (for lack of a better word), sex appeal may be very important when creating a music video so it can appeal to both sexes.