Ancilllary task questionnaire digipak

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/VR7XBWM

For our ancillary task research we have designed a questionnaire that will help us in order to produce the final covers for our digipaks. I asked an audience of 13 people from various age group a series of questions in regards to digipaks and their layout in order to gain insight on what the potential audience for our final music video would expect to see when purchasing a digipak.

 From these results,  we can observe that our audience are mainly female. This is very stereotypical as females tend to prefer romantic genres. In our music video, we will include young female characters within our video. However although there was less males participating in the questionnaire it still shows that this might be a topic of interest within some males. The minority group of participants who answered 'prefer not to say' may cause some trouble within our final casting as there is only very few people that fit into this group that would be willing to be cast in our final music video. We will however not be including this minority within our final video as we are attempting to make the focal point of music video being on the breakdown of a relationship as opposed to the gender identity of the cast members which we will we represent through focusing the narrative on the breakdown of a heterosexual relationship.

 The majority of our target audience were aged between 16-25, whilst the least were aged 45 or older. Due to our music video being aimed at such a young target audience, we will have to include characters of similar age to help the audience watching connect with them and sympathise. Also, many music videos nowadays include young actors as it's easier to attract the younger audience as they're more likely to watch and get involved with promoting the video. However due some older participants for the questionnaire we will include this representation by including older character within our music video who will represent those in the present day that are reflecting on their past and the memories that they have had as this representation will then relate to the theme of our music video being retrospect and looking back on the past via flashbacks, that we will achieve through the use of black and white colour treatment of our resultant footage. 

From these results, it is made evident that those who were taking part in this questionnaire preferred the first design and found it visually appealing due to its use of colour and warm tones. These participants also stated that they liked the layout and how it challenged the representation of happy couples within the media as the photograph is shown to have been destroyed by fire which has connotations of a breakup as the picture of the couple together no longer exists, much like their relationship. However for those who preferred design B it appeared that they like this design due to it s use of black and white as this would relate to the title of 'retrospect' as we usually associate black and white images with the past or something that has already been and gone and you might become nostalgic about.


Those who took part in our questionnaire also felt that using text on digipak covers would be particularly effective as it allows the digipak to look more cohesive and also give the audience more information about who the artist is and what the title of the song is as it will be useful in helping them find more music to listen to from the artist if they like the song that is being feature within our music video. However there was a smaller 30% of participants who stated that they didn't feel that text was necessary on digipak covers as they believe that if the images are effective enough they will portray the message of the song and its title without using text that would take up unnecessary space  on the cover.

From this data it can be observed that around 70% of those who took part in this questionnaire would agree that we should include an image of the artist in the final cover for our digipak as it would allow the audience to gain a visual aid in understanding who has produced the song and if they conform to their audiences expectations of what they look like and if this translates into their music and visuals. However those who did not think we needed to include the artists image within the cover stated that it may not be necessary as an alternative image may be more effective at portraying the message of the song due to the connotations an image might have, e.g. black and white having connotations of the past and a burnt photograph representing the breakdown of a relationship. However due to our music video based on a Jeff Buckley song, we will be unable to include his image due to Buckley's death in 1997 and due to the artist being deceased it may be difficult to gain access to his images whist still avoiding copyright infringement or any other legal consequences due to using this artists image without the proper permissions granted.


Those participants who chose design A stated that one of the things they would like to see improved about the design was the style of  font that is used so that it stands out more against a warm toned background and they also suggested using an alternative colour for the font such as black,white or dark grey. This colour font would be particularly effective as it is something that would contrast the background and relate to theme of 'retrospect' as in relation to Barthes semantic code all carry the connotations of the past or being dark natured, similar to the narrative of our music video. Those who chose design B also said that the colour of font could be changed so that there was a higher level of contrast between the background and text so that the audience is able to distinguish the image from the text on the cover.



Our questionnaire asked the participants what they considered to be conventions of the indie genre to which they responded with a variety of answers that included the use of vintage images and the embracing of individuality. We will attempt to include these conventions within our final music video  through our use of costuming and makeup. Furthermore we will conform to these genre conventions by denaturing colours within our music video using colour treatment during post production  to give more of an indie feel to our video and conform to audience expectation of what our final video should look like.



The final question within our questionnaire asked the participants if they thought that our use of images and font conformed to the conventions that they had previously suggested to be conventions of the indie genre. For this question we received a divided response as some of the participants only agreed partially that these two designs conformed to the indie genre due to the images used on the second design not conforming to the conventions regarding costuming as the image featured isn't shown to be wearing casual clothing. However in our final design we will make sure to include costuming and makeup that conforms to these conventions. However those who did agree that these designs conformed to these conventions said that the use of images were effective as they challenged traditional representations of relationships within the music industry as the image is focused on the breakup as opposed to the couple being together. These participants also agreed that the layouts were effective due to their use of colour and images however there was some refinement work needed in regards to typography.