The questionnaire can be deemed by me as a success, since it provided a wide range of quantitive data relevant to my study. The variety of people and large sample size meant that my questionnaire was much less likely to be biased in any shape or form. In addition, by only consisting of multiple-choice questions, the survey results were easy to analyse and summarise into simple pie charts. A problem that has arisen from this, however, is the lack of qualitative data, since the inclusion of short-answer questions would have enabled the participants to express their opinions more freely, by not being limited to choose from a set amount of options. Furthermore, most of the participants had little to professional expertise in the subject matter, meaning that the results may not be fully relevant to my study.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this study in relation to my music video production, is the genre that my work associated itself with. To help choose, I followed Andrew Goodwin's Dancing in the Distraction Factory theory on the types of music video genre that exist, to conclude the multiple-choice options that should be made available. My results informed me that most people prefer 'Conceptual/Experimental' music videos, while the other types - particularly 'Location' - are much less appreciated. This benefits me, as I was able to abide by the most popular result, since I wanted to create a piece that could be considered experimental and uncommon, as I would have less reason to follow any kind of typical music video structure.
So that I had an impression of the main reason as to why most people were encouraged to watch certain music videos, I made sure that the available options were reasons common enough for the participants to relate and choose whichever best suited them. Equal to my suspicions, the option that received the highest amount of votes was 'The Credited Artist/Band', which did not support me. The band that I had in mind, Rainbow, is not at all mainstream nowadays, since it is no longer performing, and is labelled as a rock band - rock being a genre that I sadly consider to be dying. In the end, I decided to ignore the results gathered from this question, as I suspected beforehand that they would not benefit me.
Hoping to gain insight into which typical music video feature is considered the most appealing by the most people asked, I provided five options that I saw as being common within the majority of music videos. To my concern, most of the participants voted for the 'Choreography' option. In my opinion, it would seem that most of those who chose 'Choreography', are also the same participants who voted for 'Pop' as the music genre that they listen to the most in the very first question. Therefore, since I decided to base my video around a different genre of music, I saw no reason to include the most popular featured voted for, especially since I did not wish for it to include people. Overall, I decided to take advantage of the options that achieved joint second place: 'Lighting' and 'Colour', as they were better suited to the unique style of music video that I had in mind.
Following the four main categories that Carol Vernallis' The kindest cut: functions and meanings of music video editing theory can be separated into, I immediately had four options for participants to choose from in their task to answer which aspect of music video production they consider to be the most important. Fortunately for me, 'Editing' received the most votes, and 'Narrative' followed close behind. These two aspects were the ones that I was hoping to focus on from the beginning, as they both greatly affect the creativity and inventiveness of music videos. Since I wished to produce a piece that could be considered unique, I was able to accept my results in this case, as they would help me achieve such a goal.
Despite when answering if they believed whether music videos increases the success of the songs that they are made for, most of the participants were split between 'Yes' and 'No', these results did not technically affect my work in any way, since the question itself was not relevant to the overall production of my music video. In addition, the final third of participants were either unsure or believed that their answer would change depending on other aspects, meaning that since the remaining two options can be grouped together, the whole group of individuals asked was split evenly three ways, thereby not providing me with an official answer.
Similar to the results of the previous question, the most popular result does not have any impact on my work. In this case, the fact that most people voted 'Yes' for believing that the credited artists/bands should be featured within their music videos, cannot affect my music video's final design, since I obviously have no logical way of filming any official band, let alone one that originally had a vocalist who is now dead. In addition, only one less participant voted for 'No' than 'Yes', and so it was easier for me to ignore the largest group of the same results.
To my advantage, when asked if they believe whether music videos should mirror the song lyrics, the majority of participants selected the 'Yes' option. This helped me, as I was wanting to match the visuals to match the lyrics of the song itself, since such a technique would be easier to plan beforehand, as well as film. Additionally, I can name very few music videos that follow this method, meaning that the idea seemed uncommon to me, which would help my work achieve a certain level of individuality.
Overall, I see the questionnaire as a success, but obviously not devoid of problems. The main improvement that I would make if I were to redo this survey, would be to include short-answer questions so that the participants are not restricted from sharing their personal opinions in more detail. I would also try to ensure that some of the participants had a reasonable amount of background knowledge in the area of music video production, so that the validity of the results could be greater, and perhaps more in favour of my choices.
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