Research Methods Evaluation

For the music video production unit, I knew that it was vital to conduct some research before I went out and started the filming process in order to create a well-informed, effective 

I began my research by exploring music video theories put forward by Andrew Goodwin, who identified the codes and conventions within music videos and Carol Vernallis, whose theory was based upon the editing of music videos. Initially, my research took the form of some brief notes written down whilst my tutor gave us some background on the theories via powerpoint. From this, I learnt the basic outline of the theories. I then took my research further and built upon these notes by using secondary sources: Andrew Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' and Carol Vernallis' 'The Kindest Cut'. I also viewed information and summaries of the theories using google search, which often led me to look at other peoples' blogs, powerpoints, videos and slideshares etc. The information supplied through the latter method, however, is far less reliable than using the physical copy of the theorist's published books, as the information can be edited or misinterpreted by other people on blogs, slideshares and powerpoint etc. For this reason, my main source of research was the books written by Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis themselves.



Initial Research using Secondary Resources

The research that I carried out using the books written by Goodwin and Vernallis proved very useful when conducting my next research method, which was semiotic analysis of existing music videos. This played a vital part in the production of my own music videos and gave me an abundance of ideas for my own work. This, along with my previous research, gave me ample knowledge on the codes and conventions of different genres of music video, which I then used to influence my own work. 


Questionnaire

In order to gain a good, solid understanding of what audiences want from a music video, I decided to create a questionnaire and send it to the other students in my class to fill out. This method of research is called quantitative, as it relies on facts and figures, whereas the other methods of research were more qualitative, which  produces more varied and in depth results. Quantitative research methods are more structured ways of getting information and they produce solid information in a formal, often numerical manner.
The purpose of the questionnaire I created was to gain an insight into what an audience prefer a music video to include and to find out their thoughts and opinions. 
Examples of some of the questions I asked are:  'What do you like to see in a good music video?' and 'what is your current favourite music video and why?'. 

I had hoped that my questionnaire would provide me with lots of data that would help inform my work and give me some ideas and inspiration, however, this proved not to be necessarily the case. This is because not all of the answers I received from the questionnaire were in as much detail as I would have liked, with some of the replies being very short. Another reason why I did not get the quality of information that I had hoped for could have been due to the fact that a lot of the questions had multiple choice answers and some people may have found it difficult to choose an accurate answer, or even didn't have an answer that reflected their own opinion at all. As a result of this, I believe that the reliability of my results may be questionable, but I am glad I conducted this method of research because it gave me some idea of what kind of video audiences enjoy watching. 

                                                                                                      

Focus Group

After my initial research, semiotic analysis of other music videos and questionnaires, I felt like I had conducted sufficient research to form some basic ideas for my music video. I chose a song which was called 'Moving Home' by favourite band, Moose Blood, because whenever I listen to it I can visualise things that I could include in a music video for it and because it's one of my personal favourite songs. 

As a class, we held a focus group to discuss our ideas for each of our music videos. This enabled us to gain inspiration, explore in more depth the ideas we already have and build upon them, and also to gain insight into the other students in the class' ideas. The purpose behind the focus group was to gain qualitative data from a primary source through face-to-face communication with others. 

I found the focus group really helpful in the sense that it enabled me to develop my ideas which, at the time, were just the basics of an idea. After I had presented my ideas to the other students in the class, I asked for feedback and any suggestions that anyone may have for my own video, which I wrote down as everyone talked. I looked back on this any time when I was lacking inspiration for the video, as everyone had completely different and fresh ideas. 
To ensure the validity and reliability of this form of research, and to make sure that I had good, concise qualitative data to work from, I asked anyone who voiced their opinions or ideas to explain what they were saying in depth. 


Conclusion

Due to the nature of my production work, quantative research methods such as questionnaires prove ineffective in regards to supplying reliable and quality results. This is because they do not give you in-depth information and answers that can inspire and influence creative work. 
I found that using qualitative research methods was the most effective way of gathering quality research from primary sources, such as my peers in the focus group session and applying the theories that I had explored in my semiotic analysis of existing music videos. This primary research, using a combination of different sources such as books, journals and websites allowed me to gain a strong understanding of the theories that I would need to consider when producing my music video. It is evident that internet based resources have proved to be essential and very effective throughout my music video production unit, however, it was vital that I cross-checked any information from any sources to ensure the validity and reliability of each source because most internet resources can be manipulated by anyone.  

If I were to conduct my research again, I would more than likely make a few improvements, including:

• Recording the focus group using a microphone so that I can listen back on the session and record the information more accurately. 
• Create a questionnaire that includes more answer boxes in which the person answering the questions could write their thoughts and opinions down in the way that they wanted to, rather than using multiple choice answers.
• More thorough semiotic analysis of different music videos, more semiotic analysis of music videos (4-5).