The document provides feedback from an audience on a music video for a trip hop genre band. Key points: 1) The trip hop genre is niche and not well known, especially among younger audiences, making the genre hard to identify. 2) Sexually explicit or promiscuous scenes did not appeal to younger viewers and were blurred to be more interpretive. 3) The editing, lighting, camera work, and symbolism used were effective at conveying the dark, mysterious narrative and themes of passion/lust. However, some lighting made scenes unclear. 4) Overall the feedback was positive and praised the filmmaking techniques used to represent the trip hop genre and tell the story.

1. Q3 What have you learnt from you audience feedback?
What we have found from our feedback is that some of our final product was hard to
read, and the genre is almost unrecognisable as it is considered a niche music market
and does not conform to the typical music videos populated in the charts.
(Fig1. L-R Portishead, Bjork & Massive Attack)
Our genre of Trip hop is a fairly new genre emerging in Bristol around the mid-1990s,
it is considered niche. Artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead, Björk (Fig.1) and
Goldfrapp all fall into this genre and have been popular to this market but haven’t yet
broken into the major mainstream theme. Although artists such as Massive Attack are
infamous amongst the trip hop scene, they have yet to score it big in the popular
charts, charting a highest position of 10 for ‘tear drops’. This suggests that the genre
is possibly harder to identify when picking in a line up of popular music. From
looking at our audience feedback, we have found that majority did not know what
genre our music video fit in and some said that the visual looked ‘indie’. From this I
have noted that the niche market is not identifiable to a younger audience and
therefore does not sell as well as popular music.
(Fig.2 Blurred Alternative scene)
When receiving feedback on scenes
we found that the lusty
promiscuous character did not
appeal to a younger demographic
but applied to an older generation.
In order not to eliminate any other
consumers of the industry, we
decided to keep the idea of
voyeurism less prominent and
leave the scene more open to
interpretation. In one particular scene we had chosen to blur the frame to leave the
sexual connotations to a minimum (Fig.2).
From receiving overall feedback for our final product, we have found that the
majority appreciated the nature of the editing, in constructing the ideologies of the
music video. From having ‘fast pace’ editing we could construct a series of events
depicting the past, present and dark and making it edgy and different from what’s

2. already on the market. As well as this, the editing is said to be a good reflection of the
dark and sinister narrative particularly well formed in lip syncing and achieving star
persona and a believable character.
When viewing the light in our music video, we have found that the lighting effects we
have chosen to use, reflects the narrative perfectly. By having some scenes tinted and
some made dark, we have evoked different emotions felt by our main character. From
looking at our feedback, we have found that our shots were well framed during scenes
which have a darker lighting effect, some light is displayed on the character’s faces
focusing on their emotions and emphasising on their star quality rather than focusing
on busy backgrounds. This aids to creating the mysterious theme and nature of the
song. In contrast, at some points in our music video, the lighting does not enhance the
performance but makes it hazy and unclear to read (Fig.3).
(Fig.3 unclear scene)
When relating back to our audience feedback, we found that on the whole, it was
positive in suggesting that our camera angles aided the feel of the music video and
that there is and was a variety of camera angles which expressed and construct the
very nature of the video and genre. By allowing tracking shots (Fig.4) we were able
to keep to the voyeuristic under theme which made it more obvious to recognise as a
theme of passion and lust.
(Fig.4 track shot)

3. We had also included many varieties of close ups, conforming to Goodwin’s music
video theory and conventions of music videos. Typically music videos have a large
amount of close ups on the performer to illustrate star persona and emotions to run
alongside the narrative. In our piece we have chosen to include different camera
angles such as tilts and slants as well as a moving shots such as tracking and 180̊ shots
to enhance the mystery of the narratives, especially the moving shots which
emphasise the situation (as if her life is spiralling out of control) (fig5).
(Fig.5 Tilted camera angle)
The most positive aspect of our editing mentions by our feedback was the smooth
transition and continuity at the end of the sequence. The sequence ends with both
parties being passive and surrendering to their fate. The woman accepting and
surrendering to her life and the man surrendering to the woman (Fig.6). We have
captured this by making it appear as if they have both fallen and ran it side by side to
seem parallel which has been agreed to be very effective in editing. This had been
commented by the audience as an effective yet subtle way to show submission and
‘death’ of character.
(Fig.6)

4. The mise en scene has been critiqued as creative and clever in our uses of props and
costume as well as our uses of props for symbolism and semiotics. In our music
video, we put a high emphasis on the scenes of chess symbolising a battle between the
two characters (Fig.7). This is symbolic through each side of their board being their
strength and as each piece get taken, each person will gradually becoming weaker
inducing an action or follow up scene straight after. Towards the end of the music
video, Rachel overthrows her opponent by pushing all the chess pieces off the chess
board and here we are to believe Seonad (her opponent) has lost the game.
(Fig.7) (Fig.8 effective Costumes)
The costume and make up was seen as glamorous and symbolic of our characters
former glory and beauty which has slowly turned sour. In this, we have attempted to
create star persona by having a well groomed woman (Fig.8) contrasting to her unkept
and destructive personality. However the star image is open to interpretation due to
the nature of her personality.
One scene in particular which many praised was the scene where the male character
surrenders by putting his hands on his back (Fig.9), (inspired by ftape
photography(Fig.10)) creating a heart which reinforces the theme of ‘love’. This is a
clever way of adding to the symbolism of love and passivity.
(Fig.9) (Fig.10)
Choosing to shoot our video in a maze also heightened the sense of mystery by having
our actors act as if they were lost in confusion and trapped in a maze of lust, the maze
also being dried and dead added to the feeling of being dead in side as if a she is like a
venom or poison that destroys everything she touches. This was critiqued as very
effective in creating confusion and the characters being mislead making the overall
feel very enigmatic.