Annotated Funk Music Videos

Research and Planning

Audience mood board

Our genre of music video is funk so this mood board is made for and directed at a funk music audience.

What is funk?

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid- to late 1960s when African American musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B).

Our audience for the music video are people who enjoy to listen to funk music and enjoy watching a very visual music video. I say visuals to mean that our video will have many things going on; dialogue, motion and a story or narrative also. 
Such as in the music video for "Atomic Dog" by George Clinton.

This leaves me feeling that the audience of our music video will be active people who enjoy to dance in and out of clubs or just whenever listening to music they enjoy, such as funk. This is why we will try to create a lively, energetic atmosphere while shooting and recording our video.

Target Audience + Questionnaire

Our target audience is males, aged 17-20 who dislike pop music. As a group, we believe that a questionnaire/survey would be an effective way of gather information. We will create the survey with the purpose to learn listening habits and to better understand how to create our video effectively.

With questionnaires, we can start to see patterns which we can then apply to our music video. Having as much information about our chosen genre means we can fully understand the creation process.

Our questions are:
How often do you listen to funk music?

[ ] All the time
[ ] Sometimes
[ ] I don't listen to it, but i like it
[ ] Not at all

What type of video do you like to watch?

[ ] Story-driven
[ ] Song irrelevant to video
[ ] Centered on band members/singer
[ ] Location shot typed video
[ ] Other, list below
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________

What genre do you like the most?  (Add genre on the bottom if ticked 'Other')

[ ] Pop
[ ] Hip-Hop
[ ] R&B
[ ] Funk
[ ] Rock
[ ] Indie
[ ] Other
___________________________

How old are you?

_____

Male/Female?

[ ] Male
[ ] Female
[ ] Other


These range of questions give the survey more flexibility as the people doing them are not being asked closed questions. Open questions, such as ones saying "Other" and fill the blanks below, mean that honest answers can be given, whereas closed questions like "Yes" or "No" may not cover all basis as well as adding "Maybe" for example, or "On certain occasions". Open questions gather information more effectively, although harder to compile, as expectedly there will be more qualitative and quantitative information to sort through.

Audience Analysis

The song 'Adrienne and Adrianne' does not contain lyrics and may not appeal to some audiences. Teenage boys and girls, age 16-18 tend to be big fans of pop and indie music. These genres have a typical theme to the videos, such as love. Our video will follow a story, but not entirely clear. Some parts will be abstract which ties in with indie music videos, but contrasts with pop, as pop music tends to have a linear path of storytelling.

The video will more or less be aimed at male and female aged 17-19, whom enjoy indie music, funk and subtle storytelling and interpreting a video based on your own analysis.

People aged 25+ tend to enjoy older music, such as music the liked when they were growing up. Typically, they shy away from modern music as they have missed the integration of different and a more modern blend of music genres into chart music. Funk music was deemed 'pop' music 20-30 years ago. So our video, which is a sub-genre of funk may be effective in attracting listeners who may feel nostalgic from the style.

An effective way of analysing listening habits is by conducting a survey. Surveys are an excellent way to collect data on, for example, how long someone listens to music a day, or what genre/artists. A downside to surveys/questionnaires is that the data may not be correct as a small minority of people do not speak for that gender,age or ethnicity. A survey may gather sufficient qualitative and also quantitive to understand what audience our video and Vulfpeck's song will appeal to.
Understanding our audience is key to creating a succesful video that not only appeals to the correct target audience, but also causes people who wouldn't normally involve themselves with funk, possibly because pop is so huge, to widen their variety of genre listening habits.