Evaluation - "What have you learned from your audience feedback?"

Over the course of researching and producing my work, I've taken feedback from potential audience members (read: consumers. People who would be giving me money.) on a number of occasions.

During the research phase, I gained feedback from potential audience members on what they expect to see in music videos. At first, I went with a fairly generic survey on Polldaddy, with responses including the following:

This shows that most of the people I'd asked here said they preferred storyline-driven videos, and weren't particularly bothered by the tone of the video.

As I mentioned in my later research, I was pretty skeptical about whether these findings were representative of my true target audience - and this is mainly because I'd originally asked anyone who felt like answering, as opposed to going out of my way to find people who are fans of the rock genre. I got some more specific feedback, including that below. One of the main things I learned from this is that rock fans like seeing the artist performing -

This was interesting to me as it contrasted the feedback I'd previously received; from this I saw that in order to market successfully to fans of rock music, my video had to have a heavy focus on my artist performing the song. This was actually a vital influence on the shaping of my video - originally I had intended to have quite a strong narrative focus during my early planning stages, but over time it became more apparent that this wouldn't be what my audience would want, so it made sense to strip the narrative elements down a lot.

This piece of feedback was also a big pushing point in terms of my video's direction; in the first survey a lot of people weren't bothered by a video's tone, yet the rock fan said that they like a more mature tone, which is why I decided to shy away from using too much bright, lively imagery.

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What other source of audience feedback have I made use of? The answer is, of course, my wonderful media class. Early on in the year, before I'd started producing any material for the video, I talked my classmates through the concept I had at the time, as you can see here:

Whilst the concept I mention here was fairly different to what eventually happened in the final production (for reasons I've discussed over the last few posts), it meant my class were aware of the song I was using and the general idea of what I was going for, so they were able to give me input as I was going along, especially in the editing phase. This was actually a perfectly ideal scenario - as I established early on in the project, my target audience for the product are older teenagers and young adults - and I'm working in a room with 17-18 year olds, meaning I'm receiving feedback and creative input from members of my target audience. It's also been especially useful in a practical sense - as they've been in the same room as me, I've been able to play the work in progress to them locally and get feedback right away; if I were to ask for feedback from other people I would have to have gone through the process of exporting a draft and uploading it somewhere, which when you have not-so-great RAM and a slow internet connection, is the very definition of tedium.

Some of the features of my video which were added/changed as per feedback from classmates include:

• longer strobe takes - when I first started putting the strobe transitions in, they were only about half as long as they are now; as some of my class members pointed out, because parts of those shots were completely black, at times it wasn't clear that it was supposed to be a strobe light effect and it just looked like the video had skipped.
• variety of shots - another piece of feedback I received was that there weren't that many different kinds of shots during the performance sections which made it look a bit bland. Because of this, I got Sir to help me film some additional shots, like the extreme close-up of my face, and the shot of my guitar.

In addition to this, I also asked Sir to give me some written feedback, which I analysed here. This feedback taught me that in order to engage the audience, I should have a smoother introduction to the video.

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In terms of the ancillary tasks, my main source of feedback was again my class. Let's start off with the digipak -

These are my first drafts, which, when presented to some of my class members, received some positive feedback, however it did seem to be of the "it's okay, I guess" variety. This, to an extent, supports my findings that perhaps this style of cover is a tad overused and therefore unable to stand out - they weren't exactly going to be blown away by a cover they've seen several thousand times before, are they? This, tied with my findings on the album chart, prompted me to add some brush textures to make it more interesting:

I decided to run these revised designs past my classmates again to see how they reacted to them, and I got a different kind of response - the "it's okay, I guess" had evolved into a more vocal "that looks really good". Because of this, I decided I'd continue using these texture effects across the rest of the panels...

...which worked, because it was met with a "that looks really cool!" (thanks Ben!). I think that the continued peer input really helped me win this one...

I also kept this feedback in mind when designing the promotional poster as well - as the texture effects were obviously successful, I used a similar effect on the poster (though not the -exact- same effect, to avoid redundancy from the digipak's cover also being there, as I mentioned elsewhere).

This again received the "it looks cool" feedback, so I then decided it had achieved its goal.

-HM.

Ancillary Production - Revised front/back covers

So, here are the revised versions of the front and back digipak covers. I've made the changes I said I would in the previous version's post, but the more observant folks may have noticed some more updates.

Firstly, the institution information is now present - it references "Metallic Records"; get it, because metal? I am so funny. But in seriousness, it seems appropriate because it describes the kind of music they sell. There is also an anti-piracy warning. No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me!

The more obvious of the changes? I've used some royalty free Photoshop brushes to add a bit of texture to both panels. Why?

Well, I was looking at the album chart earlier, and I noticed a bit of a trend:

Whilst following conventions can be useful to a degree, it dawned on me that an album isn't going to stand out on a shop shelf if there are two other albums which look the same. Because of this, it seemed appropriate to add a bit of uniqueness to the front cover. I then decided to add similar brushwork to the back cover to keep it consistant with the front.

Now left to go are the inside panels. I thought I'd initially prioritise perfecting the front and back covers as they are the parts which need to sell the album, but the inside panels are coming soon. Be excited; one of them has a closeup of my beautiful Black Knight.

-HM.

Production Update 10 - Draft the Second

With the feedback I'd received from Sir a little while back I've been able to get a second draft exported for your viewing pleasure. Or something. I don't want to make him feel too great about this after all, I've spent a good seven months now crushing his spirit but his feedback has been useful in prompting me to make some changes.

So as it stands, this is what my video is currently looking like.

Looking better, no?

Now whilst I could do my usual here and write up several paragraphs about "well, I've changed this because x, and I replaced that because y" etc., but I know you folks love a bit of dynamic media presentation. Therefore, I've employed the wonderful Picture-in-Picture tool in iMovie to have the first draft playing in sync with the new version so you can easily see the differences between the two (the big image is the current version, the overlay in the bottom right is the first draft).

It is necessary, however, to bring up a couple of notable points:

• The intro has been changed as per Sir's suggestion of having a short shot to draw the audience in without the intro looking awkward.
• I've thrown in a few rapid flicker cuts (such as those used as a transition between the first shot and the start of the performance) to make the video "more crazy". This was achieved simply by using the blade tool to make a few cuts to the overlay track, which were then deleted.
• A few shots have been shuffled around to fix some of the syncing issues; though as these have been fixed, new and exciting syncing issues have been discovered which need fixing before the next export. Huzzah.

-HM.

Production Update 9 - Initial feedback; plan of action

So... after posting my first draft of the I Am... All of Me video, I asked Mr. N. to give me some feedback on the edited product. And he did. Because of this, I will hold off of tormenting him for at least twenty minutes.

This feedback has prompted me to think about how I'm going to improve the video before presenting the second version. ANALYSIS POWERS, ACTIVATE!

"0:00 -- The opening seems to lack something. It just jumps straight into the middle of the performance. I know the song itself seems to just jump straight in, so arguably the video matches the music… but when I watch it, it just seems awkward. Check out “Heaven's Basement - I Am Electric” – it does nothing special but at least gives an idea of how openings can draw us in a bit more smoothly. You could even just start with a few seconds of noise in the style of your transitions, or perhaps use an establishing shot."

I can appreciate where this comment is coming from - the first thing we see in the video is that mid-shot of me with the guitar; there's no real opening. This can come across as a bit jarring. Let's look at the video Sir referenced:

The first couple of seconds consist of a shot featuring CCTV footage of people walking around. This shot is notable because a) not much is happening in it, yet b) the noise filter they've used over it is reused throughout the video. This soothes the audience into the atmosphere of the video without overwhelming them in the first few seconds, which draws their interest to it more effectively. This is a concept which would benefit my video and make it feel more professional, because in the state it is currently in it feels very incomplete. Whilst this is mainly because it is incomplete, it is also because it just throws everything at you right away without a proper introduction.

To fix this Sir has suggested using a similar effect to the one I've used for the transitions. Whilst this does make sense as it's following the same design concept as that of the I Am Electric video, I worry that throwing a few seconds of strobe light visuals in before we see anything else would be counterproductive to what I'm trying to achieve. What I do have up my sleeve, however, is a few seconds worth of footage of a close-up of my eyes which we filmed as an extra "it might be useful for something" deal. Usually when I produce things through this clause it usually rots away on my hard drive, yet this could actually be useful! Huzzah. I'm thinking I could try using a shot section of this clip over silence to create the somewhat intense atmosphere, then use a rapid flicker clip A/clip B/clip A/clip B etc. style cutting effect to 'warp' us into the main video as the song starts.

"0:15 - 0:18 -- The facial expression looks a bit bland. It just doesn't seem to match the intensity of the song. I think part of the problem is the length of time the shot holds. Close ups generally tend to be a briefer cut than medium/long shots. The two-to-three seconds you have here is perhaps too long, and brevity will help maintain intensity. I think it looks particularly awkward because it coincides with a moment when the music drops, so you should be trying to make the visuals more… can/t think of a word… more… more crazy (you have to love the technical terminology)."

*can't

This is something I was a tad conscious of before exporting, so it's nice to know I was right. The problem is particular is when we have close-up shots of my face which seem to go on forever, such as the one at 0:15 which Sir mentioned. Fixing this should be fairly simple; go back to FCP and cut down the close-up shots. Depending on how well it works in practice, I may also experiment with some flicker cuts when using the close-up shots, as this will (in theory) create more of an intense feeling, and make it "more crazy".

"0:00 – 1:00 -- Does there have to be your special transition between every cut? I’m not suggesting you reduce the frequency of the transitions as these seem spaced out really well, but perhaps you could insert a few more cuts, different angles or movements between the transitions. E.g at 0:40 you could cut to a split-second close up as you say the word “evil.”"

From this I can see the transition effect seems to be spaced properly, though it appears that Sir has suggested making some more things happen in between them. This is another thing which is encouraging me to try using the flicker cuts - as it stands I'm wary about using regular cut transitions purely because having regular cuts mixed in with the strobe transitions would look particularly jarring, in a "oh look, he forgot to put the transition in this time!" kind of way.

In terms of using different angles/movement, as it stands I don't have much filmed in the way of moving shots, so I'm going to talk Sir into helping me film tomorrow (TUESDAY 2ND APRIL), using some movement. This could be difficult as the wall we've used to film is quite small, but we'll see what we can do.

"2:21-2:23 -- the lip sync is slightly off."

The lip-sync is indeed off in quite a few spots; this can be fixed using the good old fashioned "left a bit, right a bit" method.

"0:00 – 3:08 – the balance between narrative and performance does not seem right to me. I guess it is a matter of opinion, but on the surface it seems that you just do not have enough narrative footage to sustain the video, and have tried to squeeze as much out of what you’ve got as possible. I would go so far as to say about 90% of the video is performance based. Any chance you can reschedule some narrative scenes?"

This is a very good point; most of what we're looking at here is performance - whilst this does fit the conventions of rock videos, the narrative could be fleshed out a bit more to make the video more interesting. One idea I've been throwing around for a while now is to throw in some conceptual shots showing things being 'harmed' in some way to support the main character's insanity, for example fruit being cut, or something being dug up etc..

"Right, now that I’ve picked holes in your work I feel much better about myself. I’m sure I can find more stuff too, but I’ll save it for the next edit. Until then, adios... and enjoy Paramore in the meantime."

Nitpicking is great, and as we know posting a message on the internet saying that you hate something makes you a better person. You should make a YouTube account; I think you'd fit in well with the community! Also, Paramore are great.

-HM.

Ancillary Production - Dark Flame logo (with exciting business theory!)

These are two different concepts for logos which I created for my artist in Photoshop. The logo is to appear on both the digipak and the promotional poster for the album, so it will need to be something that once seen will be remembered. This is important when creating the artists brand, as it will make the promotional material more effective at moving potential consumers along the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) scale.

By my logic, having a strong brand (specifically in terms of the logo) will encourage the move from the "awareness", "interest" and "desire" phases to the final "action" phase.

The promotional materials such as the poster will probably be enough to move along the first three phases. People will see the poster up in record shops, the television ad on the music channel etc. with its dark, "cool" imagery and it's obvious rock conventions, making them aware of its existence. If this is their kind of thing, it will develop their interest, and create a desire to purchase the product. Then, if my theory is accurate (and I'm fairly confident in it), the logo will play its magic. People will see the album on the shelf (or digital shelf, if iTunes/Amazon etc. happens to be their kind of thing) and the logo will stick out to them. They'll subconsciously think to themselves "hey, isn't this the logo for that artist I liked the look of on that poster the other day?", and the "this looks really cool" mentality from said other day will come back to them, and they'll pick up the album and buy it.

As I mentioned before, for this to work, the logo must be something that once seen, will be remembered. Because of this, I believe the first of the two logos will be the most effective. This is because it is more unique - with the gloss and satin effects it looks much more interesting than the second. I worry that as the second is just plain text with a bit of red prettiness, it'd be forgotten about fairly quickly.

In addition to this, I showed both logos to my classmates, and there was a strong preference towards the first. This shows that it appeals to members of the general public (potential consumers), which is always a benefit.

-HM.

Album title planning

So, after starting the production phase of the music video and getting a feel for the Dark Flame artist's image, it's now a good time to decide upon a final album name, which will be featured on the digipak.

To compliment both the darkness theme of the overall presentation and the questionable sanity of the lead character in the video I thought it'd make sense to make reference to some kind of distorted psychological state.

I think I've settled on the name Hypnagogic Corruption. Reason? "Hypnagogia" refers to the state of being semi-conscious as one is drifting to sleep - and is occasionally used as a blanket term incorporating hypnopompia, which is the semi-conscious state of awakening. If this state is corrupted, it would suggest a negative influence occuring to the character during this phase... which could lead to evil. And darkness. Get the drift?

Yeah. I have a slight obsession with the way sleep works. I've run the name past a few members of the class and they were in agreement that it is fitting given the concept of the album. It also sounds pretty cool, which is pretty important when targeting the older teen market.

-HM.

Album Image Analysis: The 2nd Law - Muse

For the sake of developing my own digipak for my artist, it is necessary to look at the presentation for albums which will appeal to a similar target audience to my product.

The album I'm going to be marketing is a rock album, so I should look at the presentation of other rock albums. One band which have a similar audience to the audience I identified previously (older teens/young adults) are Muse, so I will look at the way their recent album "The 2nd Law" has been presented.

Here we have the front cover. The main thing that stands out to us is how dark the tone of the front cover is. Whilst there is a lot of colour used, it is done in a way which compliments this dark tone, as opposed to making it look bright and friendly. There is a lot of emphasis on the abstract imagery on this cover, which gives the impression of it being dark and mysterious; thus intriguing those of the older teen/young adult demographic.

The band logo is placed in the top left corner of the cover; this is done in a way that it stands out (thus attracting long-term fans of the band) without overshadowing the original artwork in the centre.

The album title ("The 2nd Law") has a white to red gradient pattern acting as its colouring; this seems to be for the sake of adding a touch of colour to the text for the sake of making it more aesthetically pleasing. 

Track listing on the back! Here we see the same white to red gradient which we saw on the album title on the front, which seems to be for the sake of staying consistent throughout the presentation. This strengthens the album's image, thus making it more memorable to potential consumers.

On this same point of consistency, the back cover maintains the dark tone from the front cover; this reinforces the maturity of the album, which will draw in the target audience mentioned earlier.

-HM.

Sales Pitch Video

After giving up on several days' worth of work in FCP on the computer in school, I threw this together in iMovie in under an hour. Eh.

Part of my hair is out of place in this video and it frustrates me. Also the lack of alternate angles towards the end is down to the fact that I left Mr. N. in charge of preparing the additional cameras, and he was unaware of the fact that cameras need to have their batteries charged in order to work. Oh well. You can still hear what is being said as I ripped the audio straight from the close shot and borrowed it from the camera near the dragons as and when necessary.

This video covers things like my proposed artist name, why I've chosen the song and what I intend to include in the final music video. This is being posted in this format because interactive media content is supposedly better than text posts.

-HM.

Audience Feedback - I Am... All of Me

As part of the research and planning phase, I have taken to the wonderful world of the internets to find out what people think of the song I Am... All of Me by Crush 40. This is to decide as to whether the music video would have a potential audience, as well as to potentially observe what people's initial reactions to the song are, so I can shape the video in a way which compliments them.

I'm going to obscure the identities of those who have responded, out of respect for their privacy. Also be warned, there's potentially some naughty language in some of these screenshots.

First up, web forums. I'm going to start up with my absolute favourite comment - not because I agree with him (far from it!), but because I absolutely ADORE this man's writing style.

So, this comment definitely isn't in favour.

A reasonably neutral response; doesn't dislike it, but prefers other songs by the band.

Bear in mind that this man is a long time fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog videogame series (for which Crush 40 have recorded many tracks in the past), and so his thoughts reference that as well as the song itself. He's not a fan of the heavier feel of the song compared to Crush 40's earlier work

Now a comment from Facebook. Yes, just one. I need more friends.

A positive comment here - as with the first one, this is a comment from someone who knew nothing about Crush 40 prior to hearing the song, thus explaining the lack of comparisons to their other material. This feedback is necessary to receive as my artist will be a new artist; thus their reception will be based on people's reactions to this particular song, as opposed to whether they sound like early Crush 40 or not.

I also asked people on Twitter to share feedback -

This is a great reaction to Crush 40.

So yes, I will try to conduct further research after the sales pitch to incorporate any decisions I may make from the feedback from that. I also need more friends. But eh.

-HM.

I Am... All of Me - A look at YouTube comments

I had the crazy thought that it might be an idea to do some audience research for I Am... All of Me by looking at... YouTube comments. Yes, it may be a dumping ground for casual racism and homophobia, but at the end of the day, it does still give an indication as to whether people like the song.

I'm going to be looking through the comments of this video. Remember that this song was originally used in a videogame, so not all of the comments will be relevant - so I'll skip over those. Also remember that I am just copying and pasting the exact wording of the comments, so the views expressed are those of members of the YouTube community and not myself.

"1 person disliked this? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!!! He/She's gay."

News just in: your sexuality is dictated by your taste in music. If you dislike this song, it -obviously- means you're a homosexual... -_- Anyway, this person does like the song.

 "YEAH HELL YEAH"

 To be fair, this is the same kind of reaction I had when I heard the song for the first time.

"So catchy"

Catchy songs can often be commercially successful as people remember the hook, so this could be useful for the sake of marketing the track/video.

"Awful game, love the soundtrack. But that's a given for most Sonic games."

Sonic soundtracks are always fantastic bar the GBA games and Chronicles so I'm in agreement. This person likes the song.

"Wow... This... Was... EPIC!!!"

 Another positive.

"do it do it do it... This is Very COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL"

 Yay!

"Stupid Guy:I Hate The Game And This Song
Me:"PUKES"
Stupid Guy:Why Did You Puke?
Me:Cause Im Allergic To Trolls Like You!!"

...Interesting comment. Still in favour though!

"the most badass song ever"

Can also see where this person is coming from!

"when i mess shit up i always listen to this song"

I can't see what point they're trying to make here...

I've gone a few pages in and haven't found any overly negative comments about the song itself (though there is still plenty of aggressive hate towards other things like the videogame it's from and individual users, in true YouTube style) so I think in general the YouTube community are quite in favour of the song.

-HM.

Update!

So, where am I so far?

Porcelain Recreation
My critical review of this so far: absolute disaster. Was editing this further earlier on today and it's become apparent that even with the camera on a tripod there is still too much movement thanks to my awkward head. This means that I keep having to move the overlay around, whilst in the original video it stayed in the same place.

To be honest, "absolute disaster" is still a bit of an understatement. Next time I get a chance I'll export the thing and upload it and do a writeup on why I think it is beyond terrible and what I need to do to avoid repeating the same mistakes in future pieces. I know it's unprofessional to so openly slag off one's own work like this, but a) one must make mistakes to learn and b) claiming this to be anything more than a terrible video would be a complete lie.

Final Piece Planning
Am still working on getting some audience input on I Am... All of Me - this is taking so long because I am about as popular as the common cold. I did, however, draw up a concept of a potential narrative/performance based video with some input from my friend Stephen yesterday, and I have a wonderfully rough notes page I will scan in and post tonight.

We're also doing a mock sales pitch next week in which I'm going to propose some ideas for the final product and receive feedback on them - more information will come in time.

-HM.

Band name research

I need to decide on a band name for the final piece. This might take a while.

For the sake of of fueling some inspiration (because this time around bad McCartney II references won't be good enough) I'm going to have a look at the names of some rock bands I know of and see if any notable similarities stick out amongst them.

• Crush 40: Because fanboyism. Crush 40 are fab. Their line-up consists of Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli, and their band name originates from Jun's love of the Crush soft drink, and Johnny's original belief that he would be old once he hit 40 years old. "Crush 40" sounds really cool, thus attracting the attention of teenagers/young adults.
• Poison: Poison is dangerous; poison is scary. Therefore, "Poison" is cool.
• Guns N' Roses: Guns are threatening, roses are not - this appears as a binary opposition, thus creating a conflict. Again, some would see this as cool (especially those of the teenage/young adult demographic).
• Extreme: This is obviously going out of its way to be cool. TO THE EXTREME!
• The Darkness: Based around the theme of something that is dark; and people tend to feel more threatened in the darkness. As with GnR, we can see this as being appealing to the previously mentioned demographic.

So, basically, it needs to sound cool. I now need to think of some names fitting the critera of "cool, somewhat threatening". Once I think of some examples of this, I will have to put them on Polldaddy and see what my potential audience thinks is the best. For the sake of realism it wouldn't be a good idea to open for suggestions, due to potential legal issues over ownership of the name.

-HM.

Audience Research - Rock Video Feedback

Hey all,

A few days ago, I posted my results from a survey about what people like to see in music videos. Whilst I was able to collect a fair amount of responses, in retrospect I've noticed a few problems with this information:

• The questions are perhaps a tad leading. The wording on some of the possible answers in the multiple choice questions seem to be a tad pushy towards one particular answer.
• It's a tad too generic; I'd asked anyone who felt like answering to give responses. As it stands I'm more than likely to be making a rock video, and people typically have different expectations for different genres.

To gain more useful, information, I sent out messages and emails to people who I know on various forums and social networks to just tell me what they like to see in rock videos. This way I've managed to get some more relevant responses with answers that weren't prompted by the question. Believe it or not, there are actually people in this world who can bear to talk to me!

One trait I seem to be finding is that rock fans like seeing the artist perform. This counters what I found in the previous findings, where most people went for narrative videos...

Another comment I received which I found interesting was from someone who seems to prefer more mature tones in videos - even though this idea received little support in the questionnaire.

Whilst this input still isn't technically perfect - after all, with a more specific target demographic I wasn't able to get as much information - it has given me a more representative idea of what fans of the genre want to see.

-HM.

Audience Research - Initial Survey

Despite recently allowing my entire life to be consumed by ICT coursework, I have managed to collect some information regarding audience's interests in regards to music videos. Productivity, on MY Media blog!?

I put up a survey on Polldaddy and asked people online to fill it out over the last week, so here are some numbers for your enjoyment. I too contributed a response to this, purely because I am a consumer of music as well, making my opinion count as much as others (to an extent...).

With the exception of the final question all of these were multiple choice for the sake of making things easier to process. Hey ho, let's go!

The first question aimed to find what draws people into a video the most. There's a definite favour towards seeing stories being acted out, which suggests that my coursework video should have a strong narrative element. Some people had no preference, which could leave some creative decisions being based solely on what feels right as opposed to having to match a specific kind of direction.

I have to say I am surprised there was so little interest in the performance element of a video, especially as my background knowledge of the industry includes how much time and money is spent on building up the public image of the artist. This result could also dispute Goodwin's theory which suggests that labels want to push the artist's image in music videos (through plenty of screen time/close-ups) - whilst it's hard to deny that this happens, these findings could suggest that it doesn't have much effect in the long run.

Fairly indecisive for the most part, though I'm sure this is down to how vague my question was. Out of those who did make a decision, it seems that light-hearted videos were far more popular - possibly suggesting that people prefer watching videos which are a bit of fun to accompany a song they like, as opposed to actually appreciating more about the video's production or looking for conceptual ideas.

Very one-sided here, though I feel my question may have been a little leading. If we look at the raw figures, however, we could interpret that people care more about the concepts/ideas behind a video than flashy effects - which suggests that the coursework piece should have an interesting idea behind it, and can't rely purely on complex cinematography and editing techniques.

These results are particularly indecisive, yet I did have a suggestion in the process of carrying out this research which said this should have had a "depends on the song" option. Which makes sense. From the way in which most of the results are "I am not too bothered" I think we can interpret it as needing to be in context with the song and the concept of the video.

So... this is the one where I just asked everyone to tell me a video they like. Let's look at them one by one.

Go With The Flow - Queens of the Stone Age

This is completely rendered in a vector-like style, which is interesting to note. There's a lot of performance in this, though it is by the animated versions of the band members. There's also a lot of sexual imagery (Goodwin's voyeurism point) - I actually had to check the Wikipedia page to see whether it was actually there or if it was me being twelve. Judging by the article, it's the former.

Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley

...

I know this wasn't a serious opinion; this is the problem with collecting information from the internet. But regardless, this is nearly all performance. There's also some voyeurism of the female form, which is very mild by today's standards.

Stay (Faraway, So Close!) - U2

I can't in all honesty say I understand what was going on in this video. A lot of it seemed conceptual - even the performance element seems conceptual in itself, as though it's symbolising a relationship of kinds? I don't really know. The greyscale filming seems to work in the video's favour when it comes to setting the tone.

Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой - Eduard Khil

UGH.

Porcelain - Moby

Eyes freak me out so this was a chore to watch. Contrary to the preference in earlier findings, the basis of this video is the feathered cut effect and the way it is edited together. There's no narrative here from what I can make out, the focus seems to be the eye (I'm guessing this is meant to symbolise... something?) and the lip-sync/keyboard performance.

Eyes Wide Open - Gotye

There's a definite narrative going on here, which fits earlier findings regarding preference. There's also some noticeable links between the lyrics and what we're seeing on screen, particularly during the "eyes wide open" parts.

Book of Good Life - The Maccabeats

First thing worth mentioning is the novelty value of this video - it's not trying to be taken too seriously, which fits in with earlier findings about light-hearted videos being more popular. This revolves around a combination of both performance, and the narrative fitting in around the lyrical theme of the "good life".

For The First Time - The Script

Again, this is a mixture of narrative and performance - in regards to the performance, this is a case of the narrative acting out the exact story which is being told through the lyrics. Considering that the first question's responses said that having the video act out a story is popular I'm not surprised this made it in.

Creep - Radiohead

Can't say I'm familiar with this acoustic version of the song, but anyways - I think this can only really stand as a narrative-based video, and even that's limited. For the first half of the video nothing happens, then we get a story based on "man runs away, woman chases him". Yeah. It's interesting this has come up as from what I can tell there is no performance, which backs up the earlier finding that people don't see performance works as much of a priority.

Party In Your Bedroom - Cash Cash

I wonder who mentioned this? Again, this has both performance and narrative aspects - the band are performing which appears to be the 'centre' of the video, whilst they are also introduced to us as characters which acts as a kind of sub-narrative. This narrative doesn't appear to have any link to the lyrics regardless of interpretation - we're shown an actual party, whereas none of the interpretations out there mention an actual party. On the note of interpretations, although a lot comments online come across as "it's Cash Cash so it must be about sex" I generally remember that Jean Paul and Alex are nerds and so there's a good chance it is actually about being on the computer all night...

-HM.