Focus Group

Do you think the content of a music video has to relate to the genre?

James- yes, definitely, there are so many conventions that have to be kept. I suppose that they can be changed in some circumstances, but it’s best to just keep to your genre.

George- Nah, I think you can do whatever you like in a music video, its not like there’s a  list of rules you have to kept to. Music is just an expression, how the artist feels, what he thinks about whatever the song’s about. A video can completely contradict that, if that’s what the artist thinks, the video can do whatever the artist wants.

Lots of music videos are filled with random bits of footage, why?

Ryan- They’d get so boring if it’s one thing all the way through, or just one long shot of footage.

James- you need to break it up more, so there are different things that keeps the audience entertained.

Ryan- some things need to be included so you get what the story’s about, in a way. If the main things told in the big part of the video, but you need to know something else, something random, they need to show it like that. So I guess it’s not really random, in a way, it just looks random to us.

Why do you think Gangnam Style was so popular?

James-It’s so funny, and so unexpected. It’s not just a music video, it’s about the opposing cultures in Korea.

Ryan- It’s a happy, funny Korean man dancing like a horse, what more can you ask for in a music video?

George- It’s not the video that made it popular, the song started it all off and people wanted to know whether the video would live up to that, and it did so they watched it more and more.  It’s so unusual to see a Korean acting like that, it’s portrayed to be such a strict country, then you see that, it’s not what you expect.

Do you think music videos are worth the money?

George- definitely, yeah. If you think how much they cost to make, it’s a risk you’ve got to take, like Gangnam style wouldn’t be where it is today without the video. I’d bet that in the first weekend that Breaking Dawn came out, it made less money than Gangnam style did. Music videos don’t cost nearly as much as movies do to make, and some songs sell loads more than movies do, its just the risk you’ve got to take.

Ryan- they’ve got to do it to promote the music.