EVALUATION QUESTION 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the very beginning of this project I was made aware that the target audience of a music video and its promotional packages were key in the whole process, especially as it would be this specific target audience which would decide whether they wished to purchase the music or not. Due to the digital generation, sales of music is already on the decrease, especially in shops so therefore the items that me and Chris made to influence the audience to want to purchase the products had to be something which the target audience would like. With this in mind we continued to ask for feedback throughout the process from the people that mattered so that we would ensure that not only did me and Chris like all 3 of our products but so did the target audience which would purchase the item if they were sold commercially. The feedback that we have gained has played an important role in our creative decisions and the final products are something which totally suited and aimed at our target audience, stated earlier on in the project.

Due to filming issues as mentioned several times before, me and Chris decided to gain audience feedback not only at the end of creating a draft during during the production process. The feedback gained during the process, i feel personally, was a lot more beneficial as it allowed us to rectify our mistakes early as at the end of the project we did not have so much to do. The first piece of consumer criticism which were provided with was that we had used too little a variation in shots meaning to make the video more interesting for the target audience we needed to contain a wider range of different angles/shots as it did not look good it staying on the same shot for more than 10 seconds at a time. Once we had been given this critical comment we rectified the mistake by going out and filming the same bit of the song again but this time redrafting it so that it included more interesting angles. We were also able to take this knowledge and keep it in mind for the remainder of the music video so that this problem did not occur again. Unfortunately I am unable to provide visible evidence for this change although if we had not received this criticism early on in the editing then the possibility is that we would of dragged many different scenes out longer than they should be is highly likely. Another problem which was picked up during the editing process by a possible member of our target audience was the changing colour of the sky throughout the different clips due to use filming on varying days. After watching it myself it was indeed very noticeable so I attempted to rectify the issue by using a colour adaption  taking the correct colour from one of the other scenes and replacing the weird blue colour in the other. As you can see from the screenshot below, this helped greatly and the finished product looks greatly improved now that all the colour flows as it creates match-on-action, something I was trying to achieve.

During the final stages of editing me and Chris sat and watched our own music video to ensure that we were entirely happy with the flow of the storyline and other aspects which needed considering. While watching it I noticed one slight issue where Sam is sitting on the brick wall looking down and then all a sudden it flicks to a shot of a mobile phone and someone receiving a text message. My major worry was that, although this mobile phone scene was meant to be a flashback similar to that of the fight, due to the flow of filming some members of the audience may believe he has received that text message while sitting on the wall. I tried to edit it in many ways but unfortunately due to the low quality of early versions of the clip I could not add in any extras. Another way I tried to resolve this situation was by changing the effects on all of the flashback scenes by adding a black and white effect to it. This is a stereotypical way of showing that something is occurring in the past. Once again I had to watch the video although I did not feel it looked effective using black and white, even though this is what I had planned to do from the beginning. If we had more time then I believe we would of managed to follow the whole plan and this would of meant that we had used more frequent flashbacks through the whole video which would of told more of a video although due to timing issues this was just not possible. To calm my worry, I asked a friend of mine, someone who I feel would fit well in the target audience to watched the video for me and see if she picked up on the issue, luckily she did not and her comment was ‘The location changed, you can tell because the floor is different from what you would expect below a bridge’. This made me a lot happier because I knew people would not pick up on it as much.

Aswell as gaining feedback on the music video, it was essential for us to gain some feedback on the two ancillary texts which I have also created. This feedback made us change the poster completely two times round to make something which was more attractive and something which was more informative. The first poster that we made, shown to the left of this paragraph never got finished as I did not like the creative suggestions Chris had made so I began asking around to see what members of our target audience felt. Although they liked some of the original features only 34% of the people we asked said that they would stop and look at the poster if it was advertised. This made me very wary of using the idea and I asked around in the hope that they would make some suggestions on what type of thing they liked. One of the comments I received in return stated that ‘I really like the background but I dont think you should use the actual album cover, why don’t you layer the main image onto this background?’. Another aspect which the fans picked up on what the placement of the tours dates as they feel it ‘consumer too much room’. Taking critical feedback on board I went away and made a completely different poster, combining my previous research with the feedback I had received  Withing the interlock some of Chris’s ideas I chose to include the tour date but place them in a more appropriate place, in the left hand corner. Once again I sent a selection of copies of this poster around different age groups within my target audience and asked them what they thought. One major idea which came back was the tour dates were not necessary but  if they had to be there then there should be less of them. I took this information on board and to the right of this post is the finished poster. I have combined mine and Chris’s creative ideas together as well as using the advice our target audience provided us with in the hope that I could produce an eye catching poster, suited to my target audience which doesn’t restrict my creative abilities.

As all of my previous blog posts show, I received a considerable amount on the creation of my digipack design both from myself and from members of our target audience. After the first draft I created I myself slated the design, stating that I would not buy the digipack if I saw it in shops because it was too dark and plain and the images were of a low quality. Me and Chris took this feedback on board and went away and created a whole new digipack design and this time asked the opinions of both younger and older members of our target audience. Although the younger members were really impressed with the digipack as a whole, some of the older members which we asked did not like the placing of our ‘brick wall image’ as they felt it was a pointless waste of space. Although this comment did hurt quite a lot I knew that it was necessary for me us to go away once again and redraft it. Although I do not like the new image of Sam walking away from the camera with a guitar, it was necessary to please the people who really matter, and after considering existing products it is a key element of albums of this genre. The overall comments about our final digipack design, as shown below, was that it looked ‘very professional’ and one particular judge stated that they felt ‘it was a very simplistic idea which worked incredibly well with such a song’.

To gain feedback of the whole project [music video and 2 ancillary texts] me and Chris chose to produce a questionnaire which we would send around, gaining more critical feedback than that which we were gaining over Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This included a set of questions which we created and allowed us to gain real opinions on what was good and bad. Unfortunately people were just not willing to fill these out as they felt it more appropriate and easy for them to post their responses on YouTube and Facebook. Although it would of provided more detailed responses which we could draw together and create graphs, other than getting a few yes and no responses people were more willing to provide spoken feedback or post it on a social networking site.  Below is a couple of example responses.

As you can see, there are many positives from members of our target audience although each one has picked up although this was entirely expected. Some of the comments actually pick up on what me and Chris noticed but due to lack of time we were unable to change. I especially liked Sam’s comments as it shows that we have actually managed to create a connection between the actor and audience because they feel sorry for him, which boasts mine and Chris’s confidence greatly because it means we have managed to portray the emotion we wanted. Tessa’s comment has shown what good shooting Chris did, choosing a range of interesting angles to help us alternate the shot throughout. Obviously, her comment about improvements was something which we were already aware of but we just did not have enough time in the end so we had to keep with what we had. Lewis’s comment was really interesting and gave us many things to think about as he suggested what he would change while also giving us creative criticism. We took what he said fully on board and if we were to complete the project again we may possibly choose to try some of his ideas out.

Overall, I have learnt a lot of new things about our music video and the ancillary texts just by collecting a range of audience feedback while alos opening my eyes to new members of the target audience which I was surprised about. I feel it was a good idea for me and Chris to make a video where we were also included in the target audience as it allowed us to critically assess our work. The audience feedback which we gained during the production process was a lot more beneficial as it meant we were able to change our work before it was rendered whereas the audience feedback, shown in the print screens above, which we gained after the project was complete meant that we could not use it to adapt and benefit our final drafts of each product and we could only hold the information in our head until we had to create the project again. One improvement I would make with our collection of audience feedback if given another chance would be to improve the way I collect audience feedback, trying to find people who were willing to fill out questionnaires as this played an important role in the collection of feedback in our AS coursework.