Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Before we started the filming process for our music video, we first had to decide what target audience our song would be aimed at and to do this we researched potential audiences on websites like Bauer Media and UK Tribes. Once we had identified our target audience, we also did a questionnaire for two people out of our chosen demographic. I chose to interview both a male and female so that we got a variety of opinions. Doing a questionnaire allowed us to get particular opinions from people in the target audience that we wanted, so it was better than asking people that our production wasn't aimed towards.

Below are the questions and respective answers:

The things in particular that our target audience wanted to see in a pop music video were:
- Girls (that would appeal to the male side of the audience)
-Males (that would appeal to the female side of the audience)
-Shows a typical teenagers life( as this allowed the audience to identify with the actors in the video)
- Shows how people feel in their own way( as this showed the audience that you can react to situations in your own way and don't have to copy anyone)

- Situations that teenagers can relate to( for example love and heartbreak, as this is something that happens very often in teenagers lives)

After reading through the questionnaire and taking into consideration what sort of things our target audience wanted to see and what were the most popular conventions of pop music videos, we then chose particular things we felt appealed more to a larger audience so more people would be interested in watching our video.

Camera Shots - Long shots, close up's and extreme close up's are the most popular shots as they allow the audience to see the whole scene and then also the actors facial expressions and this would keep the audience interested.
Editing - Jump cuts and straight cuts are the most commonly used as these match the pace of the song, and we chose to stick to these edits as the pace of our song was quite fast. Also we used dissolves fades to show the passing of time.
Costume - We chose to have modern clothing as again this matched the conventions. 
Lighting - We chose to film our video during the day as this is something that is commonly done with pop.
Mise-en-scene - This depended on what was being represented in the video, and in our video it was the females life and events that other teenagers could link to.
Props - Again not many props are used in pop music videos, and for this reason we only chose to use the one, a mobile phone as teenagers could link back to this as it may be something that they use everyday.
Colour - Bright colours is a main convention in pop, but we didn't include lots of bright neon colours we had it more low key and had the female wearing bright red lipstick.

Before we even started to film our video we had to pitch our ideas to the class to see which idea would be the best one to do, and which one would appeal more to the audience. 

Halfway through our editing process we showed the class our video so far and asked for good and bad feedback so we knew what we could do to improve. This really helped us because we were able to hear other people's opinions some of whom were from our target audience. 

The bad feedback that we received from other people in our class helped us to see where we were going wrong in our video, and what we could do to improve it. For example when they said that so far there was too much female in the video and they were loosing interest we then thought it would be good to introduce another person into the video, for example a male as this would add twist to the storyline we already had.

            

When we researched 'UK Tribes' and 'Bauer Media' and found out that our target audience were more social people who liked to keep up to date with the latest fashion trends and technology, this is why we chose to have the only prop that we used throughout was a mobile phone. We also asked people from our target audience what the best props to use in a pop music video would be, and they also said a mobile phone as this is something that they use everyday and therefore they would be able to relate to the females situation in the video.

As our target audience were more social people that kept up to date with the latest gossip on social networking sites for example 'Facebook' and 'Twitter', Facebook was a great way of sharing my video with people around my age (14 - 22 year olds) as they were the demographic I was aiming my video towards, and I could therefore get the most constructive and informed feedback.
When i posted my music video onto Facebook, these were the responses I got:

It was so important to get the audience feedback, because we are making a music video for their personal viewing and if it doesn't meet the standards of the audience then they are not going to want to watch the video.



I asked someone that I knew didn't like pop music as this would give us a clearer view on what other people thought, and even though they matched our target audience demographics they still enjoyed the video.
These are all the responses I got when I posted my video onto Facebook, and overall the comments that we got really helped us to get a better view of what our target audience really liked and didn't like about our video. With this feedback that we got I felt that we had achieved being able to promote the artist successfully.

We also posted our video onto YouTube as well, as this would get a wider range of people watching the video, some of whom wouldn't be from our target audience so this wouldn't appeal to them as much.


 

  

Once our film had been distributed onto Youtube we showed the class our final piece and asked for their feedback on it, and these were the responses that we got:
Good:

• The concept behind the video was good
• We used a variety of shots which kept the audience interested
• The whole video creates a relationship between the actor and the audience

Bad:

• The audience wasnt sure about the flashback scene near the start of the video as it wasnt too clear and they said this was because of the colour of the edit we added
• Some of the shots seemed too staged for example the one that they didnt like was the female sood at the beach directly towards the audience.

What would you change if you were to do it again?
If I was able to do the whole music video task again, I would choose a song that is even less well known and didn't already have a video as this would leave us with a blank slate so the audience would have no idea what the song is about and therefore we would be able to have a larger impact on them. Also after receiving the feedback that we have, I would think more about the locations and have more of a variety where we can as the same ones over and over again can become repetitive. I would also choose a story line that's different but at the same time attract the audience's attention, have something that is more unique but I would keep the same genre as we felt pop can impact on a lot of people and it has a larger target audience than what  rock or indie does. I would also make sure I am more organised and know exactly what shots I want for a particular line instead of getting to the location and filming a variety of shots that didn't work, even though this gave us some back up shots. 

What aspects of the video went down best?
Overall as a whole piece the audience thought that it was really good even though the parts that they did like the most was the love triangle scene towards the start of the video as this gave a basis to the whole video and it also made the audience think about what is going to happen to the female now. The party scene which was a flashback of the past looked realistic as we used the correct location and the audience were able to see the female looking happy then when it faded to black they knew that it had turned bad again. Also the photo album scene was effective as it allowed the audience to see that she is making it on her own and that is what we wanted to portray. The order of the events that happened made it seem like a real story, and the audience were able to follow it all the way through and not get lost. The shot of the female sitting on the doorstep stood out to some of the audience as they thought it showed real emotion and it also highlighted her isolation. All the actors that we had chosen to use in our video worked well as they each portrayed their roles really well and therefore it was believable for the audience. 

What did the audience not like so much?
After all the feedback we had received from a variety of people allowed us to see the bad parts in our video as well. Some members of the audience didn't think our choice of locations worked as well as what they could have done but they did say the beach location even though it was cliche is allowed us to really highlight the females isolation, again the park locations were too cliche which is why they didn't appeal to the audience as much as we wanted them too, but the first one of her sat on the swing singing worked well with the zoom. The shot of the female stood looking at the camera didn't appeal to many of the audience as they didn't think it matched the emotion of the lyrics

This shot of the female stood against the hedge was the clip that the audience didn't think worked well, as they thought it didn't look right where it was. To improve this we could have used another clip of her at the beach but we wanted something where she was direct to the camera. 

This shot of the female on the steps singing was one that appealed to the audience, as they said  it stood out  as the emotion in the clip was high and matched the lyrics of the song. 

The scene with the female going through the photo album was one the audience liked in particular as they thought this matched the conventions of our genre and the way that the female teared up a photo and threw it onto the floor was something different, as we thought this symbolises her moving on and forgetting everything.

The scene of the love triangle was one that the audience really liked as it gave the video a basis for everything else that was going to happen, and also this matched the conventions of our genre. We added a twist to this scene as the audience said they were expecting the female to be left on her own and the two males go different directions, but we got the female to chose between the two males and this also added to the basis of the story line. 

We wanted to create a party scene as a flashback to the female where she goes over the day that she split up with her ex, and we chose a party scene for this to happen as again it matches conventions of our genre and a party is something that teenagers are familiar with. We kept the lighting low and tried to keep some spotlight on the female at all times so that she was clear and stood out to the audience. 

The shot of the female walking along the beach and then zooming on into her feet makes it feel like everything is disappearing into the distance and changing it into black and white makes it seem like she has been walking for ages. Although this is one shot that we didn't think would appeal to the audience they said it looked really effective. 

This shot of the female walking down the lane on her own right at the end of the video allowed the video to appear like it is all a circular sequence of events in the female's life. We had it in black and white and then it faded to black so it was clear to the audience everything was over and the female had moved on, which is something that they would expect to see in a pop music video and this was something that appeared often when we researched videos from our genre. 

Overall, I did enjoy the whole experience of making the music video and ancillary tasks, the things that I felt worked the best was we chose the right actors to portray the roles of the characters and for this reason the audience were able to identify with their situations. On the whole I felt that the whole video was effective and worked well and the artist was promoted positively through each of our products due to clear brand identity throughout the video, magazine advert and the digipak.