Evaluation question 3: What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
Gathering feedback on my music video and ancillary texts
(especially on the drafts) was a great way to identify the areas for
improvement. Feedback from the target market and audience is the best possible
feedback to receive because this was you have a real perspective from the
market you are aiming at, so making adjustments accordingly to their feedback
is crucial in creating the most efficient products. To gather feedback throughout the development
stages, I used a range of methods to present my work, which allowed people to
comment and make suggestions. We received feedback at a variety of different
times, such as when after we presented our pitch. However the majority of
feedback was mainly in our draft music video and ancillary texts, this gave us
sufficient time to make the improvements.
After conducting some research on my chosen genre and
creating initial ideas to go forward with we used the creational video website
called ‘animoto’ to draw all of these ideas together and present them to the
class as a pitch. After pitching our ideas to a group of students (our class,
same age) we allowed the class to ask us questions about the pitch and what
they liked and disliked etc. we found a mixed range of opinions and questions
in our class. We found answering these questions and listening to improvements
very beneficial for our construction of the video and ancillary texts. After answering questions we figured that we
needed to think our ideas through more thoroughly, this is because he had a
variety of ideas but we hadn’t really thought how we would portray these and
create them into reality. Therefore when we where asked questions we were both
kind of unaware ourselves. This made it
helpful for us because it forced us to work these ideas out effectively in
order to produce successful products.
A point that we did take into consideration from out
feedback was ‘What kind of video will you create, performance, narrative or
disjunctive video?’ this comment was very interesting and led us to thinking
about what would work best with the video we wanted to create in order to
please our target audience. Originally we decided on creating a video with
elements of narrative and performance, because we found this as a typical
convention our genre followed. However after we conducted further, more
thorough research we found that it would be very hard to create a professional
narrative with the limited time period and facilities we had use of. Therefore
we listened to our feedback and decided to follow a fully performance based
route, our audience had commented prior to this saying a mixture of two video
types could “over complicate” the whole video. This is something we didn’t want
to happen because we wanted to adhere to a simplistic and minimalistic video to
increase continuity between the final video and ancillary texts. Furthermore we noticed bands that we wanted to
base our own band on such as the 1975 and The Black Keys used just performance
videos with their first releases, when they were trying to establish the band
in their genre and market. Therefore we decided this is something we could
incorporate into our own video, to make it an easier task for us too. Without the
feedback of our audience at such a crucial stage we probably would have tried a
mixed video with both elements of narrative and performance, which probably
would have had a detrimental impact on our work.
To ensure that are ancillary texts (digipak and advert) appealed
to the audience it was compulsory to retain feedback from them. They are both
forms of advertising and therefore not only should they fit in with conventions
from the genre but also they should grab the attention of the audience and persuade
them into buying the album. I received a number of suggestions for improvements
and also I was surprised to see how positive the majority of the feedback was in
relation to the two pieces. Originally I created a couple of drafts for each
ancillary text so I could receive feedback for the improvements. I learned from
this feedback that if I’m going for a minimalistic approach that everything has
to be ‘perfectly layed out’. Because not much information is on show and my
drafts didn’t include any photos the layout to be effective on its own had to
be eye catchy, look realistic and have everything perfectly positioned, for
example the borders being the same width on each cover of the digipak, and the
font being perfectly centred etc. Initially I was stuck on what colour scheme
to use, I created a variety of different colour schemes and posted them onto
blogger so I could receive feedback on what the audience felt worked best with
the band and looked most professional. After reviewing the comments I received I
found overall that the audience preferred the black, white and teal colour
scheme because it was more aesthetically appealing in contrast to the other
colours. Along with these comments the audience found that the font ‘Bebas Nueue’
worked a lot better than ‘Century’. This is because the font is ‘bolder’ and ‘stands
out more’ in contrast. It was really important for me to receive feedback at
this stage of the course because it helped me to develop the most effective,
successful digipak I could by incorporating all my audience’s adjustments and
improvements.
*Before Tweaks
*After Tweaks
It is also evident to see from the tweaks that not only has
the borders been made bolder and the font changed to perceive a more
professional look but also the title of my album changed. This is because
during this stage I received some significant feedback from my audience before
finalising my ancillary texts. This was that if I am going to obtain a
minimalistic look, I should use something which ‘links more creatively’ with
the band logo so that the audience can make unconscious connections between the
band and the logo I was using of the parallel lines. After considering this is
decided to change the title to ‘parallel waves’ which was more fitting and
coincided with the logo we where using. Furthermore this helped my ancillary
texts and video to have a feel of continuity. Allowing the audience to remember
the band in a more effective manor. I too feel that this album title works a
lot more effectively in contrast to ‘troubled town’, which was thought of
without research.
The audience feedback has been extremely important to me at
this stage because it allowed me to reconsider my options before it was to late
in order to create successful texts.
My advert received really impressive comments and didn’t need
any improvements. This is because I used the feedback from the digipak and
incorporated it into the advert to create a sense of continuity, which is what
the audience wanted to see.
This is audience feedback I received after finalising the ancillary
texts. I found it useful to receive feedback at this stage to make sure that
the improvements suggested had been incorporated efficiently in order to
appeal to the audience. The positive comments can justify this. I have now learnt that my products have effectively reached the target market expectations from this feedback which is very important at the stage of the course. Also having this feedback from students in my class and from discussions from other students I can start to generalise these results to the majority of the target market.
After the ancillary texts had been finalised we proceeded to
the filming of a draft video. We had to make sure all of the research we
conducted went into the video and so that we didn’t create something that
didn’t fit with what the audience look for. After producing the first music
video draft we asked for the help of several students (within the target
market) to tell us what we needed to improve and add into our final video. We
found a lot of negative feedback at this stage; this is because the draft video
we produced lacked a lot of elements we originally wanted to involve. All of
the students agreed that the video was ‘lacking enthusiasm’. In the draft
unfortunately our lead singer was away so we had to quickly call in for a back
up to fill in his role, just for the draft. We found that enthusiasm was
lacking in the body language of the entire band, they didn’t seem to be to
‘interested’ and make the audience feel ‘bored’ watching the video and there
want a variety of shots. The audience also weren’t impressed with the location;
we used our friend’s dad’s band practice room. The mise en scene wasn’t
suitable and didn’t match the idea and approach we wanted to portray. We also
involved a lot of unneeded shots, which didn’t work with the video like we
initially thought, for example smoking shots of Greg. Furthermore a final
comment, which was important to us, was that the lead singer in the draft video
was laughing too much in every shot he was involved in, and certain shots
weren’t framed effectively.
After we had completely re-filmed the video we found a lot more positive feedback. We too found that the video was a lot more effective. We listened and noted all of the relative feedback from our students thoroughly. To begin with we made sure all the band members were very enthusiastic, especially the lead singer. Listening to this feedback worked perfectly, we learnt that the enthusiasm and passion showed made the video a whole lot more interesting and effective (based on comments from our audience). Along with this we chose a completely different setting and location, we luckily had access to an undecorated room in the lead singers house which we where allowed to film in. this allowed us to have a very minimal mise en scene. Which worked a lot better which the passionate band members. We went back to the same group of students afterwards to discuss the new footage and they all agreed that it was ‘a lot more interesting to watch’ and it looked a lot more ‘professional’.
However, we both noticed that all of our feedback had been
from Media students and not any other members of our target market, which may
like the music but not have studied the course. We took advantage of social
networking sites and put our video onto twitter so a variety of other members of
the audience could watch the video and tell us what they liked and disliked. We
found this method was a lot more effective because it reduced bias, because
other students may look at the video from a different perspective, as a fan. We
found this feedback involved more positive comments, especially on the variety
of shots and enthusiasm shown by the lead singer, this was something they
‘enjoyed’.
(comparison between old and new miss en scene + passion)
(unneeded shot)
(lack of enthusiasm)
(very enthusiastic shot)
Here are some final comments that we received on our final video and ancillary texts too. This specific set of feedback allows me to understand that my final products have been successful in fitting in with the genre and our target market. Also the feedback shows me that my ideas have been displayed successfully too:
Overall I believe we have gained a lot of knowledge from the feedback we received. We now genuinely understand how important it is to gather feedback from an audience. We found that it was best for us to use an audience because in cases they had a better vision than us and helped us to create more exciting and effective products that will be liked by the majority of the audience and target market, not just ourselves. It was also useful to look at elements from a different perspective too, originally we wouldn’t have noticed vital elements that would have had a very detrimental affect on our video, such as the enthusiasm in the lead singer and drummer. Therefore it is clear to see how much of an influence the audience feedback has been on the construction and finalisation of our music video and ancillary texts.
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