Evaluation 3 - Essay Form

     What have you learned from your audience feedback?

       Having to gather feedback was a very important part of my production process, as it gave me a very good idea on what I was doing right and what I needed to improve in order to reach the best product I could.

It ensured that I was creating products that would successfully appeal to my target audience and be of a high professional quality.

I received quantitative and qualitative data and this was by encouraging other people who saw my video and my other products to take a survey on ‘Survey monkey’. The question types involved “Rate my magazine out of 10, 10 being very good and 1 being very bad”. I believe this has massively supported me in order to make creative and technical decisions.

The primary target audiences for my products are females and males aged 13-25. Due to my chosen music artist 'Kodaline' being of a rock type band it is therefore being aimed at people who are more into the soft rock music genre. This was presented in the way I created my products in a delicate and rock like manner. Examples of this could be the black colour clothes my artist wore throughout the music video, or the narrative in my music video following a female on her journey where she is seeing lyrics but they have no effect on her emotionally– allowing audiences to personally identify with the female character having a strong personality.

I made sure to gather audience feedback for all products I was making, all the way through the process. I generated this feedback through social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook, asking people to message me with their likes and dislikes. I also created a questionnaire, that was handed out to 30 members of my target audience, asking them questions such as “what does an interesting music video involve?” This guaranteed that I was going to create a music video that suited their interests, ensuring it would be popular amongst my desired audience. Other ways included, asking audience members directly and organizing screenings, in focus groups, of my drafts so audience members could watch my video and I could note responses

Additionally, I found that some feedback was more effective than others, for example asking audience members directly was very helpful as I could indulge in greater depth of conversation about their views, allowing me to ask them leading questions such as “If you didn’t like that, what would you prefer to see instead?” I took the feedback very seriously and took note of it all the time in order to use it in my advantage. This meant I could refer back to the feedback later on in the process of creation, reminding me what to include and what to dismiss. Having said that, the questionnaires were extremely helpful, as they allowed me to compare particular answers and using these statistics to come up with the best decision. For example, when deciding what my narrative should include, the feedback I gathered was hugely relevant, as the question “What do narratives in Rock music videos usually involve?”  I gathered answers that could ensure my music video was conveying my chosen genre in the right light. My concept of the female being strong emotionally and representing women to be generally strong was conducted through the responses I received – highlighting just how essential audience feedback really is.

Furthermore, once I had done my first drafts for all three products (music video, magazine advert and digipak) I asked people on Facebook to message me their views. This is where I gathered very important information about my house style, as many people asked to see more of a nature effect on my digipak photographs as essentially this is what Kodaline usually tend to go for. Taking this into account, I interpreted that the rock  genre look was obviously popular amongst Rock fans, however even though rock fans are known to be ‘stronger’ the nature look to my Digipak contradicts it completely which encouraged me to use the photograph of the rain drops on the window in my magazine advert.

Moreover, my determination to gain criticism and advice was displayed in the way I sent copies of my music video and printed pictures of my magazine advert and digipak to family and friends. I found that the most positive feedback I received was surrounding the way I edited my shots to be in time with the pace of the music, in result depicting the sad and foreboding tone of the narrative. The mise en scene and lighting was also commented on as a success, as audience members were able to instantly recognise the theme of rock and nature and freedom due to the large open locations I used to film in and my focus on sunlight and nature.

Lastly, I believe I have been very dependent of feedback as it has encouraged me to improve my music video massively.