Evaluation 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Target audience = female demographics (15-24 year olds)

In order to receive audience feedback that was not from our focus group but from other members of our target audience I decided to ask people on different social media platforms, e.g. text, Twitter and WhatsApp. In doing so I received relative, different points of view. I contacted some people from other schools who also study media, which meant that they understood the importance in gaining feedback, they had a good idea of what the task was that we had to complete and also just general knowledge of what makes a good media product. We were very thankful to them as they took the time to comment on our work. I was particularly pleased with the fact two of people I asked said that they thought the reverse footage was effective as we were worried people would not understand our reasoning behind it or find it pointless.

In having received this feedback it seems that the transitions and the reverse motion seem to be popular with members of our target audience. This shows that our transitions were good choice and who chose ones that fitted well with the theme of our music video and song choice. Lots of people commented on the use of the reverse motion and how they believed it was effective. We were very pleased about this because we spent a lot of time during post-production deciding how best to use the remaining footage and it took us a while to make sure this sequence was perfect and presentable.

Male demographic (15-24 year olds)

I also asked one of my friends who studies media at Henley College for some feedback as he would have a decent amount of knowledge on media products and what makes them effective as he is studying the same course but with a few different aspects. It was also handy to ask for feedback from someone who studies media as they would be more inclined to pick up and notice factors about the camera quality or give suggestions on what equipment we could use to improve our music video. I also thought it would benefit us if we had a male perspective (even though our target audience was predominantly female) as it would give us a wider variety of feedback points from different types of people, which we could utilise when creating our next media product.  It is important to gain this type of feedback, especially if you want to pursue media as a career as the more you learn now the easier you will find it in the future. 

 In having received this feedback it seems that Joe really liked our music video and due to the amount of time and effort we invested we are very much pleased! He commented on how he liked the consistency of having one main character, which helps create a connection between the audience and the actor. And again the reverse shot was a noticeable favourite with this member of our target audience. One thing in which he commented on that we could improve would be to add some more lip-syncing as it gives more perspective on the meaning behind the song and its lyrics. We struggled  when it came to editing this part as we just could not seem to be able to link the visuals to the audio, consequently it led to there only being a short snippet of lip-syncing throughout the whole video.

Younger female demographic (12-15 years old)

I also thought it would be beneficial to receive feedback from people just younger than our target audience as we knew they would probably be interested in this type of genre/theme and it also gave us a wider variety of responses in which we could follow up from.We asked them for some strengths and weaknesses. 

 Strengths:

• "I really like the colours and the sunset towards the end."
• "The different shots used are very entertaining."
• I like the mirror balls shot in the alley way."
• "I like the driving scenes and the light was very good."

Weaknesses:

• "Some shaky parts."
• "Some parts of the song did not make sense to me."
• "I do not understand the concept of the music video and what the group are trying to portray."

It is always better to have more strengths than weaknesses and in this case we were lucky to have that so as a group we were pleased. I was very pleased to hear that the younger female demographic liked the sunset and colour scheme throughout our video as we believe this is one of our strongest aspects. It was also pleasant to hear that they enjoyed watching some of the sequences, such as the mirror balls and driving scenes and thought they were effective as we did too. We were very pleased that they picked up on these features and effects just like our focus group and target audience did.

However, we did indeed receive some weaknesses and comments on how we could improve. We took these comments into consideration for our future media pieces. Some of the girls did not understand the concept of the music video or the journey in which the character is experiencing. We weren't sure if this was because they were younger than our target audience and may not have experienced this themselves or even seen this first hand but it was surprising to us nonetheless because we thought we had made it clear through the use of the laptop screen showing that Phoebe's recent ex-boyfriend had moved on so soon after their intimate relationship. Therefore we used this feedback in order to find ways in which we could improve and we came up with the idea that we would enlarge the image even further to perhaps show Phoebe's reaction to the screen to make it clearer to the audience the idea we were trying to portray. The younger demographic also stated that the camera was unsteady/shaky at times. We would have loved to have been able to go back and re-film those shaky shots but due to time management issues followed by deadlines and no access to top-quality, professional equipment it was an impossible task. 

Finally, some quotes from our focus group:

Strengths:

First edit:

Phoebe: "Looks really cool."

James: "Sequencing is cool and works well. The lighting works well and I like the fact they've gone off path from their plans - shows they can adapt well under pressure."

Scarlett: "Audio goes well with the visuals."

Ben: "Phoebe looks awesome as the actress in the music video, strong product and I really like the transitions."

Second edit

Alex: "Completely different to the storyboard but works."

Scarlett: "Glad the jumpy cuts have been fixed."

Ben: "Love the emotions Phoebe is portraying."

Weaknesses:

First edit:

 Phoebe: "The shots are all quite jumpy."

Alex: "A lot of refining to be done."

Scarlett: "Hopefully the jump cuts will be fixed."

Second edit:
Alex: "I think it is almost at completion but will look even better with refinement."

Ben: "The whole concept works really well and I really look forward to seeing how the final product turns out."

The main thing we needed to work on to improve our music video was, according to our focus group, was fixing the jumpy/shaky transitions. Thankfully because this was feedback from the second edit of our music video we were able to continue to refine the music video/final product and so the transitions were a lot smoother in our final edit. To improve even further we would need to go back to the filming process and re-film these sections in order to ensure the filming was not shaky and perhaps use a stabilisers (this was not possible as our school does not obtain one unfortunately and we were creating a music video on a low budget).

Overall, from all the feedback we obtained not only from our focus group but also the younger female demography and the male demographic we were able to consider and take on board their criticisms and work upon them to improve future pieces of work and also build up our knowledge of what makes a good piece of media - in this case a music video. It was important to receive feedback from a younger demographic and a different genre demographic from our focus group/target audience as it allowed us to consider their points of view as we thought it was important to consider their perspectives and recognise what they thought of the music video. At the end of the day the more feedback you receive from anyone the better your understanding will be on how to improve next time around.