EVALUATION QUESTION THREE

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

TARGET AUDIENCE AGE: The age of my potential audience demographic would be teenagers/young adults aged between 16-24, this is because the main protagonist of my music video, and the members of my group are this age and so an the audience may be interested in engaging with texts both made by and featuring people of their age group.

GENDER: The gender of my potential audience would be female. This is because the protagonist in the video is female, and so instantly a female audience would engage more with the piece. It may also be argued that because the artist of the track is a young male, that although this may attract a male audience (in presenting aspirations or simply just portraying that gender) it may also attract a female audience.

ETHNICITY: Again here the protagonist may portray the ethnicity of our target audience, white/British. The representation here reflecting the audience and therefore creating appeal. The artists is also of this nationality and so again would most likely attract an audience of the same background.

SOCIAL CLASS: Although the representation of social class is not explicit in our video, it can be read that the protagonist is from an educated/middle class background. This is due to the cultural references throughout-the shots of the museum or bookshop. Audience appeal is created through the “character archetypes” shown (Lancan) therefore representing this group and creating appeal.

MEDIA INTERESTS: Our audience demographic would be interested in independent/folk music and so may prefer to listen to physical copies of albums (CD’s or Vinyl) rather than downloading music. They may follow bands on social media such as Facebook or Twitter. They would also be fairly progressive, as our music video challenges the typical voyeuristic representation of women in media. They may be interested in folk artists, such as Joan Baez or Peter, Paul and Mary as well as more contemporary indie-folk artists such as Mumford and Sons.

MUSIC VIDEOFIRST METHOD OF FEEDBACK (In editing)

Throughout my production, feedback from my tutor was my main source of feedback. Between edits I could take advice from comments and adjust my video accordingly.

For example here I took the advice to change a few of the dissolves throughout the piece in order to maintain visual appeal.

This was extremely helpful when editing my piece, the constant feedback allowed for our group to ensure we were always reflecting back on our work. This ensured we kept our video engaging and appealing to our target audience.

This feedback also allowed us to see our video from a different perspective. As we filmed and edited we imagined our video to portray the enjoyment in being alone, we found that in our final edit our tutor recognised this and so could feel as though one aspect of our music video we endeavored to create was fulfilled.

MUSIC VIDEOSECOND METHOD OF FEEDBACK (In completion)

After we had completed our edit I gained feedback from five people aged 17/18 (within our chosen demographic) both male and female. Out of all asked two were male and three were female, all were A2 media students. All of the results were taken from individuals of a white/British background and so each reflected the audience demographic of the video.

The questionnaires were anonymous allowing for my results to be more reliable- in that the person evaluating would not feel that they would have to mark my work in a certain way depending on how well they knew me. Another point is that all the results were taken from people I knew but had not worked with before, this allowed for the results to be without judgment based upon me or my previous work.

Although as the creator of the video I understand the narrative of our video, for example, it may be that the recipient has a different outlook. Whilst, as the encoder of the text (Staurt Hall) I see the narrative of the piece as our main protagonist finding enjoyment in being solitary, it may the audience perceives this differently. Whilst this can be seen as negative feedback, it also may be argued the audience can perceive texts in any way, without detracting form the original ‘message’ of the piece.

This is important to consider when looking back on my feedback, and something that may allow me to see the demographics view of my work and possibly allow me to change or reflect upon when making future productions.

MUSIC VIDEO STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES OF METHOD OF FEEDBACK

The strengths of this method of feedback, as mentioned before, was the anonymity of the individual giving feedback. As I was not in the room whilst the feedback occurred I could not influence any answers or explain any aspect of my music video the audience may not have understood. In mentioning only gender and age of the individuals giving feedback I was able to gain objective data of the gender and age that enjoyed or engaged with the text more, ensuring I was appealing to the target audience I had created.

Whilst it may be argued this was a strong method to use because of the use of anonymity and reference to the gender of the individuals, it may have been more effective to hand more questionnaires to those in the age range that did not take media studies-this was something I worked on when receiving feedback for my print productions.

I could also have used different media platforms to gain feedback, for example Facebook may have been an effective way of gaining instant feedback from people of the same age range as my demographic. This was another thing I aimed to use when gaining feedback fro my print productions.

Another aspect of feedback from social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter would be that the audience could give detailed feedback, without restrictions- such as in the questionnaires the answers were mostly simply numbered 1-5 (1 being low and 5 high) in terms of engagement with the piece.

MUSIC VIDEO What I’ve learned from this feedback

NarrativeAs expected the majority of the female audience gave slightly more positive feedback than the male recipients. Mostly this was clear through the narrative of the piece, both the male individuals answered the question “was there any part you found confusing or difficult to understand” with the comment of not knowing the concept or narrative of the piece. Whilst one female answered the narrative “could have been clearer” she gave advice on that maybe the story could also be shot from “ the point of view of a boyfriend” indicating she understood the idea of admiration for our protagonist. This was something we wanted to reflect and, although we wanted to portray solitude, this advice showed that she grasped the narrative more than the male recipients. The other three female’s answered this question with a simple “no” presenting a clear understanding of the piece, and showing that a female audience may be more engaged on the whole than a male one. Although it may have been more accurate to ask more males to answer these questions, on average the questionnaires show the results we expected.

MALE RESPONSES FEMALE RESPONSES

On average the male audience gave the narrative of the piece 3.5-4 out of five whilst the female audience varied from a strong 4-5. This may have been due to the female protagonist engaging the audience. It may also be said that as our group was two females, that this reflected in our piece therefore making it more accessible to a female audience. The narrative of a solitary woman is not often seen in media and so this may also have contributed to the enthusiasm we received from the female audience. Bulmer and Katz’s gratification model suggests audiences engage more with texts that reflect aspects of themselves, this may the case for my video- particularly with the female A level media students as they may see themselves in the interest our female protagonist has for intellectual or creative activities.

MUSIC VIDEOWhat I’ve learned from this feedback

Mis-en-scene/editing

The feedback for the editing and mis-en-scene was on the whole more positive across both genders. Each commented under the question “what was the best part of the production?” that they enjoyed the unusual use of split screen editing or mirrored shots.

The colour throughout the video was also noted as something interesting, this was a focal point of our video and so was good to hear our audience picked up on it.

Something to work on would be the shakey camera in some of the split screen shots, this was something almost all of the feedback saw and so would be something to consider next time. Another thing noted was that there were too many of the same shots of our female protagonist, this was done to reflect the different areas she visited over time- however because in our group we knew the narrative/effect of this it may have been more difficult to see from an outsiders perspective. This is another thing we perhaps should have considered in more depth, that the audience’s vision of the piece may be different to ours and so we would need to explicitly reference the narrative we are portraying.

MUSIC VIDEO What I’ve learned from the feedback

The promotion of the artist/genre and the reflection of typical music videos

All of the feedback showed that the audience felt the video successfully promoted both the genre and the artist of the track. One suggested the name of the track ‘Closed’ could have been more closely referenced in order to fully promote the piece. This was not something we had considered but is definitely something worth mentioning.

The feedback showed the genre of the piece (folk) was successfully marketed, with one comment that it reflected the “calming” aspects of folk music. This was something I wanted to present in order to reflect the genre and create a piece that empahisised the enjoyment in solitude.

The name of the track and the artist was not used within our video, this may be something to consider next time as conventionally in order to promote an artist’s work fully the name of the track and artist is clear in the music video. Although we received no comments in the feedback about this, it is definitely a convention we did not use and therefore may harm the promotion of the piece.

PRINT PRODUCTIONSFirst method of feedback (In the making of the digipak)

Similar to when editing our music video, throughout the making of my print productions I gained feedback from my tutor. This was again extremely helpful in having an outside view of the panels. As I hand-drew each of my panels it was important to gain feedback on both the layout but also the clarity and coherence of my drawings in comparison to my video and in general.

For example, initially I had a sketch of the band and an individual sketch of the main singer to use on the front cover. Although from the comments my tutor left I realised the sketch portrayed the artist as slightly too old to appeal to my target audience and so decided to use our protagonist for the front panel.

I decided to draw the protagonist, and with inspiration from this comment, looked fro photographs we took on the shoot to use on the cover as well. This comment allowed me to change my perspective in order to focus on the audience appeal throughout my work, this was something I was pushing aside for the aesthetics of the piece.

PRINT PRODUCTIONSSecond method (Feedback after completion)

My first method of feedback after completing my print production was the comment from my tutor, this confirmed the digipak was creative- something I wanted to present in order to reference to ‘creative’ editing seen by our music video feedback and the folk genre of the piece.

The second method of feedback I used was through Facebook, I messaged two females of the same age range as my target audience (17&18), but who did not take A2 media studies. The use of facebook allowed for them to not only use the number system (as seen in the questionnaires for the music video) but also give detailed feedback on what they found was effective and what could have been better. It may be argued that in only using two people of the same gender I limited my feedback, this is something I would do differently next time to reflect all audiences. I gained feedback instantly, and found that they saw the pieces as reflective of the genre and music video. Both answered that out of five the package was an overall 5 placing emphasis on the “standard of graphics” of both the digipak and magazine advert, they also commented on the uniqueness of the digipak- the use of drawings was something “not often seen” and so created appeal.

The aspects of Britishness and promotion of the artist however on average received a lower score, they commented the package, although reflecting a drawing of a British seaside, it could be seen as anywhere.The promotion of the artist was clear on panel one and the magazine advert- due to the name being shown, however the other panels only referenced our music video and not the band itself. This may have limited the promotion of the artist.