Evaluation Q3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My audience feedback has told me different things about my products. Firstly, the overall feedback I have received has been highly positive. Throughout the stages of production I have received constant feedback from my potential audience. 
Music Video
My initial research is the most significant to my production as it influenced my decision making. I took many different samples from different areas including a focus group, an interview, twitter polls, a questionnaire and a stand out poll. 

My Venture into town saw many people reluctant to do the questionnaire however, once I got my amount of people I learnt quite a lot from what they had to say. It taught me the importance of where people listen to music, therefore I have been able to use this into my evaluation questions. By putting this onto YouTube then goes on to suggest that the main interest would be into drugs and mental illness. This proved to be very effective, because of the fact that I now know that my conscious decision to ask my audience this enabled me to find out that they were interested in this theme and then I know that my products will appeal to this target market as a result. 

At the start of the year I conducted an audience survey. Below is the feedback and what I learnt from it. I believe this questionnaire gave me an insight into what an audience wants to see in a music video, and the codes, conventions and styles which attract them the most. It gave me much help as to ensure my product is successful I had to make sure that the audience liked it. Therefore finding out as much about what the audience like/dislike is very important to me and the development of my products.

This is in line with what I wanted, as indie pop is a genre which by definition is different to the mainstream music. This therefore suggests that my target audience are bored with the conventional music video. A new and refreshing video would seem much more interesting that a typical love story narration. Out of 30, conceptual themed video style got 1/3 of the votes. Therefore suggesting that the likes of performance are still important to the target audience. This can be seen in many media videos of my genre, a lot of them are performance based. I have learnt therefore from this that potentially incorporating the two can be seen to be beneficial. I used this method when filming, blending lip-syncing (a convention of a performance based music video) and conceptual ideology. 

This reinforced my idea that my music video should be about the effects of abusing drugs and mental illnesses -such as bi-polar disorder. My initial ideas were clarified and I felt relief when realising that my target audience enjoy watching this sort of thing. 

In light of this result, I concluded that my music video would have to the beat editing effects put in place. I already wanted to have a fast paced edit, however realising that my target market prefer the likes of it being to the beat enabled me to put this in place and make the video much more appealing to my audience. 

I took a poll to see where the most people consume music and the results were as follows. 

These results show that the most common way of consuming music is through YouTube. This therefore suggests that more people are watching and listening to music on their phones as opposed to going out and buying the CD. This therefore means that they will consume it in the comfort of their own homes or on the go, as opposed to buying a CD and only playing it in the car or in their rooms. I learnt from this that I must make sure my video appears on YouTube, this is to verify the ideology and pragmatics of my audience. Therefore enabling them to access it easily and in the comfort of where they usually watch music videos. 

I also asked an elderly lady if I could record her saying this, where I am asking her about the conventions of form. 

She was much more preferential to a more performance based music video as opposed to abstract or narrative. This has taught me that the elderly generations are much more likely to watch a music video if they can see the artist performing, either singing or dancing. This may be due to their history of music videos as from my history of music videos we can remember that they were mainly performance based until 1970/80. 

Once I had obtained these results I took my search to twitter.I am followed mainly by people who are my age so this will give an accurate answer to my target audience. 

This shows that out of 37 people, 41% use Youtube as a means of listening to music. 35% of the people use iTunes. 
There may be an anomaly with Tidal as this was around about the same time that Kanye Wests 'Life of Pablo' came out, and it has been said that tidal subscriptions skyrocketed after his release so therefore more people at the time will of had the 30 day trial still left from this album release.  This question then asks about where the audience watches music videos. The clear winner was YouTube, as over 84% of 37 people said that that was how they watched them. Dailymotion gained 3% and 13% of people said they didn't actually watch any at all. This can be helpful because it will mean that when I release my music video to the public it is important that I have it on YouTube in order to be available to my target audience.  However I learnt that there is little variation other with my audience in where they listen to music. They tend to lean towards YouTube most favourably, therefore ensuring an active YouTube measure was essential. This is why I created my music video with real life features of an artist. I added the information as if my artist were a real recording artist and put up a notification onto my music video to make sure that the music video was conventional of a real one.  

Twitter polls (continued) 

This results was very surprising, 48% of the people who voted said the mad hatter was the most important character in alice and wonderland. Therefore this taught me that the focus was not to just be on Alice, but also place a large emphasis onto the mad hatter character in my music video. This result helped me a lot because my initial idea was to only have one character playing Alice as opposed to a mad hatter featuring. 

My audience also thought that it would be interesting to see the different symptoms of psychosis. This enabled me to effectively plan for this and to organise my cast properly in order to show the correct visuals that my audience wanted from the music video. For example, the use of the spinning heads and the mirror effect being used.  

65% of the audience found that Mental Illness is an important issue to address or bring light to. I used this in order to convey this theme throughout. 

This was a much more interesting result as more people were uncertain/ not interested in the influence of drug abuse in my music video. This acted as a way of 'taming down' my ideas. And therefore the narrative theory of  Story and Plot is done. The drug abuse is inferred as opposed to being seen by the audience. This therefore would have still made it enjoyable for those who are not interested at all in issues like this. Which I felt, was a happy medium. 

This reuslt informed me that although the TV is still a large part of our lives, watching music videos on TV is very rare for my audience, this therefore suggests that by putting my video onto social media as opposed to other TV channels which is much more costlier, then my artist can effectively become much more well known for a fragment of the price. 

Focus Group After Hearing the Song:


As can be seen from the video, all of my focus group are 18. This is key for a variable, as I will only be analysing the different opinions and beliefs of this age group. They are also all in the E bracket of social groups due to them being students and only working part-time at best. Therefore they have a lack of disposable income. This would make them all fit perfectly into my target audience. 
Liam (on the right)  usually listens to RnB however he enjoys indie as well as Rnb. The other two are keen listeners of the indie genre, this can be noted by what they are wearing (the signature checked shirts). 
They thought that the most important conventions of an indie pop music video is to be a hybrid genre - containing both conceptual and performance based elements. 
Nathan suggests that I had to be abstract in order to appeal and relate to my target audience, who would be listening to this. Nathan wanted to see some key mise-en-scene choices and to be directly related to the genre and the music. Liam prefers when the video has a deeper meaning behind it to the point where it makes no sense. 

They would like to see fast-paced editing style with my video, because it reflects the song choice very much. 'its weird so its got to be fast'. This ties in with my previous research (above) which also resulted in this being said. Clearly, I used this feedback, I wanted to make sure my target audience - such as these, were happy with my music video choices. 

They would expect to see my music video in the woods as this is a stereotype of Alice and wonderland, they definitely want to see the video to be outside in order to give the illusion of Wonderland. However, Liam did mention it to be a very dark sort of video, as in the backdrop should be completely black, I may consider this when I plan my locations. 

Costume wise they would expect to see heavy makeup, vintage style clothing, typical blue dress for Alice and Liam even mentioned a Rabbits Head.
I will take these opinion on board because all three of them a Media Studies students and therefore all understand the elements my music video should have. This is also heightened by the idea that the music video is conceptual, and therefore I need to have bold statements, especially with the nature of the song. 

I feel as though this focus group aided me and sculpted my ideas to become and perform to be what these are saying. I have made sure that my music video did everything that this group have said, whether it be the costumes, or the fast paced editing I have ensured that I have taken everything on board and if not, I need to ask myself why I shouldn't. However, in this circumstance everything they were saying was exactly how I wanted it to be, therefore learning from this that asking the opinions from others in the target audience who also have a similar knowledge is very helpful and it has enabled me to produce a music video which has morphed into exactly what they are saying. 
Responses from my first draft:
Although my first draft was very short, I had a few tips from classmates, family and friends as to how I could make it better. This is a reminder of my first draft. 

This draft had many good points and bad points. 
Here is what my feedback suggested to me. 

Liam spoke about adding more colour into my music video, I did actually listen to him, because although I wanted my music video to be conventional of the indie pop genre (by using calming colours), I felt as though my song choice and costumes etc required a different action completely. Therefore my second draft shows the difference between colours from the new footage and the first draft footage. He also inspired me to venture outwards and use more people, this is important as it enabled me to bring out the best of each actor rather than just focusing on one person. 

Sophie liked the ideas behind all of my first draft and thought the trippy vibes were good. However, she felt as though I needed to cut into the lyrics section as my piece was very blocky, as in the lyrics appeared to be reciting the whole thing as opposed to sticking to the convention of being conceptual with a performance element. I completely agreed with what she was saying, I felt as though Mollie was in the start too much and because I hadn't incorporated my other artists into the video yet, it seemed to be all about her. I took this feedback and then learnt that the lyrics shouldn't be used all the way through, only on certain times as opposed to singing the whole song. This made my music video a lot better as on the draft I have completely changed the start (draft 1) into becoming much more to what Sophie said. I changed a few things, I incorporated Liam to cut into Mollies line 'poppin poppin'. Also, I got rid of all of the bath scenes being in such close proximity to one another. Therefore spreading the concentration of one person in the music video. 

My mum is not in my target audience however, I found her opinion very helpful as I learnt that my first draft was rather shakey and I corrected this in my second and third drafts by altering the TV shots and changing the corrections of the colours to make the footage seem much more bold and interesting. 

Responses from my second draft:
Here is my second draft of which I am referring to 

I set a group chat up on facebook ans asked for peoples opinions on this here are my responses from facebook. 

I asked for feedback from my friends and family... 

 

My opinion on the second draft has also summarized  

My media teacher also showed the classes throughout the years my second draft and I got a series of good points and bad points from it. 
Overall my Mise-en-scene choices were praised, however the initial shots at the start seem to be a different colour scheme. I had taken this on board in my next draft and ensured that it remained continuous throughout. 
I learnt from this stage that my video was much more visually pleasing to the audience. All of the people I have got responses from are in my target audience and their main feedback was to keep going the way it was. I went on to change a fair amount of this as some people tended to point out shots which were not very successful- as shown below. 

  

Since the feedback from the second draft I have learnt a lot and changed a lot in the progression from draft 2 + 3. This is highlighted by this video below showing a split screen in order to effectively compare my changes throughout. 


Third draft feedback: 

This is telling me that all of products are really good for my target audience, although she felt as though no changes were needed for my products. 
She sees to like the costumes, colours and lighting very much. This makes the actual lyrics and the actual meaning come through, which I thought was a very good comments because that is exactly what I had been trying to achieve throughout the making of the music video. I feel as though the positive feedback is very impressive, because my target audience are some of the hardest to impress, this is because they expect things to be good as opposed to low budget etc. So therefore, the fact that I had achieved that was very good. 

I also conducted an interview style focus group with Sophie. This proved to be very useful and quite flattering. She feels as though all of my products are noticeably very similar and gives a good house style because of this. Therefore suggesting that this was because of the fonts and the imagery, as these factors are a large part of my ancillary texts and music video I would suggest that that would be correct in my opinion too. Sophie is in my target audience therefore I can be confident when saying that my target audience would be happy with my products and would be willing to buy them.
She also goes on to say that my products are effective and fulfill their purposes, which I think is extremely positive feedback. I am happy with my final products now I have the verification from my target audience that they are effective in their purpose and are also very gratifying to watch and look at. 

Third draft of my music video - Older Generation Opinion

This showed me that despite the age difference between my target market and a 72 year old woman, it is still visually stimulating for them. This is very good because I was then able to market my ancillary texts knowing this key information. Leading to my ancillary products attracting a lot of different people outside of my target audience demographic, therefore being effective by drawing attention to it. Although this lady won't listen to the genre itself, I believe that gaining the approval of many other social classes and ages are very important, it means that I have produced a very appealing product. 
I think this is done by using the 'Alice and Wonderland' theme, this ensures that all ages can understand and identify the different conventions of the characters, therefore making it much more interactive and enjoyable to watch. 
She also went on to say that even she uses YouTube, behind the scenes of this clip she told me that her grandchildren showed her how to use it, therefore suggesting that the older generation are actually using YouTube as a source for videos too. 

On 7/4/16 I posted my music video onto Facebook. 

I have a lot of friends on Facebook and 5,000 followers so I thought it would give me good feedback. 

I have friends from different parts of the U.K., e.g. London, Manchester, Newcastle, Grantham, Liverpool and Birmingham. I also have friends from abroad e.g. Turkey, Australia (family), Italy (family) and Brazil. Therefore due to the increase in globalization and the proliferation of media I am testing my product not only in the UK but across the globe. 

I received a very popular response. Suggesting that my video was liked by many people in different demographics. In total I have received 67 'likes' on this post, demonstrating that their feedback needed not to make many changes. This was demonstrated by the very positive comments, there were no comments about having to change anything in particular , however I feel as though my target audience were very happy with the music video final result. Therefore, not needing me to change my video after the third time. 

Below are some of the comments I got from my posting of the music video: 


"That's amazing Enea"

"Incredible!!"
"Enea this is fab! Must've taken forever! You've obviously put a lot of work into this and its paid off" 
"Your video its brilliant! very professional "

This feedback was very good because it told me exactly what was good about the music video. He specifically refers to the visuals as being very good and professionally done, therefore telling me that this is my strongest part of the video. This then made me want to accent this strong feature into my ancillary texts as well, as opposed to putting emphasis on the fonts, the imagery used must relate directly to the music video because that is what people are wanting. 

This feedback also proved to be very helpful, the contrast in colours has been mentioned so again the very bold colours are drawing the attention of the target market. She seemed to be very consumed into my video therefore making me consider to not change anything about it, as my target audience are already very happy with my product. 

I have created a short video to show all of my three drafts together, this should clearly highlight the changes I have made from draft 1 through to draft 3 (my final product). 

I think this shows how the quality has vastly improved and become much more in time to the music and also has increased the pace. This may be down to adding more footage of other people in order to break up the Alice block as my first feedback told me. The colours have also changed at the start, I have used a lower exposure for dark and a very high one for white to enable these colours to be so bold. This also makes the screen at the start seem a lot less volatile. 

My Advert 

My advert has been subject to a few criticisms, whether that be from peers, teachers and family. 

Click HERE to view my Advert feedback analysis. 

With my audience research being so specific, I was quickly and able to change what they didn't seem to like about it. Here are my two drafts to show you the change between before the audience research and after. 

Positioned on the left is the 'after' and my final advert. To the right is the first draft I conducted. As the audience feedback suggested, I kept the imagery and the fonts the same, however I changed the layout of the typography in order to please the audience. Who are essential if I want to make my products effective in the real world.

Digipak 

My digipak has changed a fair bit. This is purely down to my own interests and my audience feedback. I also made huge amendments to my design from my initial plan. 

My first draft is very sloppy looking. When asking a girl what she thought of my design she said that the design was too basic and that the combination of images and fonts don't go well together. This worried me a bit, and I started to plan a bit more, looking further into digipak designs. I also had feedback suggesting that my designs were a mismatch of different things and that I should have a conclusive and house style for my digipak. 

Here is the actual statements that she made. (Phoebe, 13). 

From this feedback I realised I had to make substantial improvements. This involved changing the images in order to make it look much more professional. I also took it on board about the typography, I then started working on the fonts and colour scheme in order to appeal to my target audience. 
I feel that because I have never made a digipak before, I was not quite as confident in my own ideas as I should of been, especially with the feedback from the first draft. I had a lot to improve on. One positive comment was that the White Rabbit looked good on the back. However the image of Alice on the back didn't suit the style. I therefore made altercations and tried to switch around the imagery in order to gain the audiences opinion on my side. 
Because I lacked the confidence I confided in my teachers and my peers in order to perfect my digipak. 
Firstly, I constructed the front cover as I was sure from the comments made by peers suggesting that this was a good front cover that I should go with this. Following that I took to Facebook in order to find out what back cover I should use. 

My digipak has changed a fair bit. This is purely down to my own interests and my audience feedback. 

I posted on Facebook potential images for the back of my digipak with the layout already set out, this proves to be most helpful as I managed to get a thumbs up from 60+ people with different ideas on what picture looked better. 

Conclusively, the first image won. However the picture with the two heads came a close second, therefore I will use that for my magazine advertisement. Here are the results below. 

I was rather shocked that 43 people 'liked'  this draft. This shows the popularity, and I think it was because of the very unsettling look, this maybe appeared to be a bit different to the normal back covers. One person commented and said 'Definitely this one or the one with the two heads! But I like this one because its so shocking'  I think that is a good element of feedback, it suggests that the audience are almost taken back by his design. I would of gone for the two heads, as I felt it was also good. However, I listened to my target audience because it is essentially them who will be buying my album. 

This feedback influenced not just my digipak, but also my poster. I felt like this image was too compelling to not be shown to my audience, therefore I made this the imagery of my poster. I felt as though people liked it enough to see that on an advert and it is also attention grabbing enough to do a good job as an advert as opposed to my other potential imagery. I learnt in particular from this that my opinion doesn't always reflect what the audience want. I would have put this as my back cover until realizing that the target audience wanted another cover. 

Once I had put this together I then asked Sophie, from the videos above about my digipak and Phoebe. These are two different ages and can therefore show the changes in opinion from ages. 
This is the same girl that I used before hand, this time she is much more positive about my digipak, she said that there was nothing that I needed to improve on which was very satisfying. Below is a voice clip of what she had to say. 

Although she doesn't listen to my genre of music, she said that she would buy it if she did. She finds the artwork very good and professional, along with everyone else that I have asked they like the fonts and the imagery, because it is bright and colourful. 

From this experience I have learnt that in order to produce a good piece of work I had to make mistakes and then develop those bad points into good points. 

If I were to do this differently, I would try to make sure I secured a particular set of individuals who fit perfectly into my target audience profile. This would ensure that my feedback was perfectly relevant to my audience therefore making it much more effective and relevant.