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What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I used audience feedback throughout various stages of our A2 media coursework this year in order to ensure that my target audience liked its development and to gain insight into their thoughts of improvements.

The three main stages in which I got feedback are:

• Planning• Producing• Evaluating

The planning stages are where I made the firm decisions surrounding planning of the shooting of the music video, choices of style (narrative, concept or performance based).

I asked this question on the website SurveyMonkey since it was easy to access and quick to send across to my audience, therefore it worked well as an initial way of gaining access to my audiences.

The link to the survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2R88RSZ

The first question that I asked was surrounding the age of my respondents, since I wanted to gather wether I was targeting my target audience (16-25):

One the right you can see the graph of the first questions responses, the peak on the responses comes at the age of 17 with 7 answers and 18 with 2 answers.

The answers show me that I am targeting the right audience of people but it seems that I can also target an older and unintended audience and still manage to appeal to them, I have responses from the ages of 28 and 30+ and so therefore my video, although unintended will also appeal to them and potentially a wider audience than I had initially planned for.

EVALUATION Q3

A still from my music video ‘Emma’ for the unsigned artist Lester J. Allen.

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Continued Survey Monkey analysis

The following question in which I asked was surrounding the gender of my respondents. I didn’t exactly expect to target either gender more than another, although the song did come from the point of view of a male which could potentially appeal more to them for this.

The responses that I received came slightly more from males than females although this may have been just because more males clicked on the survey and answered it.

I received 9 responses from males and 6 from females. It seemed that the males however gather further depth in their answers, in particular the question on the expectations of the folk genre and it’s music video. This could indicate that the folk genre is more populated by males and is generally more relevant to them and appeals more too.

The third question in the survey was ‘what is your favourite genre of music?’ and I asked this question in order to understand better my audience. I included the main big genres of music, but not so niche genres .

Indie scored the highest with 10 responses of the vote but closely followed by acoustic with 8 responses. These genres are the ones that closely resemble the genre of the song that I

chose for my song which is of course Folk.

The classical genre received no votes at all which is good since folk and classical are very distinct from each other.

Following this question is ‘how do you consume media?’ and I asked this in order to understand where to upload my video and where to advertise my ancillary texts for the album, e.g. advertising that the album is available to download on iTunes or Spotify on the poster:

Digital Downloads scored the highest with 93% and so this shows the digital age now and that when advertising my album I should state it’s availability for digital download.

This question required that the respondents answer with text what they thought about their impressions of the folk genre is and their expectations for a music video, further asking wether they believed that my artists appearance conformed to the genre.

Here are some of the best and most relevant responses I received from the survey:

“1. I think folk will have a really arthouse indie vibe to it 2. The video should have an earthy colour palette consisting of sepia or green like tint and hipster like 3. yes it is very folk like with its suspenders”

“Its pretty chill yet meaningful music and mainly seemed to be performed by people who have real musical talent, one couldn't not like it. Either a video of the artist/musicians performing or a story portraying the song and yes I do believe Lester rather does give the stereotypical impression of a folk artist.”

“I would expect a strong story line and character roles in order to fit in well with the lyrics and his appearance does conform well to the genre.”

These were among the best responses and most helpful that I received and helped shape the production of the video the most, although there were a lot more responses as you can see below:

There were some results however that were interesting and although they don’t conform to traditions and stereotypes now, in the past they would have:

“Hillbilly farmers playing instruments in barns while their horses dance around”

“I think of farms and hay barrels”

This gave me opportunity to exploit this is and create a very stylised and vintage music video. However this wasn’t relevant since the song has a very dark tone and it’s lyrics reflect that, so creating a song with ‘hillbilly’ farmers wouldn’t have been professional and would have likely been taken as a mockery.

From this information I knew that I wanted to create a very stylised video and for it to have a storyline since this is what is appealing to my target audience and what they are responding well to in my survey.

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The above responses did really help me since I understood that my audience wanted me to use semiotics and iconography but they definitely wanted narrative as all of the responses gave this answer. This is good since I had intended on initially on using a song that would allow for this. Upon re listening to the album, I found that the song ‘Emma’ was most relevant to what my audience was expecting and provided the basis for deep narrative and for the use of iconography.

I took the idea of semiotics and iconography on board and it can be seen throughout my music video, for example the role of he coloured lighting plays a big role in portraying the emotional state of the

characters in the narrative of the song. An visual example of this is on the left of this page.

The first response provides for a good insight into what the audience was expecting from the video. I took this and based my video around having my audience gather further depth from the video from the semiotics e.g. the jumbled timeline and the locations of the characters, e.g. girlfriend character being shadowed in certain shots by the dead branches early in the video, before the audience know that they are broken up, foreshadowing their break up. Also, no shot shows both the girlfriend and boyfriend together at either point.

Continued Survey Monkey analysis

I next question that I asked was for them to listen to a song by Lester called ‘For my Father’ on YouTube since I felt the song gave a good impression of the artist and his style, since at this point I wasn’t exactly sure what song off the album I was going to use. Once they listened I asked ‘do you believe that a music video for this song would benefit from being narrative (has an obvious sense of story, usually a direct link with lyrics too) or conceptual (not so obvious initial meanings and can be perceived as more random) based on what you've heard?’ I had to incorporate the definitions of each of Goodwin’s types of music videos since not all of my target audience would understand this.

This question was another question in which I asked for a response by text and some were more helpful than others.

What I really wanted to understand here is what kind of music video I wanted to make in order to suit my audience, although based on genre conventions I personally wanted to make a conceptual and/or narrative based video.

You can see the responses from the question below:

The most helpful responses really gave me an insight into how to plan my video and what things to include:

“Narrative but with features of concept based because when the inclusion of semiotics is present, it will allow for a deeper and more substantial video.”

“I think this type of genre would benefit from a blend of narrative but with conceptual elements such as iconography and symbolism similar to anna calvi’s desire but instead of a performance have a narrative”

“The lyrics of the song have sentimental meaning which adds value to the song. I think the song would benefit from a more narrative video ,helping to visualise what is found in the lyrics.”

The video (click to open) that I sent my target audience to watch on YouTube.

A similar performance based song called ‘For my Father’.

A still from the ‘Emma’ music videoThe use of red lighting as a semiotic through the colours connotations and meanings of instability and passion.

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This question asked the respondents to answer what they believed to make a music video successful. This was useful for me in order to understand what they believed made up a well produced and effective music video, therefore questions surrounding quality and links with lyrics were important:

“Where appropriate links with the lyrics or an overall portrayal of the emotion or message of a song, accurate lip syncing, well executed finish a flows well, it is rather nice to feature the artist as it is after all showcasing their talents.”

“has to conform challenge or develop goodwin’s theory on music videos”

“A video that is both unique and the links with the lyrics.”

“A high definition and well lit shot. So important to feature appropriate mise-en-scene too.”

These insights into the thoughts of my audience really did influence my video, since for example in the surveys, many of the respondents outline the importance of a high definition resolution and for this matter I chose to use my own camera instead of borrow one from College, which allowed me to shoot at full 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD).

Another example that I took onboard was that many of the answers stated that cinematography was important to the overall production and so I researched how to create shots that would suit a very cinematographic feel. I found that many would recommend the use of a very shallow aperture and so I used the lens I often use in my photographic portrait projects since it has a very shallow aperture at only f2. The Helios 44-2 lens is what I used and it allowed for some really cinematic and shallow shots, thanks to the advice from the audience questioning.

Many mentioned either the importance of the lyrics or narrative driven timeline. I ended up conforming to Goodwin’s theory on ‘link between visuals and lyrics’ well since the visuals were essentially an extension and provided further background to the song, e.g. the sectioning of the boyfriend character isn’t mentioned in the lyrics although in the video it is hinted at.

The final question I asked really sealed the influence of a mostly narrative driven story but with elements of conceptual. This final question asked my respondents what their preference of music video was and narrative received a slightly higher response at 53% than concept (46%). This left performance based videos with 0 votes.

Survey Monkey analysis continuedE

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Helios 44-2 Lens This is the lens that I used during my filming, it’s an old film lens and has a very shallow aperature at an f stop of 2.

The shot on the rigfht proves the shallow focus, notice that the background is blurred.

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During the producing stages, almost everything had been shot and so most feedback related to anything to do with post production and editing.

The second questionnaire I put out was almost an extension of the SurveyMonkey, however this one asked wether the respondents would be happy to participate in a focus group once the video had been drafted. Many of the questions on this survey were the same as the one online since it was targeted at those who hadn’t already answered it online, although I won’t be analysing the responses that are the same as the questions already asked in the SurveyMonkey questionnaire since the responses that were relevant were included in the analysis above.

Once I had drafted a first cut of the video which was fairly patchy, I began calling on those back for a focus group. I asked them to fill out a feedback form after they watched the video asking for successes, improvements, wether it conforms to the genre, what themes they acknowledged and effects that are overused.

The responses were really helpful to constructing the final piece as I will detail a few examples:

This respondent responded by saying that the scene featuring the dancing didn’t work and could do with improving and so I went into Final Cut afterwards and attempted to obscure slightly the scene with a another video

clip of blue lights and I overlaid it onto the dancing clip, as you can see here:

The respondent who had the most input in the focus group is below and her responses:

With her input and help, I managed to complete the fairly confusing timeline. She outlines the fact that the letter that the boyfriend character writes throughout the video is never actually given to her and therefore she says it makes it lose it’s meaning and doesn’t portray her response.

I re shuffled the clips in my timeline and made sure I had enough space for extra footage and then I went to capture the character Emma and her response to the letter. It was a simple shot (she enters, finds the letter and bins it) but it added a lot to the narrative, it fulfilled some viewers understanding of their relationship because of it.

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A respondent pointed out the overuse of the letter writing scenes in the music video:

My response to this was to remove a couple of unnecessary clips which also then freed up my timeline slightly to then include the scenes where Emma receives her letter and bins it without opening it.

Apart from the adjustments mentioned above, the participants of my focus group didn’t offer much else for me to improve, many were just giving the video appraise, which of course is useful in it’s own right to know that my target

audience like the video but many didn’t offer ways to improve.

I was very happy however to see that my target audience understood the themes throughout the video, this can be seen through the responses of the focus group feedback since almost all understood the links with mental health and love:

This meant that the semiotics and references (e.g. to that of The Priory) were understood and used to further enrich their understanding of the context and narrative of the story, referring back to my original questionnaire, I believe that I have successfully incorporated good use of semiotics and iconography.

Another area explored was that of the conforming to the folk genre and many of my respondents agreed that it did conform to the genre conventions of folk.

A respondent of the focus group stated that the video is very relatable, which of course is good since the song is coming from experiences of a young age, very similar to that of my 16-25 target audience.

Focus Group continued

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I appreciated your use of light in the video as light can traditionally be viewed as symbolic for purity or hope, and the colloquial usage of purity has meant that it is often used synonymously as a way of describing someone who does not know something, whether this be in a sexual or adult way and I think that it is clear from the tone of the video that it depicts young people dealing with adult issues and so it added a deeper element to the video. I also liked how some of the scenes took place outside in a woods, which is quite ethereal and contrasts with the use of technology and makes it potentially a deeper metaphor for something else entirely.

Hope Carter, focus group respondent.