Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
For my project I have used audience feedback throughout my work to gain ideas of what people believe to be successful music video. I've used two main methods to gain audience feedback, using video focus groups and online surveys to gain feedback from a range of ages, gender and ethnicity's  Below I have explained how I have responded to audience feedback throughout my media project and how it has helped me in creating my final products. 

Research and Planning

During my research and planning stage I put together a questionnaire using Surveymonkey.com, this allowed me to gather audience feedback before I began creating my product on what people believed would make a successful music video, to get as many responses as possible I emailed my teacher the link to the questionnaire and kindly asked them if they could email it out to the rest of the college for a wider response as this would allow me to get answers not only from media students but other students around the college. This questionnaire was a great success as I got up 69 responses, and it helped me a great deal on acknowledging how people viewed music videos and what they thought would be successful and unsuccessful, adding to this the questionnaire also helped me come to the conclusion to create a narrative video rather than abstract because it was what people preferred to view the most. Here are some images of the questionnaire and the responses that I gained; 

Questions that I asked; 

1. What is your gender?
2. What is your age?
3. What city do you currently live in?
4. What is your preferred music genre?
5. Do you enjoying watching music videos and why?
6. How often do you watch music videos?
7. Who is your favourite artists/band?
8. What media platforms influence the music videos you watch? 
9. What music channel do you use the most?
10. What devices do you use to watch music videos?

Here are some screen grabs of the responses I received and the conclusions I took from the results that I gathered;    

Music Video 

After I had fully completed my music video and uploaded it to YouTube, to get a wide range of audience feedback I decided to post my video on the social media site Facebook, through doing this I was able to get responses from people of all different ages, who either do or don’t do media studies and from all parts of the world. Here are some screen shots of my video being posted on Facebook and the feedback I received.

Reviewing the responses, from posting my videoing on Facebook I got 23 likes on the video. I take this as a positive response to my video as people have actually taken the time to view my product and expressed that they like the video. Also on my post I asked people to comment what they liked/disliked and would improve about the product, overall I received only positive responses as shown in the screen shots above. From posting my video on a social media site like Facebook I was able to get a wider response for example my cousin in America viewed my video and gave a reply to what she thought about it, her opinion was valued because she is a Photographer so therefore understands certain aspects that are involved when shooting. Also this showed that my video was being viewed further a filed than just in Hull and England, due to social media.  

To gain feedback on my three products I decided to video peoples response to questions based on my work.

The questions decided to ask were;

Do you think all three of my products are effective together?

Is the narrative easy to follow in my video?

What would do think is successful about my video?

What would you do to improve any of my products?

I got audience feedback from my brother, Sam Burton (15 - school student) and student peers, Daniel Rothery (17 - college student), Ellysia Tsim (18 - college student) and Katie Hartley(17 - college student) . 

This video shows my younger brother answering the above questions on my music video. 

This video shows my college peers watching the my whole music video, I have videoed them to see there initial responses to the video. 

This video shows my college peers answering questions about my music video. 

Through interviewing my student peers and brother this means I have questioned people from the demographic group E as they come under the job/status column as unemployed, students, pensioners and casual workers.  I decided to interview people in this age range because they are the age my music video is targeted to. Specifically ages 17-18 are the main ages I wanted to aim my video at because the underlying message of my video can be relatable to the age group. Therefore my narrative may have a lasting effect on the audience and may find a theme they can relate to. 

I asked these questions after I had completed my final music video, so that they could watch the whole video through without any caps so the narrative is clear to them. By doing this I was able to gather a response to how successful my whole video was and any improvements that needed to be made to any part of the video. I decided to get a video response for my audience feedback as I felt I got get a more developed answer rather than just writing up a response, also it allowed me to see the initial responses my student peers had when they saw my video for the first time because I videoed them watching the full video.  

After getting a video response I decided to ask further questions which I posted on social media sites to get more of a varied response. From uploading my video to social media sites and asking for an initial response, I felt by doing this I would get an even more varied audience feedback also even a niche audience and people who are not generally into indie-pop music would be able to view my video and give me initial feedback. Here are some of the responses I got from people of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter;

"I liked that it was black and white ties in with the emotion of the narrative."

"I think your video is really good, well done!"

"The use of the effects are really good, would say it appeals more to a female audience"

"The editing is really good, enjoyed it"

These are just a few of the responses that I received but overall looking back at this feedback it was all 100% positive which showed that people genuinely enjoyed my video and could see the amount of effort gone into creating the video.  

I also decided to ask my freinds for a resposne on my video, so using the app Whatsapp on my phone I asked in the group chat of all my friends if they would take a few minutes to watch my video that is posted on my Facebook page and then give an initial response.

I decided to ask my friends for a response because I thought they would give me a varied reaction because in the group chat there are nine of us and each one of my friends are students that study all different subjects which would give me nine different views on my product. Also one of my friends is a media student therefore she is able to give me an intellectual review on my product because she understands all they key codes and conventions associated within media to create a successful product. Here are some screen shots of the group chat and their initial responses;

Ancillary Text 

Typically for audience feedback on ancillary texts I would of used a questionnaire created by SurveyMonkey and then have the questionnaire emailed to the rest of the college gaining a wider response. However as I already used this method in my research and planning I decided I wanted more of a personal response from people who understand the terminology and aspects within media studies, so therefore I decided to show both my ancillary texts to an AS media class, with me in the room so I could see there responses and then have them write down what they liked and disliked about each ancillary text. Below are pictures of the responses that I received; 

From the responses that I received they were generally positive, with a few comments on improvement that could be made. For my digipak the comments that were made gave excellent feedback, for example the majority of responses given where that the use of colour was effective, the layout is engaging, the images taken look at professional standard, and the font compliments the whole style of the digipak. On the other hand when it came to the poster there was mixed reviews, for example some people liked the use of the unconventional image used and how the image fades to give a certain effect to make the text stand out more, where as others thought the image was too bland and could of used more colour of even a different image to make it stand out more. Overall I came to the conclusion that the digipak is more effective than the poster as the comments where more positive and on one response it was even mentioned 'I like the digipak more than the poster'. 

From gathering audience feedback I have learnt that is important to listen to audience feedback because they are the ones consuming my products and initially purchasing them. Also when getting feedback I had certain criticisms this allowed me to improve my work or have the chance to explain why certain decisions had been made in terms of codes and conventions. From audience feedback it allowed me to make my products as successful as possible and gain an understanding of what ideas people liked to see in music videos and ancillary texts. I have learnt from my feedback if I were to do this project again I would stick with the narrative ideology behind my video as people generally prefer to watch a narrative music video rather than an abstract video. However I would possibly spend more time on the magazine poster and rather than challenge conventions as I have tried to do, I would use typical conventions such as using particular shots of the artist as the main image rather than an image of a setting taken from my video. Getting feedback from people who are not in my target audience also helped my understand how I could make my products more successful in terms of appealing to a mass audience rather than a niche audience.