Evaluation (Video): What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The audience feedback received allowed me to identify on the places where my my group and I went wrong with our concept and narrative. Audience feedback was constructed through social media platforms such as Youtube, through Youtube I uploaded my roughcut and received comments from my audience or who my music video appealed to. And the comments suggested that they believed it was an amazing concept and that it was a sad song which made them feel emotional they also said that it was enjoyable and very indie, one person even commented asking where can it be purchased these comments allowed me to know what we did wrong and where we went well. For example, we forgot to put a link in the description box for the artist’s website and there were comments asking where they could access more information, so it was important to make sure that a website link was included to allow the audience to find out more about Nico Johnson. Youtube was really good to use as firstly it allowed us to reach a wider audience on a global scale, as 1 billion people use YouTube (21/04/14) with over 4 billion videos viewed daily. This wider audience meant that Nico Johnson would be able to create a fan base in many countries and would mean that he would have many consumers to target, which would lead to more profits. Even though Indie is a niche market YouTube allows you to reach many people worldwide who you can appeal to. Through this feedback I was also able to read and identify what my audience opinions of my music video roughcut were, through features on YouTube such as, subscribers, likers, seeing the traffic on your channel and so on.  It allowed me to identify what they liked, why they liked it and how it could be improved in my final cut and what I can take on board when creating another music video or production.

It was essential to evaluate our work in order to develop and enhance the music video, in order to put out what our target audience want to see and what would make it more entertaining for them. I also had to carry out primary research such as a class questionnaire, the video was viewed privately to typical consumers of my media products (music video roughcut and ancillary texts) with the viewer’s fitting my target audience specification being aged 15-25 and having an interest in indie music; The private showing did only display the music video roughcut. From this I found out what they liked about it and how it could be improved, I found out that the audience were not clear on the narrative and didn’t understand if the artist had runaway or not. To ensure that there was clarity of the narrative I decided to add more shots of the father, family and artist lifestyle to the music video. Therefore, the audience would understand the narrative more clearly, as I did not want the audience to be confused, as this could lead to them having a negative view of Nico Johnson’s image and musical ability and as a result may not be entertained by it. My target audience also said that they missed out on vital information of the narrative especially during the beginning of the music video due to dark camera shots. The beginning of the music video gives the producer, director and artist the chance to capture the audience’s attention. If the beginning is not well put together the audience may lose interest in watching the rest of the production. So I then had to make sure that the lighting was not too dark, as personally I felt that these shots created mystery which is conventional to the indie genre but my audience thought otherwise so it was important to get non-biased opinions. I had to re-do the colour balance on Final Cut Pro X but also had to refilm these shots in daylight  to ensure that my audience can see clearly what is occurring in the music video and confidently understand the music video and artist representation.  Another thing that my audience picked up on was the fact that by passers were distracting and removing the seriousness away from meaning and connotation of the lyrics/music video. For example, one of our teachers and viewers from the private viewing noticed a woman in a brightly coloured coat walking past the camera. This made the music video not look well put together and caused the audience to be distracted from the concept of the music video, so again we had to refilm that shot. This was not great as I had to redo those shots which slowed down the production process. Target audience feedback was essential because if I did not carry out this research I would not have noticed these errors that I had made and I would not have been praised for the areas that I performed well, e.g. following conventions. Therefore, knowing these opinions before I decide to make to make the production the final cut would save you time, money and effort and would reduce the risk of producing something which your target audience do not want, this is also in relation to record labels.