Q3.WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

BY LUKE SEDDON

QUESTIONNAIRE'S AND FOCUS GROUPS

In order to fully evaluate my work, I used focus groups and questionnaires. I believe that the most beneficial to me were the questionnaires, this is because it meant that we could get lots of data quickly and easily, as well as being able to ask specific questions for our target audience. Across the entire production of my music video, I managed to obtain feedback from 28 different people. This was across both the questionnaires and the focus groups. The main focus group we conducted was in November, and it was on our first drafted music video.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH I created a pre-production survey using the online software “Survey monkey”. I was able to ask my target audience to retrieve both quantitive and qualitive data for both types of feedback.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH I then sent this survey monkey link to the social networking site Facebook:

Luke Seddon’s Music video Pre-production Survey

This is the five questions I used in the survey; it identifies the way in which the music video should be performed, possible locations, and other thoughts on other music videos (likes/dislikes) etc.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH Considering I surveyed a large number of people, you could argue that my results are very much reliable (but in reflection not necessarily valid). This is due to the fact, they are unrepresentative of the general population (of which would have given me a more integrated feedback) as they were all roughly my age, many of which are similar to me and enjoy the pop-indie genre of music videos therefor are my target audience. As music videos are most popular with teenagers they could be considered as a “knowledgeable target audience”. Although, as we had already chosen my song (pop/rock) is specifically set out to ask friends and family that I knew enjoyed pop music to gain their thoughtful feedback.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH25

20

15

10

5

0Concept Narrative Performance

56%

16% 28%

This was the results from the survey of the question, “what type of music video should be capture”? I have displayed it in bar chart to make the results more visually straightforward as it is easy to distinguish.

Qualitive Results

This confirmed my choice to capture a predominantly concept video, while still having possible performance aspects for the video.

SAMPLE

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Do you think the artists and the storyline should have come together as one in the music video?

SAMPLE

53%

34%

13%

The music video “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers originally inspired me to create a concept driven performance video. However, my audience feedback informed me that they should not be combined for a majority of the music video, instead they should converge for a little.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH I was able to learn from other music video’s achievements to be able to see what my audience enjoy watching. My friends also told me about some of their favorite indie music videos and why they work.

As well as learning from other music videos achievements I have also learnt from their mistakes to know what not to do. For example, I learnt that the music video must remain intriguing and meaningful.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Even though the highest rated location was not the church I felt I was incredibly lucky to be able to use a Church.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH Finally from the audience feedback I was given additional thoughts and mentions in order to help aid my target audiences desires for the music video. On the other hand I did gain feedback from a wider range of ages when carrying out unstructured interviews. Usually the older the interviewee the more thoughtful and structured answer was given. For example, they really stressed the importance of the meaning of the music video.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH How my audience feedback affected my Digipak

As my audience feedback states: the narrative of a song is vital therefor I carried this out and put a shot of the narrative (Indya) on the Digipak. However I have also challenged their suggestions by having her in a unique pose- laid on the grass.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH How my audience feedback affected my Digipak

In addition, my audience feedback also suggested I make my music video relevant to the song, interesting, and ensure the camera angles are engaging. Finally, as my audience feedback did not come to a conclusive decision whether any form of actual punk rock activity in the digipak, because we wanted to keep this “up beat” product image across our brand.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH How my audience feedback affected my magazine advert

When gaining pre-production feedback I was told twice to ensure my music video was in the style of our star- Pop/indie. As I wanted all three of my products to share the same style I had to apply these suggestions to not only my music video but my two ancillary texts- one of which is my magazine advert. I therefor included the same style of texts, fonts and images (synergetic) while attempting to make intriguing and no monotonous.

I was also recommended to look at professional music videos and learn from them so I applied this practice when researching magazine adverts and learning from their pro’s and con’s when designing them.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH

I created my post-production survey using the software “pages” where I was able to include tables. As well as place images (such as a screenshot) anywhere on the page- even in the middle of the writing.

I wanted to receive mainly qualitative data hopefully including thought out feedback of my music video after viewing. I then printed roughly 20 copies of this questionnaire.

PRE-PRODUCTION AUDIENCE RESEARCH

THOUGHTS FROM FOCUS GROUP

The people that we asked liked the performance shots of our star, they thought that she was convincing and she also looked voyeuristic. We wanted Indya to appear natural- this is as it contradicted with the punk era and showed the differences between them. They also liked the balloon shot that we used towards the end of our music video. However, one person picked up on the fact that you could see the extras throwing the balloons within the background. Hence, I then decided that we needed to reshoot this shot at our next days filming atEmily’s Grandma’s house. Our focus group also liked the range of colours that we used within our filming, it had happy connotations. This was also a feature that I wanted in our video- it made our star stand out from the extras and it created synergy across the music video. It would then mean that we could use the same orange colour within our promotional package.

FURTHER..Finally, they also all agreed that they liked the football scene within our music video, I believe that this was mainly due to the use of found footage, it gave the impression that we were actually there and it created the idea of memories and nostalgia, this added to the post modern elements and intertextuality of our music video.

NEGATIVE FEEDBACKThe negative feedback was the obvious lack of shots which came with the deletion of our footage, this meant that we had lots of gaps within our music video that we needed to fill. I believe we were missing around a minutes worth of footage. Hence we had to do four more shoots in order to recover what we had lost before as we couldn’t get all the people back on set at one time. One other form of negative feedback was that we received was the use of the extras within the background of the balloon shot, As I noticed it, I felt that it made the music video look unprofessional. Hence, I decided that we needed to reshoot this shot, we chose to use a close up shot on the second shoot in order to resolve this idea.

DID WE MEET OUR TARGET AUDIENCEFor this we also received a positive response, everyone thought that it adhered to our target market due to the age of the extras and the colours that we used.

One other reading we had was that it could reach an older audience, due to the use of found footage and the idea of them reminiscing about the genre. Do you think we met our target audience of 13-17 year olds?

WHO ANSWERED OUR QUESTIONNAIRES?

Audience

32%

68%

In general, we asked predominantly more females , this is the reason of our target market being more female dominated, therefor we felt that we should ask more of their opinions.

WHAT AGE WERE THEY?

0-14 15 16 17 18 19 20+

5

10

15

20

Within our questionnaires, we mainly interviewed 16 and 17 year olds as they are people we go to college with. Although, they are still part of our target market so their answers matter within our music video.

SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACKThe first decision we had to make was based of our gained feedback on was our logo, we had come up with two different logos on Photoshop, they were for “Mystique Records” and “DNA Records”. Both designs were completely different, and we couldn’t decide which we preferred so we took to Facebook for an answer. We used Emily’s social media as she had a bigger female audience. The majority response was for “Mystique Records”.

DO YOU LIKE THE LOCATIONS USED IN THE MUSIC VIDEO?

Reviewing our feedback, we gained all positive responses, everyone liked the feedback and they felt that it suited Indya style. However, we did have one response that they weren’t sure on the low angle shot of the boats- we used the boats in order to replicate the sense of journey and the idea of Indya finding herself or in a way escaping from society. Upon reflection I feel that we could have made this idea more obvious so our audience were more certain on the idea. Did you like the locations used?