Question 3 - What have you learned from your target

audience feedback?

By Joseph Shepherd

How did we gather research?

To evaluate my work, I used one focus group, one questionnaire as well as asking for the opinions of my target audience. I felt that the questionnaires were the most beneficial to me as I could get a lot of data quick and easily, as well as being able to ask specific questions to my target audience. Since mine and Caity’s theme of relationships was sensitive with a chance that someone could have had a bad experience in one, the fact that we could ask them anonymously meant the answers we would get would be more legitimate.

Focus group Our first target audience research was a focus group back in October of 2016, in which we stated our original ideas for our music video and asked them questions such as • Do you like re-releases of songs • What images come to your mind when you hear this song? (We played the first minute of the song)• We gave feedback on our initial concepts and asked if it offended any one or if there was anything they could suggest to change.• We described our establishing shot and asked for suggestions• What do you feel about covers/rereleases of old songs?• Do you enjoy a narrative based music video?• Do you prefer modern or traditional representations of women?• What locations come to mind when listening to the song?since our song was a re-release we felt that asking them for their opinion on re releases was important, we found from this that our target audience (TA) was okay with them as long as the song was done in an interesting style . We also asked them what they thought of our plans for the establishing shot among other things like what they thought of our story lines, from this focus group we found that many people liked mine and Caity ideas which gave us a lot of reassurance going into this project. This focus group was very useful at the start of the project as we were able to see if our TA approved of our ideas and if not change it so we could appeal to both genders like we had planned to.

Asking opinions

Later on in the project after we had shot the footage and had put to together our very first rough cut me and Caity would ask people to watch. This proved useful as we were able to gain our TA’s feedback on certain points of our music video quickly and were able to make changes when needed. One example of this feedback being in use in our music video was the shots of texts. We got feedback saying about how the video was very negative towards the male gender so we decided to include more of the males story so we could appeal to both the male and female audience hence the use of texts as we could give a lot of the narrative in a three second shot.

Social Media

Me and Caity both knew that our target audience of 16+ would be very active on social media, we used Facebook and twitter to get in touch with them and get feedback at the click of a button on topics like band names.We also used these websites to send out questionnaires for our target audience to fill out.

Questionnaire

We used Questionnaire’s as it proved to be a good way to gather information quickly as you could just hand them to your TA. We used one to gain feedback on our final version of our music video. The questions we asked were

• Did the performance shots enable you to identify the star/stars?

• Were their enough close ups of the main artists?

• Did you understand the narrative?

• What did you think of the stars repetition, their image?

• Was the editing used well enough for he meaning to be clear and did it look good?

• Did you like the costumes and locations? Were there any you liked?

• Would the music video encourage you to buy their music?

These questions were designed to make sure that all aspects of our music video were as strong as possible and adhered to the likes of our target audience.

An example of the questionnaire Charlotte , female 18 Did the performance shots enable you to identify the star/stars?• 1) The performance shots of the girl where my favourite as her expressions look so natural and not forced, enabled me to identify her entirely and I thought she's very good at facial expressions

and communicating with the camera. The performance shots of the boy where also good as he had quite a poker face expression and I feel this enabled me to identify him as not too bothered about the situation in comparison to the girls very emotive singing.

Were their enough close ups of the main artists?• 2) there is a good range of shots overall , my fave close up was at at 3 mins 30 seconds of the girl as the lyrics and her expressions fit perfectly and pushes the narrative and I feel anymore close

ups of them both would've made the video look too repetitive Did you understand the narrative?• 3) im guessing the narrative is a breakdown of a relationship as time goes on and they argue more and more, the emotion of the two actors in the arguing shots push this narrative and make it

very easy to understand they are going through rough times. What did you think of the stars repetition, their image?• 4) I found the girl to be very innocent and quite vulnerable at times when they boy kept cancelling on her when she was waiting and when he pulled away from her kissing and I found him to be

represented to be quite in control of the whole thing as when she woke up she looked frightened by him at the end of her bed and it seemed he was always the one calling the shots Was the editing used well enough for he meaning to be clear and did it look good?• 5) The vignette mask used in editing pushes the sad narrative as it gives off a dark feeling, the lack of cutting on the beat and use of cross dissolves suits the music perfectly as cuts on the beats

would have been too sharp and wouldnt have matched the slow beat/pace of the song. The actors are also synchronised perfectly throughout. Another thing I liked was the diegetic sound added at 3 mins 20 as this is quite unconventional for a music video but it worked very well and added uniqueness to the video

Did you like the costumes and locations? Were there any you liked?• 6) I loved the locations especially the one with the Humber bridge in the background , however I feel maybe just one fast pace environment could've been featured when they where arguing to

match their moods and it would've pushed the narrative further. Would the music video encourage you to buy their music? • 7) yes this video would encourage me to buy their music

Negative feedback on final music video from questionnaire

From our questionnaire on our final music video we found one response that says about how the continuity editing of our video was confusing at times. This could be down to two different reasons the first being that they didn’t understand the surreal element of whether Luke was really there or not. Secondly being that me and Caity did not think our narrative all the way through and left scenes that could have been reshot and simplified.

Conclusion

In conclusion I feel that I have learnt many things from our target audience, When we first started this project I had no idea about what our target audience could of found offensive or what they would of liked. However now at the end of this project I feel that I have gained a greater understanding of our TA and what they like all due to target audience research.