Question 3- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Research

Audience vox pop

Before we began to plan or create anything we thought it best to create a vox pop collecting some audience research. We did this so that when we began production we would be able to create something that would appeal to our audience and they would enjoy it. We asked them six different questions to help us find out about what music they enjoyed and also what styles of video they like to go alongside the music.

 

 

What is your favourite music genre and why?
Jordan: 'Indie and the sub-genres as it's a fun genre'

Jamie: 'Rock because it has lots of noise and its fun'

Jack: 'Indie because it's unique and different'

Eddie: 'Indie pop because it's the mix of the two genres and its fun'

Natasha: 'R'n'B because it's different to what most people listen too like pop'

From all of the answers to this question it was clear that indie is the most popular genre among our audience. People also enjoyed the sub genres of indie and this is a positive as our song is indie-pop. Other answers included r n b and also rock both of these genres can be seen as an alternative and different genre also like indie, so it was possible that the audience will enjoy the song that we chose. By knowing the genres that our audience enjoy helps us to understand if our audience will like our chosen genre and song. It also helped us to understand why they liked the genre. People liked the indie genre because it was 'unique and different' this then gave us an idea of what people would like to see within the video, advert and digipack. 

What’s your favourite music video

Jordan: 'Alt j, Breezeblocks, because its fun and different'

Jamie: 'Guns 'n' Roses, November Rain because of the performance'

Jack: ' Bad Habits by The Kooks'

Eddie: 'Catfish and the Bottlemen, Kathleen, because I like the effects'

Natasha: 'Beyonce's Lemonade'

There was a range of different videos given for this answer but some included the indie genre, for example alt- j breezeblocks and Catfish and the Bottlemen, Kathleen. This allowed us to understand the style of video that the audience would like. One person also added that they liked the effects in their favourite video helping us to look into using effects and what style of effect the audience like. 

Do you prefer performance or narrative and to what ration?

Jordan: 'I like a bit of performance and narrative because it makes it more interesting'

Jamie: 'Performance because rock music is more performance than narrative'

Jack: 'I like a mix of both, I like it to be really evened out, because performance can be really effective alongside narrative'
Eddie: 'I like narrative because I can see the story side of things'
Natasha: 'I prefer a bit of both because I like seeing what they can do as well as a story



This question had a real mix of answers, but overall most people said that they like a bit of performance and narrative. So this is what we provided in the video for them, we had performance from the singer and also narrative. The narrative followed two lovers which is a common theme within indie videos.

Do you prefer disjuncture, amplification or illustration?

Jess: 'I prefer amplification because I can see how different interpret the lyrics'

Harriet: 'I prefer amplification because I like to be able see the link between the song and the music video, but not to be a really obvious thing so I can make my own judgment when it comes to the song and the lyrics'

Jack: 'disjuncture, because it's wacky and weird and I can interpret my own lyrics from it'

Natasha: 'I prefer illustration because it tell the story of the song'

Although all of the different types of narrative got at least one vote most people said that they enjoyed amplification. So we created a video that had an amplification narrative. We went for more of a montage style of narrative in the video, not giving the audience a full story/ narrative giving them a change to interoperate things for themselves also.  


What do you like to see within a video?

Jess:'I like to see different instruments being played and a bit of a story to it'

Harriet: 'I like to see the actual band performing the song at some point towards the music video but I don't want that to be the whole center I like the effects and something jazzy and interesting so that it's something interesting to watch whilst listening to the song'
Jack: ' Montage, random stuff going on so I can interpret what I want'
Aaron: 'I like to see a narrative as it makes it easier to follow'
Natasha: 'People having fun in different locations'


This question gave us a very mixed assortment of answers. After we found out what the audience wanted and liked in a music video we then knew what to include in the video. Multiple people gave the answer that they liked performance in a video so we made this the main focus point for the video. It was also said that a mixture of locations was liked in a video so we chose to shoot performance scenes in different locations to make it appeal to more of our audience. Other suggestions where montages and narratives, so this was the approach that we took for the narrative side of the video.

Where do you like to watch music videos?

Jess: 'I like to watch them on YouTube in my spare time'
Harriet: 'I usually watch them on Kerrang or YouTube in my room'
Jack: 'YouTube because it's easier to access'
Aaron: 'I like watching them on Facebook to see what my friends have shared'
Natasha: 'I like to watch it on the TV in the morning when I'm getting ready'

The most popular answer was that people mostly like to watch videos on YouTube so once the video was completed this was the platform that we chose to publish the video on. People also said that they like to mostly watch videos in their spare time so YouTube is also a good platform to use as it is available at all times. Also with new media becoming more popular YouTube is a growing platform that is giving people access to this new media.  


Focus Group
Another way that we were able to collect and respond to audience feedback was to create a focus group. Based on responses that we collected in our first stage of audience feedback we went on to choose our song. Once we found a song we felt was appropriate for our audience we used a focus group to find out what they thought of the song. In our focus group we used three different techniques to collect our feedback. 
Thumbs up thumbs down
This is when you will simply ask the group to give a simple thumb up or down answer to see if they liked something. This will give you an impulsive answer and their first opinion, rather than them having time to think.
Writing down
This allows to you get their honest opinion rather than people following a crowd and being influenced by others ideas. You would give them paper to write their ideas down once you have shown them something.
Pre-production editing

This is when you give them options and they must circle the one they like the most. This allows you to establish what people like the most and, again it is their own opinion.  

1. What theme(s) emerged when listening to the track? Circle from the below and then add any extra you feel. Love        friendship        Sadness      Loneliness       Happiness      Upbeat  

The first question that we asked was about the themes that people felt emerged once they had listened to the song. We gave them six options of themes that they could select once they had listened. The four most popular answers for this question were love, friendship, happiness and upbeat. From this we concluded that people felt the song was a happy one so this is what we would need to create in the video. When it came to planning the storyboard for the video we made sure that the main themes in the video were love and happiness. Also to help the video upbeat we made sure that we edited to the beat, making the video link to the fast pace of the song and giving it a more upbeat feel.  

2. What would you expect to see in the video?

The next question that we asked was what images they would expect to see in the video after listening to the song. One of the findings was that not as many people wanted to see the band/ a performance; most people pictured something with a narrative. A lot of people expected to see things such as love and friendship, giving us some idea of what type of narrative people would enjoy. Other people made direct links with the lyrics for example hair blowing in the wind and a setting of the beach. This helped us when it came to storyboarding and creating ideas for the video. From the feedback we got we knew what images would appeal to the audience and what they envisioned for the video. We also took their suggestion to like the images created in the song such as 'baggy jeans' and 'silky hair' we made sure that this was all part of the mis-en-scene making the song and video synergise nicely. 

You can see here how the costume that we used in the video linked in with the song and also the setting of the beach linking is with the title of 'The Tide'

3. Did you like the song? Thumbs up or Thumbs down.

Thumbs up, thumbs down is something that we only used once during the focus group, as it is not always their own opinion as you can see other peoples around you and their opinions.  You can see in the video that people do look around the group before making their decision on whether they were thumbs up or down. Although overall four people said that they enjoyed the song, two people did not and one person was in the middle with the song. This tells us that over half of the focus group did enjoy the song and that we had chosen a good song to create our video to.   

 
4. What characters would you picture? Circle from the below.

Male       Female       Lovers         Friends      Band/performing

 The main thing that we took from this question is that our audience would like a female's character in the video. Other options that were also selected was friends and performance. We took this information and based the characters in the video around this. The video had a female performer and heir was a male and female in the narrative.  

5. What genre might the song fit? Circle from the below and then add any extra you feel.
Indie          Indie-pop       Grunge        Alt

The results for this question were very interesting, only two of the four options were selected. The main option that people chose was the indie-pop genre and one person going with indie; this may simply be because the song is clearly an indie/ indie-pop song. This question has allowed us to clearly identify the genre of music video that we want to create and if we wish to create a conventional video that we should stick to indie conventions.




6. Do you prefer illustration, amplification or disjuncture? Circle the one from above
.

This question was able to help us decide on the type of narrative that the audience would like to see. No one in the group said that they like a disjunctive narrative so we avoided creating this style of narrative in the video. The most popular narrative option was illustrative although amplification did get chosen. So this was the style of narrative we creative. We had some literal illustrations of the lyrics in their although left some open for interpretation. With the genre being indie we had to consider that we also had to create a video conventional to this.

7. Can you imagine lip syncing and/or performance?  Circle from the above either one or both.

Again for this question the focus group could select more than one answer if they felt it necessary. Although a few people In the group did select performance it was not the most popular, more people did select that they would imagine lip syncing. The same amount of people that selected lip syncing also selected that they would like both. This indicated that we needed to include performance and lip syncing in the video if we wanted to listen to the audience feedback.

From the research process we were able to learn more about our audience and what is going to be appealing to them. We also found out peoples thoughts on the song that we chose after the responses that we had got from the focus group. From this we could then go on to create an audience profile that we would need to appeal to in order for them to be happy with the final product.  

 

The research process also allowed us to learn what our audience would like to see in the video. By learning what the audience would like to see in the video from their feedback it helped us to plan the video as we already had an idea of what to include.

Planning

After creating a few sample drafts of our music advert we decided it best to create a vox pop and get some audience feedback to guide us in what to do next. We gave them two of the first drafts that we created and asked them about them. The questions we asked would help to see what the audience like and what else they would like to see within the advert. For this vox pop we asked 2 males and 2 females, giving us an even idea as to what our audience thought of the advert.

Do you think the image is appropriate and do you think it adheres to the indie genre?

• It definitely adheres to the indie genre, the only unconventional thing you've got is that you can't see their face. So maybe it would look better on the back of the cover as opposed to the front if it's the digipak, but for the poster see part of the face even though it looks good but it is quite unconventional

 

The first answer we got was very helpful for thinking about how conventional that advert is, they brought up the fact that we used an image where you only saw the back of the artist. We had originally used this image as it linked with the lyrics nicely 'silky hair' 'baggy jeans' and the setting of the beach were all visible in the image and all mentioned within the lyrics of the song. However when it came to our final advert we felt it best to make it slightly more conventional and make sure that the artist was facing forwards.  

• I like the image as it is nice and simplistic.

• I like the image, I think it's appropriate for the genre you're going for

• I think it's really good, the band's called pale waves and the setting is the beach and ocean, the costume is good and the actor is a good choice.

The rest of the responses that we got were all positive, everyone liked the image and felt that it fitted the genre. People also really liked the setting and felt that it fitted in well with the band image and the song nicely. So we learnt from our audience that it would be best to use a similar image although make it one where the artist could be seen much more clearly.


What text did you prefer and why?

 

• I preferred the first one in white but preferred the colour in yellow, so maybe the white one in yellow and maybe capital letters to make it slightly bolder.
• I preferred the yellow text as it stands out a bit and makes it easier to read
• The yellow text as it stands out more and I like the font that it is in.
• Definitely the first one, the one with white font, it blends well with the overall image.

For this questions we had a split between which text was favoured, two people liked the yellow one and two others liked the white. This gave us a clear indication that both of the texts were appropriate and either used would appeal to the audience. When asked about the text most people referred to the colour of the text rather than the typography. Most people did like the colour yellow and felt that it fitted in with the theme of the beach and seaside. Although when it came to creating the final advert we actually chose a different text completely, we felt that neither worked very well and as it was a slit in the audience as to which they preferred it was clear that neither were very strong. The colour that we went with some white and some yellow text making things stand out more.   

Did you like the colour scheme? What colours would you perhaps like to see?

• I like the colour scheme, I think it's quite nice because it does fit in with what I've seen of the music video so far, you've got the same location and things. The only thing I'd say is to make sure it's the same typography throughout.
• I liked the yellow, I thought it worked quite well with the background.
• I really liked the colour scheme, I liked the blues and yellows, I thought they worked well together.
• Overall, I think the colour scheme is well blended and it all matches especially with the costume, nothing majorly clashes, it all goes quite well.

The overall response was that everyone did like the yellow, they felt it appropriate especially with the setting of the beach. With using the colour yellow we were trying to keep the theme of the beach and make sure that we had synergy throughout. In the final advert the colour yellow was used for the title of the song and the others all in white, keeping the theme while also making something stand out.   


Can you recommend and improvements?

• I think perhaps play around with a variety of images, try ones with side profile and a bit of face to see if it works, that would be nice as the back of the digipak so you have the front as part of the face then perhaps the back of her at the back so it mirrors it quite nicely potentially.
• No
• Add a bit more information
• Experiment with other shots types, maybe a mid-shot or close-up with the actor facing a different direction.

From this question we were able to see if people wanted anything more from the advert. Most people seemed very happy with the first drafts and felt that most things on the advert are working well. One thing that some people did say could possibly be improved was that maybe trying different shot types and to try different images. We did this and felt we found a more appropriate image so that it was clear who the artist was. 

Another thing that was suggested was to add more information, as the images we showed them were drafts we had not yet added everything that will be on there and we wanted the audiences response to the image and typography, so obviously more information and detail was added to our final advert. 

Actor Auditions

Another stage of planning that we got audience feedback was once we had done our actor auditions. We asked them if they would watch the auditions and select the actor they felt was most appropriate for the role in the video. We used Poll Everywhere so people could easily vote for the actor they wished.

The results were that overall people liked Ellia as the actor for the video, so we went with our audience and used Ellia in the video. Other people got votes although Ellia was a clear winner from the Poll Everywhere. Other people who got voted for were Angel and Jack, although after considering them decided that they both struggles with lip syncing and after auditions we decided that we definitely wanted a female singer rather than male, as it fits in with the song much better.    

Production

Rough cut vox pop

Once we had created a rough cut of our music video we decided to get audience feedback to see what they felt would improve it. This allowed us to see if the video that we had created was appealing to our audience and what direction to take it in next.

Did you enjoy the rough cut?

Jordan- ' yeah it was okay but I thought it was a little bit slow'

Harriet- ' yeah I enjoyed it and liked the setting of the beach'

Ronan- ' I enjoyed it but the cuts were to slow'

Jess-  ' I liked the projections although feel there could be more'

Jordan- ' it was really good but could do with some more narrative'

Georgia- 'I like the narrative but think it could be stronger'

Adam-' I actually really enjoyed the video'

By asking if they enjoyed the rough cut it allowed us to see weather our audience enjoyed what we had already created. If our audience did not like the video then we would need to possibly think again about whether or not the video needed to be restarted. Overall the responses were positive although people did have suggestions to help us try and improve. The main pieces of feedback that we got back were that the video felt very slow yet the song was fast so they didn't really go together. So in the final video we made sure that we cut much faster, for example in the chorus we cut to every word to really increase the pace. 

Did you like the typography?

Jordan- ' I don't really think the typography fitted with the video'
Harriet- ' the composition of the typography was really good but didn't like the style'
Ronan- ' I liked the pastel shade but not the style'
Jess-  ' I quite liked the vintage style of it'
Jordan- ' I couldn't really read it'
Georgia- 'I like it but don't think it synergises very well with your other ancillary's'

Adam- ' I felt I couldn't really read the font'  

In the beginning of our video we had got opening titles however we were unsure as to weather the text was appropriate. Here you can see our first choice of text and what we showed our audience. Most people said they struggled to read the text and that it wasn't appropriate for the style of the video. So when it came to editing our final video we completely changed the text. someone in the vox pop also said that they didn't think it synergised very well with our other ancillary's. So we took the text from our ancillary's and put it at the start of the video and felt it worked much better. People also liked the vintage effects that we had used later on in the rough cut so also added some to the beginning of the video.

Could you suggest any improvements?

Jordan- ' speed it up a bit'

Harriet- ' up the pace of the video as it kind of drags on a bit'

Ronan- ' I like it but think it could be faster and with more effects'

Jess-  ' add some more variation of projections'

Jordan- ' the editing pace could be quicker and more narrative could be added'

Georgia- 'you could cut to the beat more precisely'

Adam- 'improve the text'   

This question was useful as it allowed us to find out what the audience felt would improve the video, allowing us to make the video appealing to our audience. The main thing that people suggested was that they wanted more cuts to increase the pace of the video. To do tis we made sure that we cut to the beat as much as possible. Another thing that we did was to cut to ever word in the chorus of the song. This really helped to increase the pace as their was no longer one long cut. Another thing that we did was to make the montage section much faster, when the pace of the song increased. By listening to the feedback we got from our audience helped us to make the song and video link more as by editing to the best it creates more of a connection between the two.  

Ancillary second draft vox pop

As we did for the video we also got our audiences responses to some of the drafts that we felt were nearly finished.This again was to see what they liked and where they would like to see it go next. From the feedback that they gave we were able to go on and change parts they felt needed to be improved.

Comparing to other real digipaks and posters, would you say it looked authentic? 

Anni- 'It's quite authentic compared to other digipaks because I like how you use the rule of thirds, the photography is in all the right places, you've got all the right labelling at the bottom, the pugs are all in the right places and you used appropriate pictures as well'
Jordan- 'I think they both look really good and real'
Harriet- 'Yeah I'd totally believe it would be an authentic album cover and digipak'

By finding our weather the audience felt the digipack was authentic allowed us to find out weather they felt it was professional and looked realistic. From this we found out that our audience did really like the look of the Digipak and poster telling us that their was little more changes to be made. 

Do you like the overall design and look from both?

Jess- 'Yeah I think they both look quite nice, it catches the eye'

Adam 'Yes, they look very good'

Natasha-'They really fit with the genre you're trying to achieve'

Everyone we asked felt that the design and look was good, from this we could tell that what we created was appealing to our audience.

Can you see a clear connection/link between them?

Anni- 'All the colour and typography match together'

Jess-'Yeah they fit quite well, Yeah I'd say could see a link'
Jordan-'Yeah they both look like a similar design'

One of the main things that we had to try and achieve was to make sure that everything synergised well. The audience could clearly see the links that we made between the digipack and the advert so we could be sure that they were beginning to synergise.  Is the text appropriate?

Harriet- 'I think because you've got the beachy theme and the song's called Pale Waves, the fluid writing really links well with the theme of the album'

Adam- 'It's very appropriate for the type of song and the target audience'
Anni- 'The text is quite appropriate as it's not really flashy and out there and it really matches your genre well'

The text was something that we had done many trials of and we felt after sampling a lot of texts we felt we found one that we liked and one the audience would like. After asking them if they felt it appropriate we could conclude that we had chosen to correct text. 

Can you distinguish the genre?

Anni- 'It's quite indie to me so I'd say indie-pop'
Natasha- 'It's very alternative styled'
Jess- 'Your genre is indie'

It was important that we had created a package that adhered to the indie genre. From the feedback that our audience gave us it was clear that you could see the genre through the digipack and advert.

Final cut vox pop

Did you enjoy the final cut?

Harriet- ' I liked how you kept the same location from the rough cut as I think that fitted really well with the song but I'm glad you changed the tempo to go along with the fast pace'

Ronan- ' I though the addition of extra narrative was very beneficial for the video'

Jess- '  you can see a really big different and I think the final cut was a lot more fun'

Jordan- ' I think it was a lot better as their was more narrative and the pace was a lot better'

Adam- 'the change in font really improved it'

Georgia- 'The narrative is a lot stronger in the final edit'

Overall you can see that our audience really liked the final cut so we decided to not make anymore changes. Once we had the video at a point where our audience was happy with it and we were happy with it we could then go on and upload it as our final cut. We also learnt what the audience felt was good in the video. Most people felt it had improved from the rough cut as it had much more pace and the extra narrative really improved the video.

Do you think that it adhered to the genre? 

Ronan- ' Its very out there and not your typical music video so yes'

Jess- 'I feel like it did really fit the indie genre'

Jordan- ' The mis-en-scene really worked and fitted the genre'

Adam-' I think it fitted the genre because of the vintage effect'

Georgia-'I can defiantly tell its the indie genre'

Harriet- ' The projections really fitted with the genre

This was an important question to ask as we wanted the video to adhere to the genre and make sure it would appeal to an indie genre. From the feedback we got from the audience they were all able to tell what the genre was and felt that it did adhere to the genre. Most people felt that it was our mis-en-scene choices that made the genre of the video clear.

Did you like the mis-en-scene/ was it appropriate?

Ronan- ' Yes because as the song is called The Tide the fact that you were at the sea fitted with the mis-en-scene'

Jess- 'I really though the costume choices were appropriate'

Jordan- ' The mis-en-scene look really good with the song such as the costume'

Adam- ' The costume fitted the vintage style'

From the last question we were able to learn that most people did like the mis-en-scene although still asked this question. People were able to pick on the links that we made between the lyrics and the mis-en-scene such as the setting and costume so we knew we had effectively made the links that we were trying to create.

Facebook Feedback

Once we were happy with the final cut, we went on to collect me feedback. This time we posted the video onto Facebook to see what people thought of the cut. You can see from the likes that the video got that it was enjoyed and the audience liked it.

People also commented one the video giving us more feedback. All comments suggested that the video looked very professional and people really enjoyed the video. A lot of commenters commented on the editing to the beat and how good it fitted to the pace of the video and how this was really effective.

 

However one comment did have a suggestion that possibly some shots could of been longer, although this contradicts all of the feedback that we had previously collected. People either wanted more pace or were happy with it when it came to the final cut. The pace is also fast to create the montage effect that we wanted so feel that actually the fast pace appealed to most of our audience.

Preliminary

once we felt we had come to a stage where we had finished we decided to collect one more piece of audience feedback. We asked them how they felt that we had improved when compared to our preliminary task. This allows us to see how much we have improved and our audience could tell us what they felt had improved when comparing the two. 

We only asked one question and this was:

How to you feel the music video has improved compared to our preliminary? 

Ronan- ' I think the cutting to the beat has got a lot better, and the overall appearance has improved significantly'

Anni- ' It looks much more conventional'

Jordan- ' The editing effects were a lot better'

jess- ' Their was a better variation in the shots'

Adam-' It had better typography'

Harriet-'Its definitely improved as it looks a lot more like a conventional music video'

Overall the feedback was very positive and we learnt that everyone felt that something had improved when compared to our preliminarily. A lot of the responses were in relation to how much more conventional our video had got, this meant that we had learnt a lot more about a conventional indie video and how to create one. Other people commented on how their was much more of a variety in the shots that we used and how this benefited the video. We learnt during other stages of audience feedback that people wanted a lot of different shot types and also performance with narrative. So we knew that we needed to include much more variety compared to our preliminary. Our preliminary did not feature an effects and we simply had raw footage however a lot of people in our audience did like the effects so they saw it as something that made the final video stronger than the preliminary. You can see from our research and planning that we asked our audience a lot about the texts that they would like to see in our final video, and this clearly played off as the audience could see an improvement from our preliminary.     

 

You can see that by collecting audience feedback at every stage we went through to create our final products that we learnt a lot. By collecting all of this feedback we were able to learn what our audience would find appealing so we would be able to create products that they liked. They were also able to help us with how to improve and make it  better and telling us how much we had improved.