Evaluation Question 3

The above presentation is for evaluation question 3:

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The below text is the more detailed original script of the question:

Within all of our productions, we gained a selection of consistent audience feedback so that we were able to alter, improve or appreciate our work. We received an array of feedback throughout the process of research and planning and we used a range of ways to collect feedback, initially we created questionnaires to find our target audience and discover what is was that this audience was looking for.We found from this that our target audience would be young adults, that the narrative should have a structured storyline along with other things such as the theme being relationships. We took all of this into account when creating the plan and script for our music video. A second piece of research we conducted was an interview with a selection of people from school. Our feedback suggested that the song of choice for our video, reminded this of sun, summer, dancing, partied and crowds. These were again things we considered and therefore used and developed within our production.

We gained a range of feedback throughout the process of creating our music video, to begin with, we asked many people their opinions on the first draft of our production. Much of the feedback that we received helped us concentrate on where we were successful in our video as the kind of feedback we were receiving, which can be seen on our blog, included words such as ‘professional-looking, strong and impressive lighting, understandable narrative and stunning actors’. From this, we knew what to focus on with the rest of the video as we could straight away acknowledge what people were instantly liking and engaging with in the video therefore suggested this should all be further developed where possible.The most important part of this feedback received was that they thought the actors were believable, as we had only filmed part of our footage at this point, this means that we  had to strongly ensure that this was continuous with the second part of our footage otherwise we could lack positive feedback and potential marks in the final piece. Another piece of positive feedback we gained was about the location, many people commented on the commitment we put into the location as well as the flattering lighting. From this we knew that we were successful within our setting,e however it also applied the pressure to ensure that our ancillary tasks met the same level of success for both lighting and commitment.

We also discovered that much of the efforts which we included that we were not 100% confident with such as the kaleidoscope effects of some of the lyric shots eg. Singing into the car mirror, were claimed to be successful by many within our audience feedback for the final piece. This made us more confident for taking risks when it came to our ancillary tasks which is much of the reason we stuck to following the kaleidoscope theme into the album insert. When it came to feedback for the insert, the feedback we gained claimed that it was ‘nice and interesting and adds something different’ and all other feedback about this effect was positive. One of the main things we wanted to look most successful is the ending shot at the beach as it was the closing of the narrative and the key to explaining conflicts within the video. This was again something that we gained positive feedback for and it was described as ‘capturing everything’ and ‘emotional’ which is the exact response we were hoping to receive. Another important part of the video in terms of its success was to ensure that all scenes were in sync with the music, it was noted by many that not only did we match the lip syncing and beat of the song to what was seen/heard at the time, but we added smaller subtle details also which were noticed and praised such as the knocking on the door to the beat of the song.

From our blogs audience feedback through both tutorials with staff or general feedback we asked from people we knew, we gained knowledge on what was overall a success from our video. This was definitely the characters chemistry, our narrative, use of lighting, setting and syncing which is very positive as these are all things which will hopefully lead us to strong overall marks for our production. Our ancillary tasks also gained an array of feedback. Initially, our drafts received feedback such as ‘would buy, that it was diverse and that it was unique however these were only mocks therefore we could not take full credit for this and feel fully confident until we produced our final versions of these. However, when we did produce these, we gained just as good feedback as before if not much better. We were told that the quality of our images were just as high-quality and professional looking as what our video was described to be, this was something we were hoping to be successful within as we wanted fluidity between both productions. Our images were described as flattering and there were many complements given towards how glamorous our female actress appeared to be. There was also again positivity surrounding our kaleidoscope images, these were frequently noted as unique and creative. Overall within our ancillary tasks we seemed to succeed in terms of quality, lighting and actors and we gained confidence within the idea that if this was a real-life production, then it would be recognised and liked by our target audience of young people.

However there are also times in our feedback where we did not succeed. Within our music video, it was noted throughout our first drafts that much of the footage did not stick to the beat of the song, this is something that we had not noticed on our own therefore it was necessary that we kept gaining regular feedback to notice faults such as this which we did not notice, this is something that we did out best to correct within the final version of the music video.Along with the beat, much of our lip-syncing was also not in time with the song, this is something we were aware of however audience feedback allowed others to have input and suggest how we could overcome this or how we could edit the footage to make it appear less obvious in parts we were struggling to sync. This is again something that we tried our best to avoid within our final production. However, there were some negatives within our video that we were noted by others that we could unfortunately not avoid within our final production. It was noted that some of our shots were very shaky on the beach and also that the male actor is squinting. Unfortunately our actor was sensitive to light and the only way we could avoid this was through sunglasses however we decided against this as it hid much of the actors face which we needed to show in terms of his emotions to keep the narrative strong. Many also noticed that the quality was low within our final footage, this was an unpredicted fault of final cut pro and was something it was too late to correct by the time all of our footage was edited and this would involve replacing and re-editing all of the final clips.

There was also a selection of negative feedback given towards our first drafts of the ancillary tasks, our CD cover and poster mock were suggested to be of too poor quality from our peers and were far too blurry to be used in the final piece as they did not flow alongside the high quality and lighting shown within the video. As well as this, tutorials with peers and staff bought to attention that we had much slow progress with these tasks and were focusing too much on our music video. This allowed us to realise this also and therefore focus more attention onto our ancillary tasks, although we had done much research into these and were not behind on our =planning, we lacked as much time and effort into these as we did within the video. Therefore within our final ancillary productions we ensured that our images were of high quality and were much improved from our mocks as although they received some positive feedback, they lacked the specific quality necessary to secure a strong mark alongside our final video.

Overall, the feedback that we received within both our ancillary tasks and our video allowed us to develop what we were working well on, and change what we gained not as positive feedback on. We knew that we had to dramatically improve our performance from the G321 production and gaining regular feedback allowed us to do so and hold us with a much better chance of sustaining a product which looks professional and gaining an all round better mark.