Evaluation (Part 3)

How have you learnt from your audience feedback?

(1) Feedback in Research & Planning stages

The first parts of audience feedback I recieved were for my 'Research and Planning.' For my research and planning I used a focus group.

There were main points I found through audience feedback in R&P -

- Narrative based promos were preferable

Therefore I created a mostly narrative based music promo

- Audience enjoyed music promos where the lyrics matched the visuals

I therefore intergrated parts where the lyrics matched the visuals for example 'don't tell me that you didn't try and check out my bum' I had a close up of the artists bum and 'sitting in restaurants' I created an restaurant setting and had the artist singing this in these surroundings.

- The audience weren't 100% clear as to what the story was

I therefore developed the story clearly by using different shots. For example, it is very clear that the male character likes the artist however does not want to be with her and therefore she can be on her own, this is shown through the male character writing 'I love you!' and then the male character leaving her and then the female artist being happy on her own on her bed.

- Some of the audience feedback showed that they did not like how long the introduction was

I therefore found a copy of the song that the introduction was shorter so the audience wouldn't lose interest and therefore want to continue watching the music promo.

(2) Feedback within the music promo;

When creating my music promo I chose to use audience feedback from the same participants of my focus group in the research and planning phase as these people fit my target audience. I however this time instead of conducting a questionnaire did the feedback over Facebook, a social networking sight. I originally was going to conduct the feedback through a questionnaire again however for time and convenience reasons I did not. The feedback is as follows;

This feedback was for the first draft of my music promo. It stated that there should be some longer shots and some shots of the instrument being played and these were shared views of my focus group. This feedback helped develop my product because originally I had the idea of only including visual matching lyrics shots and to have the artist playing the piano I believed was an effective idea. Also, including some longer shots of the artist would also work well so I decided to also implement this idea as longer shots would also help with promoting the artist as you'd be able to see her image for longer.

I also conducted feedback after my 2nd draft, the recorded feedback is below;

(url for feedback)

I conducted this feedback to discuss transitions with my focus group. I felt that my music promo did not fit the style of music promo to have transitions such as fades/swipes/maps so thought just using jump cuts would be more effective without as it is a fast tempo song. However, with the help of my focus group although they believed that most of the song did not need transitions that throughout the chorus where the lyrics are more meaningful and where I have longer shots I could include transitions here.

How I implemented this idea

I built on this idea along with the idea of using shots of the piano to create a new dynamic to my music promo. The use of transitions and shots of the piano allowed me to bring in a new idea for my music video that if I were to use a fade type of transition it would be almost like the artist is thinking of the story whilst playing the piano is it fades in and out. This continues to conform to the conventions of narrative but also allows me to challenge the conventions as I have included performance based shots within the narrative.

(2) Feedback within the digi-pak;

A lot of my digi-pak planning included audience feedback conducted on blogger. For example, here I have used comments being left as audience feedback for my fonts. There were clear favourites picked of the 4th and 5th fonts. The fonts were taken from the website http://www.blogger.com/www.dafont.com. I was using the fonts and copying them into the Serif Software included however, I wanted the fonts to be the same colour as the dress worn by the artist in both the music promos and ancillaries, this became a problem as it was not possible to change the colour of the fonts imported. I therefore had to find another substitute font that was already on Serif.

I then received my first feedback for my first draft of my ancillary. I asked around my class as to what they felt could be improved, although they are not my focus group the majority of the group fit my target audience as they are the right age. Here is the feedback I received;

"I like the idea of the back cover being simplistic and outdoors to fit your tracklist on but I feel it does not reflect your artist as well as it could and although digi-paks are there to inform the audience they also most continue to promote the artist."

"I like the front cover a lot and feels it promotes the artist well however the back pane is quite boring in comparison and you could use the plain outdoors idea on the inside where it is not as important to reflect the artist"

These are my first and final draft ancillaries after bringing in the feedback; I brought in new images for my back cover to meet the balance of it still being outside and being simplistic but also continuing to show the artist as the audience felt was necessary.