Evaluation Three

evaluation 3 from pamela on Vimeo.

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Evaluation Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Feedback to me is one of the most important aspects of creating a product. I believe that without audience feedback the product would not be effective and the purpose of the task would not be fulfilled.  Gaining feedback allows me to understand the strengths and weaknesses of my products and what could be improved and if it was effective.

The purpose of my music video was to represent my artists in the appropriate way, campaign his music and to entertain the audience. The idea for the music video would be the base of all my production so I need to ensure that it was appropriate and potentially entertaining. I wrote a written plan of my idea and read them out to a selected few people between the ages of 16-30, my target audience, and recorded their feedback. I learned from their feedback that my idea was potentially interesting and visual video. I also learned from the video that my target audience are interested in different showcase of skills and are interested in different visual effects. This allowed me to note that my video should have lots of different shots and visuals which would appeal to my target audience.

After my first draft of my music video I decided to put my video on a social networking site called Facebook and allowed my whole friends list to comment and like the video. I felt that I had a large friends base with an age range of 16- 30 which meant that they were all primarily within my target audience. On Facebook I invited people to press the ‘like’ button if they felt it had a good concept and flow and to comment any improvements. I managed to get a good variety of comments and improvements that needed to be changed. One of the main comments I have gained in my first draft was the continuity. Many people believed that it did not flow as well as it should and the video felt a bit disjointed. Other feedback I gained was the flashes I included, a few people believed that the flashes made the video look unprofessional and ‘student’ like. However a reasonable amount more believed that I edited the flashes so they went in time with the music and made them more fluid that it would make the video look more aesthetically appealing and realistic. Some people also believed that at the beginning there were a few unnecessary shots that were unstable that should be removed. Overall many people liked the simple concept and the different locations and shots used within the video.

From this feedback I took the advice to remove scenes that were unstable and to ensure the continuity flowed and looked pleasing. From these simple edits I found that my music immediately looked more professional and a better standard as it made my narrative stronger. I learned that audiences within my target audience like visuals and things that make sense that are not awkward or disjointed.

For the second draft, for feedback I decided to do another video interview of my target audience’s thoughts. I used a couple more people to increase the variety and also some people that were slightly off my target audience to see the secondary audience’s perception. I learned that my improvements that I made an extortionate difference to my music video as most of the comments I gained were positive and had very little improvements that need to be made. The continuity that was the main problem is now one of the best aspects of the video as the narrative now made sense and was clear and coherent. The flashes added made the dancers look like a fantasy place where the artist wanted to reach rather than random people in the video with no meaning to the narrative. Many of the feedback also commented on the musicality of the video being accurate and shots were edited to the correct timings making the video more entertaining. Also mentioned was the use of interesting and colourful locations, the audience believed that it brought the video to life and gave it an exciting element.

From all the positive feedback I didn’t think that I would need to make any adjustments, but I decided to get one last feedback from my teacher for his expertise. The only improvements he suggested was to give the video a filter which will make it look more professional and edgy.

It was also important I gained feedback for the digipacks and advertisements as I had to ensure all the products had the unifying theme and were recognisable. I gained feedback from my initial drafts to ensure the ideas were appropriate and purposeful. It proved useful as the feedback I gained showed that the digipak designs were confusing as the conventions for the different pages were jumbled, which I rectified. But the overall designs received good feedback as it was unique and colour coherent. The final feedback I gained for the digipak and advertisements was excellent as my intentions were for the designs to be creative and unique. A lot of the feedback showed that I had thought outside of the box and created designs that were appealing and appropriate to the urban theme.

Taken as a whole I found that feedback has been the most influential piece of data for my work. Without I would have not been able to create such effective and purposeful pieces of work that appealed to my target audience.