Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Throughout the process of this project, we have received audience feedback in many areas; our storyboards, our edits and our ancillary tasks. Audience feedback is vital in the creative process, as it allows you to develop the final product to be more suited to want the audience want, hence making your project better and more appealing.

Media Showcase Evening...

The Media Studies department held a 'Media Showcase Evening' on the 15th of March, in which they invited friends and family of students along to show them the work that the students have been producing throughout the year. We took the opportunity of having our piece showcased in this event to obtain some audience feedback for the final draft of our product.

The showcase not only provided us an opportunity to show our music video, but we also got the opportunity to show our ancillary tasks. In the picture below, you can see some of the red boards that we used to display our digipaks and magazine adverts.

As people were viewing my ancillary products, I took the opportunity to ask them some questions to gain some audience feedback on the final draft of my digipak and magazine advert.

1. "It is evident that you have good skills in using Photoshop, as the pieces you have created could be mistaken for professional pieces"
2. "The consistency of images, typography and colour throughout your creations demonstrate that they are all part of a promotional package for the same thing"
3. "The selection of images you have used is particularly effective. I like that you have used a frame from the opening shot of the music video on both the digipak and the magazine advert. I think this establishes continuity throughout the pieces, making them recognisable"

It is evident to me from the feedback that I received that my products are successful in their purpose to promote the song, in conjunction with the music video. I liked that people were able to draw on the consistency of the imagery that I have used throughout the tasks, as this suggests that the promotional package I have created for the song is recognisable. The feedback I received also made note of the Photoshop skills I had had to employ to create the products, which suggests that I carried this out well. From this feedback, I believe that overall, my ancillary tasks are successful in their purpose. 

After all of the pieces had been shown, we asked members of the audience if they would be willing to answer some questions for our group, so that we could gain audience feedback. I produced a video of of the answers we received in relation to the four questions that we asked the individual:

After reviewing the footage of the feedback we received on our music video, we were able to draw these conclusions:

• The audience thought that our song choice, and the narrative we chose, fitted together well. They thought that the lyrics of the song helped contribute and tell the narrative, and that the narrative of the video helped to shape the meaning of the lyrics.
• The audience enjoyed that our narrative focused around LGBT relationships, as they thought that our video provided important representation of a community who still face prejudice in today's society. The transition between black and white and coloured shots was effective in demonstrating how the mood of the piece changes, reflective of how the protagonist feels. 
• The audience were not able to easily identify if Hannah and Jade's characters actually got into a relationship at the end of the video. There was confusion as to whether the sequence demonstrated a really good friendship, or whether it showed that their relationship had moved on from platonic to romantic. This lack of understanding highlights that we were not quite entirely successful in portraying the narrative of our piece. The audience suggested that in order to make the relationship more clear, the final sequence of footage should have included shots in which the characters were seen to be more intimate, as this would have made the relationship explicitly obvious.
• The audience perceived our target audience to be broader than we had identified, though they did identify our target audience within their estimates. At the beginning of the project, we specified that our target audience would people age 16-20 of both genders. The feedback we received in the video does successfully identify that our target audience was predominantly younger generations. We had not thought about specifying our target audience in terms of sexuality, though our audience said that the piece would be suitable for viewing by both straight and LGBT individuals. The audience thought that the message we portray in our video is important to be seen by everyone, as diversity in our society should be encouraged. It was raised that the theme of same sex relationships in our music video makes the piece important to show younger generations, to encourage people to embrace who they are from early on in their lives. 

That night, there were awards up for grabs, that were voted for by the audience. We were awarded 'Best Cinematography' as we received the most votes for this category. This form of feedback shows us that the audience thought that our music video was the most visually and aesthetically pleasing, and that the camera handling/work was the best out of the other productions that were showcased that evening. 

This is the award we received for 'Best Cinematography'

Audience feedback throughout the project...

Throughout the course of the project we received feedback that was vital to the development of our products; our music video, the digipaks we created and the magazine adverts we created.

For us to gain this feedback, we reached out to the Media Department staff, as well as individuals of both genders aged 16 to 20. It was imperative that we gained feedback from individuals in our target audience, as they could tell us exactly what they liked and disliked about the piece. They made suggestions for improvements based on these things, and we also brainstormed ideas based on their likes and dislikes about the piece. These were particularly important as we needed to know what we could do to enhance the viewing experience of the target audience, to make them really engage with and enjoy the piece.

Here is a table outlining some of the audience feedback we received on different pieces throughout the project, and what we did in response to those comments: