Evaluation Question 3

What have I learned from audience feedback?

This is the survey I did before I had chosen my song. I wanted to see what kind of music people in my target audience listened to and where they listened to it. I also wanted to see what they expected a music video to be like to give me an idea of how I needed my video to look. Here are some of the responses I got for each question:

I chose to send out my survey within college as it meant I would get responses from people who fall within my target audience age range and were more likely to give me answers that I would be able to use because of their similar interests/music tastes.

I wanted to see where they listen to music to see what kind of genre would be best to do. I didn't want to make a music video that fell within a genre that wouldn't be very appropriate to play within the places/situations given. This is what narrowed down my genre choice to pop, rock and indie.

Asking this allowed me to see what stations they listen to, therefore telling me what kind of artists they listen to. All radio stations play different types of music. So by asking this question it allowed me to see what genre I needed to make my video.

This allowed me to choose how I wanted my video to look as I could see what the target audience wanted/expected to see in a music video. This allowed me to choose whether I wanted my video to be abstract or have a narrative. It also allowed me to see what areas they found most important and what they wanted/expected to see the most.

I wanted to see if my music did need a narrative to be considered interesting to the target audience. For this question I got quite a mixed response but the main response I got was that it depended on the song I chose. Because of the song I settled on, I knew I needed a narrative because of its upbeat nature. I don't think it would have worked very well if I had done an abstract video as this is generally done for slower/indie songs.

I wanted to see what age range the artists are because it would help me narrow down my choice of artist. Quite a few people said they preferred older artists, which is what I went with in the end as I feel that older music is more recognised within the target audience because it is music they will be familiar with. If I had chosen a newer song, I would have struggled to appeal to as wide an audience.

The majority of people said no to this question, which made me quite happy as I didn't like the idea of showing the artist in my music video as I feel this has been done so many times. I personally aren't bothered if the artist appears in the music video or not, but I find that music videos that don't feature them are more creative. From the responses I got, it seems like most people agree with me.

I wanted to see what the target audience expected to see in the video in terms of themes. This was to help me think of an idea for my video and what kind of message I wanted to portray. I tried to keep it quite a light-hearted video as this seemed to be the most popular opinion.

I wanted to see if my target audience were more interested in seeing a funny video or a serious one. I personally wanted to make a funny one as I knew I would find it more enjoyable to make. But a lot of people where quite undecided about how they wanted it to be.

I asked this question so I could make my mind up once and for all what I wanted to do in terms of genre. I wanted to find the most popular one, which turned out to be rock.

I found this survey really helpful as I got 41 responses meaning I had a lot of different opinions to look at and consider. Going through the responses allowed me to choose a genre and what I needed to include to make them enjoy it. Once I had chosen my song, I did another survey.

I did this survey before I started filming so I could see what people expected from a music video in the genre that I am doing. This was to get more genre specific ideas of what was expected from my music video. 

From these responses, I was able to pick out what they expected and include it into my video. With my music video including Playmobil, I had to break their expectations slightly. But I still conformed to what is expected by having the dark clothes and the props they would expect to see. I also included some lip-syncing as this was something they expected to see as it is conventional in most videos. I even broke the conventions of that as it wasn't the artist lip-syncing. There aren't many videos where the artist doesn't feature at all. I also made my video completely different to the original as some of the people who responded didn't recognise Bryan Adams. A lot of people don't recognise Bryan Adams until they hear his song but they have never seen his videos. This allowed me to be more creative with my video as most people weren't aware of he was.

Once, I had made my music video, I posted a link on Facebook to see what response I would get.

I couldn't get many responses from Facebook as the link doesn't work on mobiles for some reason. I did get this comment from Facebook. This is from someone who doesn't fall into my target audience age group. However, she still liked my music video. This shows that although my music video is not aimed at her age group, it still appeals to her. I have also shown it to my cousins who are 5 and 7 and they both liked the music video as well. This shows that people who are older and younger than my target audience like my music video.

I also got a text from someone about my music video.

This person also doesn't fall within my target audience age group. These two responses, and those from my teachers, have shown me that even though my music video is aimed for people aged 16-24, it does still appeal to people who fall outside of this age bracket. I was hoping this would be the case as I wanted to make a video that everyone could enjoy but that was mainly aimed at people of a similar age to myself.

When I spoke to my two media teachers about my music video, they suggested some changes I can make to improve my video further. I need to do some more filming to have a wider range of footage in my video as at the moment I have used the guitar footage multiple times as I didn't get enough footage from filming. From talking to my teacher, I have decided the best place to do some more filming is to go down to the beach. There I will be able to get some really good footage that fits with the theme of my music video. I want to get some footage of him running on the beach, building sandcastles, and other activities that will fit with my music video. I also need to do some more editing on the footage that I am keeping in my music video as at the moment, I haven't really done much editing for it. The main editing technique I have been told I should use is jump cuts as this will make the guitar footage fit better with the music as I will be able to edit it in time with the music.

I filmed an audience reaction video to show someone who does fall within my intended age group. She was watching my music video for the first time so I was able to get her true reactions to the video.

Based on her reaction, I can see that she really liked my music video. She laughed at some parts which is what I wanted as I tried to make it funny in places as I feel it makes a music video more enjoyable to watch. After she watched my video, she said she did really enjoy it, the only criticism she had was that I needed a wider range of footage as I had over-used the guitar bit. But this is fine as I knew that it was something I needed to change. Othe than that, she really liked my video and said that she would watch it again. Other people who have watched my music video had a very similar reaction to this in that they found certain parts of it funny. I am really happy that people within my target audience do find it funny as that was what I wanted to do as I felt that it fitted better with my music choice. If I had done a really serious music video, it wouldn't have been as effective as it wouldn't fit with the upbeat, summery feel of the song.