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

I have used audience feedback throughout the process of my work. Before I even started the production of my video and ancillary texts I found it necessary to do some audience research to find out what people liked and disliked in music video's. This allowed me to find out what people wanted to see in a music video and, therefore, make my video conventional and successful. 

I used audience research in the planning and research stage of my coursework. I created a survey on survey monkey and added a poll to my blog with questions such as asking what people if they thought there should be more than one location and more than 1 costume change. questions also included what style of a video they preferred (i.e performance/narrative/abstract) to ensure my product would appeal to my target audience.  Through the poll on my blog I found that most people who answered either watched music videos on the internet or not at all therefore was able to make sure my video was available on the internet. One of the questions on the poll on my blog asked for the age of the participants with the majority of people being 17-20 years old therefore I know my research was relevant to my target audience as my target audience is young people roughly ages 15-25. 

I learnt a lot from this research such as people like a narrative with elements of performance in a music video therefore allowing me to come to the conclusion that I would make a music video that had a narrative but also featured performance. I also asked my audience in the research what they thought the song was about, helping me to create a narrative that I, the producer wanted to create but a narrative that my audience would recognise and agree fits well with the lyrics and feel of the song. A lot of people in my feedback suggested that the song was about love and loss that inspired my narrative of a boy and a girl who were in a relationship, but he loses the girl (she dies) and he has to now face life without her but has flashback to when they were happy.  
When starting to create my video I was constantly looking for feedback by discussing with my friends who would tell me what they liked and did not like about my video, allowing me to make changed to make my video better. As I found that there was a few point in the video that you could not tell if my actor was lip sinking or not and my audience picked up on that and so I could not re film I decided to add another clip of the car door opening. So by conducting audience research I learned that I had to change some clips to make my product better and look more professional. 
Half way through filming, I unfortunately had to change actors and my new actor was not as comfortable lip -sinking, something I had found that a lot of people had mentioned. However, I then decided to add car scenes to my music video which I found my audience loved. 
The more feedback I got from people the more I learned about what parts of my video needed tweaking to make the video the best it can be. I had very helpful advice on how to change some of my video from people who also do media so they know what they are talking about and are part of my target audience so know what they would like to see. This helped me change my video and make it better as I learned what needed changing and possibly how/what I should change it too. 

When I had finished my final draft of my music video I uploaded it to youtube, I did this because I found from previous research that a lot of my target audience watched music video's on the internet and youtube allows people to watch videos via the internet and comment on the video. Youtube also allows you to share the videos on social media, therefore I decided to share my video on Facebook. I mainly shared my video on facebook to make sure I was getting responses from my target audience as most of my friends on facebook are part of my target audience. Facebook also allowed me to obtain feedback from an international audience as I have friends from all over the UK, Germany, Denmark, France and America. 
My friend Matt from America is very good at creating moving image. He is planning on studying at the Visual arts college in New York and has to create a portfolio including having relevant experiences in all aspects of creating a product that must incorporate research and evaluation therefore he quickly gave me some feedback on my product that he also used in his work. 

I was very grateful for this feedback as I look up to Matt as his work is impeccable. From this feedback, I learnt that I had to either reshoot some of the lip sinking or edit it more to make my video better. Matt is also part of my target audience and the fact he liked my video and picked up the ideology and message in my video shows me that my product is effective. 

 After I had finished my final draft of my music video I created a survey on freeonlinesurvey.com. I asked questions about my music video to ensure my product was good and that my target audience understood my narrative. I decided to create a survey about my music video to get feedback from my audience. I posted my survey on Facebook as I have lots of friends from my target audience who would be able to take my survey.

 For the first question on the survey, I asked what star rating out of 5 people would give my video. Most people gave my video 4 stars which I was happy with as it shows that people liked my video and thought it was good, however, shows that there could be some more improvements.

I then asked the participants what they thought my narrative was, I was pleased that all the people that took my survey somewhat understood the narrative of a man being alone and upset after the loss of the girl. This allowed me to see that my audience understood the narrative, showing that I have an effective video.

Thirdly I asked my participants if they would watch my video again. I was happy to read that majority of my participants would watch my video again. 

As a follow up question to this i asked my audience why they would or would not watch my video again and found that the person would not watch my video again because they did not like my choice of music. This did please me to see that my audience liked my video enough to watch it again, especially because they liked my narrative.

For my final question, I asked my participants if they could relate to my video. I found that a lot of people could in some way as they have felt lost or alone at some point in their life. I was aiming for a video that people could relate too as the meaning of the song was deep.

Overall I learned that my product was meaningful and portrayed the message well as a lot of people could relate to it and knew what the narrative was.

My digipak! 

Throughout the production process, I have constantly looked for audience feedback to make my products better.  When I was creating my ancillary texts I was talking to my friend on Facebook. I decided to send her screenshots of my digipak so far (the front and back cover) for some feedback, to see if my covers worked well together and which cover she preferred (one with the hands and one without). My friend Lucy, who also studies media gave me her opinion on what cover she liked best (the one with the hands). This was very helpful as I had decided to redesign my digipak to make it fit better with my music video. This audience feedback was also very useful as I knew I was creating a product that people liked and thought fit better together with my video. 

Upon finishing my digipak before the evaluation stage of my product, I decided to conduct some audience research by posting my product on my Facebook page to ensure my audience liked my product. I posted my digipak on Facebook as I have a lot of friends, some of who take media and will give me both positive feedback and constructive criticism as well as some friends who will give me general audience feedback without using media terminology and will just go off their likes and dislikes of my product. This was crucial to making sure my product was conventional and to see if my audience liked the product and it related to my other products. 

From this feedback I decided that my digipak did not need to be changed as I feel that my audience have got the message I was trying to give when creating my digipak, even people who do not do media (microbiology student) was able to pick up on the message and feels that my product is well made. Although I did not make any changes to my final product after I conducted some audience research on my digipak, I did find the feedback very useful as it allowed me to see that my audience did in fact, majority, like my product as well as being able to find the message my product portrayed.

My magazine advert!

Before I created my magazine advert I decided to conduct audience research to see what my target audience liked on an advert. This was essential as magazine adverts are all different for different genres and I wanted to make sure my advert would adhere to what people liked. From this research, I found that my audience wanted to see album artwork on the advert, as well as some information about the album such as the release date and the album name. This really helped me in the creation of my product as I knew what my audience wanted to see on a magazine advert therefore I could create a product that my audience would like. As I started to create my product I was always looking for audience feedback to make sure my audience liked the product I was creating. I did this by posting my advert on Facebook and asking what people thought as well as sending my advert to people via messenger to get feedback from certain people 
(mainly people who also do media as they know what they are looking at and can give me specific helpful feedback rather than general feedback). This continuous feedback was very useful as I found that the image that I was going to use did not really reflect the message of the album therefore due to the audience feedback I decided to change it to a more suitable one.

 When I had finished my magazine advert I again posted it on Facebook as I have many friend, some of whom do media and others who can give me general feedback about if they like my product and why. The general consensus was that my product looks professional and my product shows a clear cohesion between my other products.The feedback helped me understand what I needed to do to create a better product for my audience as well as what they liked and allowed me again to see if they got the message and feel of the album. 

When I had completed this audience research I decided to insert my advert on a billboard and my album cover onto the Itunes album list and asked my audience if they thought that my advert looked like a real product and if they would buy it. This was their response. 

In the evaluation stage of my product,
 I again conducted some audience research to find how effective people thought the combination of my products were. This was essential as the evaluation question was on the effectiveness of my products and I learned that I had clear continuity in my products and that my ancillary texts complemented my video well. 

In conclusion, I have learnt a lot from my audience as I found that audience research and feedback was necessary and very useful throughout all stages in my coursework by helping me to develop my products and adhere to what people liked whilst keeping a professional look to my work.