Evaluation Q3

3.  What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During our initial planning stages we underwent much audience research from questionnaires to a Q and A session. The first stage was to establish a target audience based on the genre and style of the music. Pop and rock attract a mainly younger audience and a female singer draws an audience of both male and female (as opposed to a male singer which would draw a primarily female audience). We reasoned from this that our audience had to be a mixture of male and female and within an age range of mid teens to young adults. We began with a series of ideas laid out in a presentation which we tested on our media group, the perfect mixture of male and female between the ages of seventeen to nineteen. We then asked them for feedback on our initial ideas and handed out questionnaires to a select focus group who we believe represented what we wanted in our audience.

The strengths of this method of research are mainly its ability to produce thorough results on a select audience that best represents our target market(as opposed to a more broad form of testing such as handing out questionnaires at random to people on the street). The major fault of this method is that the range of our audience created a mixture of results which made it difficult to create accurate changes to our first ideas. Using comments on our initial ideas and our questionnaire results we made small changes to our product before and after filming.

Research is important because of the changes it causes to the process of making the video. Without a focus group to test our initial ideas we could have run ahead with a bad idea or missed out on including something important that would have drawn people in. the initial feedback regarding our production ideas was very positive and the bulk of our audience feedback and suggestions were relating to our style and whether we should produce a video of a narrative or performance based structure.

Our initial research showed us many things such as how we should edit the final piece and what we should focus on in regards to props and location. Although there were a lot of compromises made in regards to locations and mise en scene due to our lack of performance space and having to rely on an actress. We think of our audience research as important mainly because it shows us what our target market want and that we should meet their needs to ensure capital and popularity among a large base of fans.

To gauge reaction to our video we performed an audience survey with members of our target audience and solicited the opinions of two other media students.

We asked that each audience member who filled in our previous questionnaire (relating to our music choice) fill out this new one (relating to our video)

1-Kingston Capes-male-student-age 18

2-Evan Davies-male-student-age-19

3-Timor Kaya-male student-age18

4-Emily Reeves-female-student age 17

5-Rachael Evans-female-student-age 17

6-Shannon Tate-female-student-age 18

What did you like most about the video?	The singer
	The singer
	The locations
	The style
	The locations
	The editing

From this question we hoped to learn what the greatest asset in the video is with specifics regarding whether it was our singer or something we did during production such as special effects or selection of locations. The most interesting response is the selection of editing and style as the best part of the video. This would imply that the main focal point for these viewers was not the singer but how she was portrayed and what effects were used to make the video. Knowing all this we can assume that because only two people stated the singer to be their favourite thing about the video that although she was intended to be the main focal point that she didn’t come across as such. If we were to make changes to our video based on this we would have to revolve them around bring out the singer and using flashier effects to hopefully improve audience reaction to the editing.

What could have been improved?	The editing
	Costume
	The lip synching
	The locations
	Costume
	The lighting in certain scenes

From this we hoped to learn exactly what we could have done better and what we may still be able to improve before the final release which is of course the purpose of this method of focus group testing. I find it interesting that someone brought up the lighting and that someone also brought up the editing. The editing was what in the end had the most time spent on it given the use of effects and fast paced shots. I think the main reason this was brought up was the use of shots that extended beyond others in terms of length. This was done intentionally to allow the audience to adjust to a situation before ripping them out of it for shock. I also can see why the lighting may have been brought up as there are some scenes where we had to edit saturation and hue of colours in order to create a sense of darkness due to actual darkness being impractical on some days of shooting. I was not expecting anyone to comment on costume given that it was one of our focal points during early production that the costume reflect the character and the perceived stereotype of the party girl. I chased this comment up hoping to discover more about it and found that the party found the costume unusual for a pop video as it defied conventions somewhat in that it was not very scandalous. It has become a theme in pop music for the artists in videos to be fairly overtly sexualised obviously we found this a problem whilst working with a student as our actress for the video. The second person to comment on costume noted that the “erratic” way in which it changed was strange. This was done to represent changes in the song so we decided to take this as someone not quite understanding what we were trying to do. All in all I expect for this knowledge to greatly influence our design we now know we have several points to alter that we wouldn’t have known about beforehand. This will really help us make any necessary changes to the lighting and editing.

Does the music match the video’s genre?	Yes
	Yes
	Yes
	Yes
	Yes
	yes

From this question we hoped to learn how well the images and video mixed with the song and its genre style. It is one of the most important factors in the music video industry that what is produced is relevant to the genre, styles and context of the artist it’s representing. We were very happy to see how we were able to match the music with the video.

What did you think of locations?	Good
	Appropriate
	Good
	Could have been better
	Excellent
	Fitting

From this we hoped to learn if our locations were well suited to the song and video and if so how much. I find it interesting that we received results calling the locations fitting and appropriate, I take an interest here because I wanted to know if these locations were as such because of the reasons we originally chose them or because of something else. Our original plan was to use the locations of the underpass and the streets to create a image for our artist revolving around her being a young urban party girl. We chased up these comments and we were told that the locations of the streets fitted the song itself rather than the theming and were also told that the changing of location to location via cues in the song was well implemented. The singular comment of “could have been better.” Surprised us somewhat of course we were expecting somewhat for at least one of the people we canvassed to react in a negative way and we of course were not surprised that they were the same person we saw suggesting an improvement in the locations earlier in the questionnaire. From these comments and singular and somewhat negative reaction we summarised that we had done all we could to the video concerning location.

Costume?	Good
	Could have been improved
	Good
	Strange at times
	Too erratic it was strange that it kept changing
	I liked them

The costume question was intended to get a precise definition of what we did and did not do right. We had already chased up earlier negative comments on costume so we were not really expecting a comment saying that it may have been “strange at times.” We can see how this could come across in perhaps the moments we filmed where we had our actress wearing a police cap. Of course this disconcerting news about the costume has caused us to rethink some of our ideals concerning it and although we were placed under limitations such as money and having to use clothing our actress already owned we believe that we came out well.

Actress?	Good
	Very good
	good
	Very likeable
	Attractive
	Good and used to full effect

From this we hoped to learn of exactly how our actress came across to our audience. We wanted to know whether we had made the correct choice concerning the aesthetical implications of our actress and how well people believed she performed. We were pleased to find results that called her both “attractive” and “very likeable” and also were pleased to know we “used her to full effect”. Our intention was to use our actress in a way that made her identifiable from scene to scene as well as creating the image we hoped for. Our results show us the correct choice we made and reflect very well on her skills concerning things like lip synching and maintaining herself in front of a camera.

What would you like to see more of in the video?	A more straightforward narrative
	More performance(who played the music)
	Narrative
	Special effects
	A greater range of shot types
	narrative

This question is a slight revision of the earlier question “what could we improve” however it is reworded so we know exactly what we did right and how we could expand on it. The first thing I noticed whilst reviewing the answers was the call for “a more straightforward narrative” this is something we planned for but were unable to carry out due to restraints of time and the availability of certain locations. It was also interesting to see the call for special effects given that the video and song do not lend themselves easily to them. I was also not expecting to see the call for more performance pieces. The actual artist of the song (Kristen Faulconer) does not actually have a regular backup band and usually relies on synthetic computer generated sound for her songs instrumentals. Knowing this we know we should have put together a narrative that did not require overly complex set and prop use and that we may have been better received had we focused on our artists supports and skills rather than just her as a scripted individual.

How well produced do you think it is? 1 to 10	6
	7
	8
	7
	6
	8

From this final question we wanted to learn overall how well put together and planned. People obviously felt that whilst below any professional level our video was enough to merit a higher mark than a five which we were initially quite worried was going to be the reaction. From this summary we can learn that people both enjoyed the video and that it was well received for both the video itself and the choices we made to make it. we expected a small gap between our highest result and our lowest result and we think the two point gap between six and eight. Our final audience feedback is quite positive and shows us that the original ideas we expanded on with help from our test groups have been improved greatly. Our feedback has shown us the changes we made were essential to the video and our construction of it.