The Evaluation: Question 3

Question 3 ________ What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Feedback was an important aspect of my project; I ran some audience research on 20 sixth-form students aged between 17 and 19 who go to my school, Epsom & Ewell High School. This was really useful because I found out vital information that was key to our music video. I asked the teenagers questions like 'what do you like most about music videos?' and 'who do you like watching music videos?' and 'what is your favorite music video and why?'. This really helped my group when we were writing the treatment because we knew what our potential audience wanted to see in a music video and why they like it. This was especially important when we were casting our characters, Ben, Lilly and Lilly's mum, mainly because we knew we were targeting a young audience, which is why we have mainly young actors in our video.
Although this was a very small group of people to run my audience research on, I decided that it would be appropriate as 17 to 19 year olds would be more likely to watch music video's than actual fans of The Feeling who range from 15 to 40.

There are two types of audience research, the first being before you've made your product to aid your planning and creation. And the second should take place after you've finished your product, this is to gain some feedback to help gauge how well its going to do. I conducted my second audience research over facebook, just as I did with my first, but this time I sent ten 17 to 19 year olds a link to my music video on Youtube. I then asked the 10 students what they thought of my music video, most of the comments said they thought my music video was really good. Although this is still useful audience feedback, I feel that because I asked people I know what they thought of my video, some of them held back on what they really thought in case they hurt my feelings.

Some of the more useful comments included:
- Its really good, its a fun, cheesy laugh. Its really fun and definitely put a smile on my face. I don't know if you meant to, but it makes the guys look really camp
- it's very good, very well edited and put together
- the video works well with the song, which is very good

I thought the 1st comment was one of the more interesting comments I received, this was mainly because the person mentioned the male actors looking 'camp'. This was always an issues that I thought may arise due to the feminine nature of the song and music video. I feel that this is something that I would work on to try and prevent if I did my project again; because although it does push the stereotypes, this is something that we didn't meant to achieve.

We recently finished our music video and I thought it would be a really good idea to write to Pete Fraser, the chief examiner, we thought this would be fantastic opportunity to speak to someone who regularly marks work like this, so therefore would have the appropriate knowledge to give us some good quality feedback. Shortly after we finished editing our video we uploaded it onto Youtube and e-mailed a like to him via Facebook. My group member Adam e-mailed Pete and asked him what he thought of our music video and how we could make it better. The e-mail went as follows:

"Hello Adam

There are some nice touches here - the book with images and some of the shots are very well composed. The main problems I would identify are that there is not enough of the band and they join the video rather late - they are too static as is the camera and editing given the pace of the song. Story is very good and actors are too!

Pete"

This was one of the most useful pieces of feedback we received mainly because we knew the feedback we got was from someone who knows what they were talking about. He made some really useful points about our music video like there are not enough of the band shots, this was something that I didn’t think was a major problem. And If was to do my project again, I would re-consider the amount of band shots, bringing them in earlier and making some of the band shots longer. I would definitely think about asking the editing faster and choppier, including shorter clips to fit in with the fast pace of the song.

I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback that Pete made because I didn't think when the band entered the video was a problem, I thought they entered at a relevant part of the song. I thought he would say something about Ben walking across the stepping stones at Box Hill, because I think this was one of the clips that let our video down. However, I am still pleased with the feedback he gave us and If I were to do the whole project again I will now know what I need to work on to improve my grade.

When we were nearing the of our construction process and starting the editing process, our media teacher got hold of a degree level media student called Tom Herbert. Tom helped us get to grips with Final Cut Pro and the editing process as a whole. Tom dramatically improved my knowledge on FCP, and without his help I feel I wouldn't have been able to complete the editing process. After we had finished the editing and had finalized our music video I e-mailed Tom and asked him for some feedback on what he thought was good how we could improve our video.

I e-mailed Tom the link to my video over facebook and waited for his reply.

Tom’s comments were split into two sections, the good points and the improvements, they are as follows:

"Good points:

- There is a well structured story line

- The use of chroma keying and de-saturating works well, nice linking of beginning and end with the book

- Good locations and mise-en-scene, some well chosen shots

- Lip syncing good overall

Improvements:

- Given the pace of the song, the editing could be faster, and this would of then given the video more energy

- With the band standing still, the camera needs to be handled and moving. Combined with faster editing, this would match the pace and energy of the song better"

Tom's comments are really useful because he not only gave the good pints but also gave me ways that I could improve my video. I defiantly feel that the comments about the editing were expected, because the music is very up-beat and fast, where as some of the editing is the complete opposite. And this is something that I feel needs to be rectified, its something that would be at the top of my list to change if I did my project again.

I feel the comment about the camera and how it should be move to compensate the band standing still. I didn't think of how the camera would effect the band standing still. This something I would think about changing, but would have to be very careful about changing because if the filming and camera moment is not done right it could bring down the quality of the whole video.

On the other hand, I am really pleased with the good points he made, because he is a media student himself I feel he appreciates all the hard work we have put into the video and how complex it is to use the chroma key effect.