What have you learned from your audience feedback?
At the start of the year I put a poll on my blog to get basic information from people for example age, gender, what kind of music they liked and what types of music videos they liked. From using social media this lead to me to find specific examples of what younger people like which turned out to be a performance element to music videos with a narrative alongside. Because my genre was rock I looked into other things that rock fans would be interested in.Because of my AS studies last year I knew that rock fans are big readers of Kerrang magazine and having looked at their demographics I knew I had to cater for the younger audience in my video as the 15-24 age bracket was the biggest consumers of Kerrang.
I also conducted a focus group were I ask questions about what people my age would expect from a rock video and where they would consume said video.
Focus Group Questions Here This allowed me to get an understanding of what people would like to see in my video such as a performance and narrative storyline alongside each other as this is a key feature of a rock video. I also found what types of edits and camera shots people would expect to see such as close up shots to show emotions and fast edits to accompany the fast pace nature of the song. All of these elements would give me great influence on my music video which I then went on to film.
Once my first draft was complete I asked people to fill in some audience feedback questionnaires in order to gain an understanding of what was good/bad about my video and were improvements could be made. The positives I found were that people really liked the performance scene and thought it was a good representation of a rock video performance scene as the use of framing and fast edits fit the conventions of the song as well as the genre. However the narrative wasn't as clear as it could of been in which I decided to re shoot the narrative to make it much more stronger and understandable. I was able to secure actors for specific times and locations with my second draft (something I struggled with for my first) which made things much more easier for planning shots. One of the consequences of changing actors and extras was that I had to go against the storyboard in the second verse in order to make the narrative entertaining yet understandable which I really enjoyed as I was able to experiment with different scenarios and different elements of cinematography which made for a much more enjoyable filming experience.
One of the pieces of feedback I received from my teacher was to use a specific shiny edit on the antagonist in the final scenes to give a representation of hope and also represent one of the themes of the song of things getter better. This was a big improvement in my opinion as this scene was key to the narratives structure and something we really wanted to look good.
Post production I conducted some more feedback of my final draft with the band that were in the performance scene to what they thought was good about the video or maybe anything they didn't like. I found that the narrative was much more clearer from their feedback and that the performance scene was a true representation on a rock performance scene with the mise-en-scene of instruments and clothes being the main part of that.
Post Production Feedback Here
From a theoretical point of view, Bulmer and Katz' Uses & Gratifications theory looks at how we as an audience consume media and how personal identity can effect our viewing. For someone viewing our first draft they could think completely different to some one else. The same with our final product someone could think it's the best video they've ever seen, another person could think it's one of the worst series of moving images out there. However who is right? It's all down to our personal identity of what we like and don't like.So by us taking advice from people around us we can cater to what they and other like minded people would like, granted we aren't going to impress everyone but no one ever can. Stuart Hall's reception theory can also be brought in here
this
theory is an active audience theory which sees the audience as being actively
engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than as passive consumers.
Individuals receive and interpret texts in different ways. This theory also links to Bulmer and Katz as one person will see our video and possibly get a message from it of hope and striving for better. While other will take a completely different view of the video and why should they be wrong? Unless it's something completely off the wall perhaps.
Even things such as a persons social class could effect their interpretation of a media text. For instance a upper/middle class person could completely blank this message and say they can't relate to it in any way. However a working class kid could relate it as they may have gone through some hard times themselves and being outcast and that's the great thing about the feedback we received. Some people may have liked it for that reason while others may not have understood it because of their circumstances.
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