Jasraj Sahota Evaluation Q3 G324

G324 Evaluation Question 3:

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This year, I have found audience feedback quite important, as it has helped me shape my ideas for my music video, digipak and magazine advert.

At the start of the course, I gathered a focus group which consisted of two boys and two girls aged within my target audience to ask questions regarding music videos. I found this feedback to be very useful because the feedback helped me shape my ideas for my music video, here are some of their answers to some questions:

I asked whether they preferred concept, narrative, performance or a combination type music videos, they told me they like narrative the most, as it tells a story which matches with the song and also gives it meaning. Two said they prefer a mix of all three. This impacted the planning of my video as I decided to do a combination of narrative and concept for my music video as it would appeal more to my target audience for the Indie Pop genre.

Another question I asked is whether they like amplification, illustrative or disjunction in music videos. All four agreed that they like amplification the most as it makes sense with the song and lyrics as it helps the audience to understand the song more. I decided to use illustrative within my video although the focus group prefer amplification, I did this because it fits my video best and could also change their opinion on it.

I asked if they find themselves relatable to actors within indie pop music videos and whether they prefer them to. They said they can sometimes be relatable and their only should if it suits the song or narrative. Because of this, I decided to use actors within the demographic of my target audience to appeal more to them and so it would relate more to them rather than middle-aged people which possible wouldn’t fit within the narrative.

After planning and developing some ideas for my music video, I presented a pitch of my ideas to my class, which they then gave me some feedback to reflect upon. Most feedback I received was positive such as my concept was interesting to explore, there’s a good link to the lyrics with settings which are creative and someone also said they like the challenges to typical conventions. Some advice I received was quite good and interesting:

“Good opportunity to use unique camera shots, mise-en-scene and editing”. This advice was quite important to my final product, as I explored much more editing techniques than I had last year for my film opening. I began to think about different

Jasraj Sahota Evaluation Q3 G324

camera shots I could include, and drew them up in my storyboard and added some to my shot list for when I began filming. For mise-en-scene I made a PowerPoint presentation in order to properly think about what I need to include and what is important for my video.

“Prefer a narrative theme as it gives more meaning to the video”. This had a major effect on my video as I did begin by wanting to do a performance/concept music video, but because of this advice, I decided it would be best to do a narrative as I was told I should by my focus group too.

“Experiment with different filters and colours”. I took this into account when editing my video together, I decided which filters I liked the best and which ones made some clips look amazing. Below is an example of a filter I used, and the difference between not using it and using it:

After my pitch I drafted some storyboards which I shared with my class in order to receive feedback. The feedback I received regarding my storyboard was quite useful as there were some flaws within my storyboard which was pointed out. A flaw was that a couple of my scenes were very weather dependant, as I wanted to shoot the main character in the same location but on days which were sunny, raining and just a grey cloudy day. The problem with this was I couldn’t wait, hoping I would get to the right location on different days in different weather, and so I scrapped this idea. Some positive feedback includes “I like that you are linking things to the lyrics”, “I like the focus pool for the first shot” and “I like that you have thought clearly about the meanings of the lyrics”. I was told I needed to make sure props such as drugs looked realistic, but in the end I decided that I didn’t need these props.

Below are my final drafts:

Without filter With filter (AG Film Stock)

Jasraj Sahota Evaluation Q3 G324

I received a lot of feedback from my peers and teacher during the editing process of my video. A lot of this feedback was very helpful as it improved certain aspects of my video. Most feedback was quite positive such as “Good use of edits”, “Good photography”, “I like the fast paced editing which is cool because it comes after slow paced editing”, “good lighting” and much more positive feedback. This told me that I was on the right track with my video and enabled me to keep my focus on my video as I knew it was going well. Not all feedback was positive as some was good constructive criticism:

I was told that if I added layers, it could link different scenes which will make the video more interpretable for the audience if they don’t already understand the narrative. This shaped my video quite nicely as I added another layer on the main video twice, which did link the different parts of the narrative together and does look better as a whole.

“Is the first shot too long”? This may seem quite simple but it did make me look more closely into how long each clip was and whether it needed to be as long as they were. I ended up changing the first shot to an establishing shot which fits with the start of the song and allows me to add more before adding an ellipses and presenting the main character of the video.

“The shots taken at home are not as good as the outdoor shots”. This is something I couldn’t do much to change as most of the outdoor scenes were very well lit due to the natural lighting and that worked well with some filters I used. To try improve the footage I filmed at home, I changed some of the colour settings and added filters which definitely improves the clips and makes it look more interesting and appealing.

Once completing my video, I moved onto the ancillary products which I made for my music video. I completed a couple drafts for my digipak and magazine advert which my peers commented on, both positive and constructive criticism.

I found feedback to be very important, because I worked on my own this year, it was good to hear more opinions on how things could be improved as it was all very useful.