(3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is essential throughout any production process but even more so when a project is managed independently. I found that it is easy to become attached to ideas that have little or no relevance to the overall outcome. For instance, in the planning stage I had initially planned to film in an open space such as a park or field. However direct audience feedback from my teachers and peers in the classroom advised me to keep filming in the city areas as this complements the bleak mood of the song.

Audience feedback for the rough cut proved that this was a good decision and one person even advised that I include more outside locations that are relatively busy. They added that this creates a link between the lyrics (“I don’t need to breathe”) and the visuals (i.e. the claustrophobic feeling of being within large crowds). Below are two screen grabs of my Brick Lane shoot where I attempted to capture the feeling of being “trapped” amid people walking past.

Figure 1: First production meeting which shows plans to film in a park

Figure 2: Shooting schedule showing only outside/urban locations

In order to know which audience I should target I carried out a questionnaire on SurveyMonkey to gather some generic information on habits and interests. I asked seven people ranging from the age of 16-45 in order to fairly determine my target audience.

My first question: “Where do you watch music videos?”

I asked this question in order to choose where was best to upload my music video. I wanted to choose the platform that most people preferred because as a real artist, this would increase the promotional value of my product. Most people used YouTube as their main online music video source and under 30% still used music channels on TV. This demonstrates the popularity of the internet as less people are using TV as their source of music videos. The growth in internet streaming sites enables audiences to access music videos on various platforms (iPad, smartphones, laptops etc) at home and on the go. YouTube is a particularly good platform to use as many people have smartphones and use the YouTube app to share videos on various social network sites such as Facebook. Any exposure for a small artist is essential, especially on social networks as millions of people use them on a daily basis.

The majority of my audience feedback is on my blog- I have included relevant screen grabs below:

I also asked people if they could think of any music videos, album covers/digipaks or other promotional techniques that they found particularly effective.

One mentioned Gotye’s music video for “Used To Love” which influenced my choice to include some element of amplification in my music video.

While discussing my ideas for my digipak and magazine advert, a teacher mentioned PJ Harvey who eventually influenced my style of photography. After looking into photographs taken of her, I decided to create a similar

chiaroscuro effect for one of my digipak images. I also imitated the type of setting used as a background for another photograph of PJ Harvey- I did this in a subway setting in London. The same ideas were used in my magazine advert where I set up elaborate lighting and maintained the black and white colour scheme. This feedback was essential as it helped my construct my ancillary texts.