Question 3 what have you learned from your audience feedback

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE

FEEDBACK?

Group Evaluation

By Sophie and Grace

FOCUS GROUP

We conducted a focus group prior to the final publish of our music video to get an idea of what a sample of our target population find to be effective about the storyline we pitched i.e. what enticed them and what made them unsure would work. Due to it providing us with an in-depth insight into our audience’s response, we decided to conduct another focus group now that it has been completed, to see the audience’s response to the music video and to provide feedback – both positive and constructive.

FOCUS GROUPHere is a link to our focus group video:

FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS: QUESTION 1What was your favourite part of the video and why?

• When the girl disappears at the end and the filters vanish which emphasises the difference between reality and imaginary

• When they were spinning around in the field, the shot was very effective

• Lots of camera shots and angles of the guitar

•The fact that it was set in the countryside and the city so it didn’t get repetitive

FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS: QUESTION 2In what ways do you think our music video appeals to its target audience and why?

• How you used both a girl and a boy as this eliminates gender bias so everyone can relate to it

• The characters are the same age as the target audience which means it is more relevant

• It was a combination of story and singing (narrative and conceptual)

• You covered topics that are current for the target audience e.g. teenage love

FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS: QUESTION 3What do you think we could improve on and why?

• Maybe use more shots of the boy and the girl rather than shots of the boy in the city to emphasise the romantic element

• Try out a black and white filter to make the contrast more obvious

FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS: QUESTION 4Which aspects of the editing did you find particularly effective?

• The use of time-lapse when the crowd moved around him

• The use of filters to distinguish between imagination and reality

• When the girl starts disappearing at the end

• Lots of fast cuts when the music gets fast, I liked how it matched

• I liked how it faded in and faded out to black at the beginning and end and how the music didn’t start straight away

FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS: QUESTION 5In what ways does our music video fit with the conventions of the genre?

•The choice of mis-en-scene in terms of fashion e.g. converse, hoodie, skinny jeans etc. fits in well with the genre

•The way in which the video represents aspects of modern society e.g. teenage boy busking in the streets, which is a common convention within the genre

•The use of instruments e.g. lots of shots of the acoustic guitar, is very common within the indie/folk/alternative rock genre

RESEARCH INTO TARGET AUDIENCE

Due to our target audience falling within (roughly) the age bracket of 16-24, we did some research into how to promote our video on a wide scale and gather relevant feedback. Here is some of the results we found:


This shows the net percentage change in use of communication method used in 16-24 year olds (our target audience) and how 31% more now use Social networks as a means of communication

SOCIAL NETWORKING STATISTICS

•50% 16-24 year olds go on Facebook when they wake up

•Facebook users are 53% female, 47% male

•On average, 16-24 year olds spent just below one and a half hours on social media everyday

•97% young people are on Facebook and 45% are on twitter

It is therefore clear from these research findings, that the majority of people within our target audience use social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter on a regular, if not daily, basis.


These statistics are hugely significant – with over 90% of 16-24 year olds in the UK being on social networking sites

SOCIAL NETWORK FEEDBACK

Therefore, we decided to use our own Facebook accounts as a platform to reach a large number of people – because we also belong in the age bracket of our target audience, all my Facebook ‘friends’ are also of this age, therefore feedback would be relevant and useful.I embedded the YouTube clip into a Facebook post on my wall and asked for feedback – both positive and constructive to get a general view of what worked well and what we could improve on.

SOCIAL NETWORK FEEDBACKHere are all the replies we received through Facebook:


We got conflicting opinions on the use of filters – i.e. during the imagination scenes of him with the girl in the countryside, we decided to apply a filter by adjusting the brightness, saturation and colour balance, and apply a blurred border. Although predominantly positive, maybe experimenting more with how we conveyed the imagination shots would have been useful


We received lots of positive feedback on the shots of Jess disappearing towards the end of the video


One of the main positive aspects of the music video was the wide range of camera angles we used – a convention we found to be typical of professional music videos.


We also received positive feedback on the time-lapse shots of Joe in the middle of the city that we created by increasing the speed of the particular footage.

SOCIAL NETWORK FEEDBACKLots of feedback was related to how professional the music video looked – this is because we closely followed professional music video conventions with the use of quick shots that match the tempo, variety of different angles from extreme close-ups of guitar shots to long shots of him in the field. We are very pleased that the professionalism of the video came across well during audience feedback.


Among the numerous amounts of positive comments we received – here is an example of a constructive criticism – suggesting that because of the length of the video, it has a tendency to become repetitive in places therefore perhaps the addition of another dimension such as song lyrics would help to overcome this issue.


Here is another example of a constructive criticism – some of the shots may have been slightly shaky which will take away from the professionalism of the video, therefore (as suggested) the use of a tripod would have worked effectively to diminish these issues. However, it was also recognised that some of the shots such as the boy and girl spinning in the field, were intentionally filmed to be shaky so as to create a ‘home video’ and retro style.


We also used YouTube to gather our audience feedback – because feedback received from our Facebook page, although incredibly useful due to the variety of perspectives gained from a wide audience, was limited due to the respondents being solely from my friends list. Therefore, I asked for audience feedback on YouTube – directed to the public – and received some useful feedback.


Here is a screenshot from where we asked members of the public on YouTube to give some feedback for our video


We even managed to receive feedback from a professional photographer – Owen Lucas – who provided us with some valuable suggestions for improvement – perhaps using a black and white filter with grain (an idea we originally experimented with but decided against due to the majority of the video therefore having to be in black and white to represent the artists imagination, which when researching our genre, we found was not a convention nor was it valued when researching our target audience using the focus group)


Here was some further feedback we received via YouTube – both commenting on the good choice of location used.

YOUTUBE ANALYTICS

Here is an overview of the analytics of the video and provides a strong, quantitative analysis of various audience statistics such as audience retention, likes, comments etc.

YOUTUBE ANALYTICS

These statistics suggest that the majority of viewers of the video came from the UK, and found the video via an external website (59%) – probably from the sharing of the video across various social media platforms.

YOUTUBE ANALYTICS

YouTube analytics showed that audience retention on average was 73% which was fairly good – with the lowest point of viewing at around 2:27, suggesting perhaps areas of improvement to try and make this area of the video more engaging

Lowest audience retention point

AUDIENCE FEEDBACKWe used our initiative and decided to send an email to some of our fellow classmates due to the access of the school database with lots of people falling within our target audience age range.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACKHere are a few of the replies we received. Overall, an emphasis was placed on the contrast between locations, the use of effects and the realisation at the end of the video.

Here we were given a nice piece of constructive criticism –perhaps including more shots of the girl and boy’s relationship to ‘create more of a love story’

CRITICISMS

Here is the general critique we received:

- Slightly repetitive due to the length of the song

- More narrative needed

- Shakiness of the camera at the beginning

- Filters could have been different

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED FROM THIS- To avoid the video becoming repetitive due to the length of the song, we could have added another element to the music video e.g. another twist in the narrative, or lyrics on-screen

- More shots of the girl and the boy rather than more performance shots of the boy

- More careful and precise use of the tripod to steady the shakiness of the camera and further provide a professional video

- Experiment more with the different styles of filters e.g. sepia toned, black and white, grainy etc.

CONCLUSION

Due to the copious amounts of audience feedback we were able to receive through multiple social network platforms, focus group discussions, surveys and online analytics, it has allowed us to gain a wider knowledge of how our audience have received our product, and useful pieces of advice which will affect our later decision making. Overall, the majority of the feedback was positive which we were extremely pleased about. However, when we pushed further and asked for a few comments on what could be improved, a consistent few criticisms were being made – making it obvious to us which aspects of the video could have been improved.

Question 3 what have you learned from your audience feedback

Education

Transcript of Question 3 what have you learned from your audience feedback