1. Task 3 - What I learnt from audience feedback 2. We had a focus group for our three products. Our digipak, website and music video to understand to what extend we had achieved our aim of creating a successful artist by correctly making appropriate products that our target audience would enjoy. 3. Definition A focus group is the most grass-roots way you can learn about your media business. By gathering a select group of regular people together, you can find out how your company is perceived versus your competition. The answers you get can be a road map as you build your brand. 4. Our Focus Group 5. From this Focus group we learnt: Our song is a synthetic song sung by an organic artist. This way it appeals to everyone, because the song is generic, but the artist is genuine, as portrayed in the video. Although we tried to make an organic artist, by having him in the video himself came across as rather synthetic, as he may be judges by him image and appearance, but there was a general consensus that due to the location and angle of the shots, it did not focus on his image, but rather an organic location and the creation of music. Further, without showing the artist playing the music himself, it is more difficult to portray his authenticity, and so there is a dilemma in putting him as the main focus of the music video. 6. Types of Feedback When gathering our feedback we aim to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback. We used questionnaires to get quantitative data And interviews to get qualitative data 7. Qualitative research gathers information that is not in numerical form. For example, diary accounts, open ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations. Qualitative date is typically descriptive data and as such is harder to examine than quantitative data Quantitative research gather data in numerical form which can be put into categories, or in rank order, or measured in units of measurement. This type of data can be used to construct graphs and tables of raw data. 8. Advantages of Interviews Able to get personal opinion about our video Information is precise and specific We are able to respond to their answers instantly and directly by asking why they felt a certain thing. Which can not be asked on questionnaires. 9. Disadvantage of Interviews The information lacks depth as it not a wide spread of society. the opinion we received were therefore limited. If we were to extrapolate these results they would lack reliability as we would simply be assuming that their opinions would be that the rest of the population. 10. Questionnaire Questions 11. Advantage of Questionnaires The responses are gathered in a standardised way, so the information we were able to gather is more objective, more so than interviews They far quicker than than interviews as were are able to gather the information on mass in very little time. Because its online we can send it to people outside of our physical reach in an interview and expand our questioning, to people 18-35 who are in our target audience but aren't in school to interview. 12. Disadvantage of the Questionnaire Because the questions are standardized its not possible to explain any misinterpretation by the person doing the questionnaire. Some respondents may answer the questions superficially because the questionnaire takes a long time to complete. 13. Strengths of our Music Video From the questionnaire feedback, we were able to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses from our final production. The majority of viewers were able to tell that the artist was organic, "focusing on lyrics and originality", and "he looked like he was being himself and having a good time", as well as recognising the significance of him "play[ing] the acoustic guitar". This is a strength of our video, because this is what we were trying to portray - a fun loving nature, focusing on the music and nature of the artist. 14. Strengths of our Music Video Another strength of our video was the audience's reaction to the link between narrative and performance. They often stated that it "kept [them] interested" and they "balanced each other nicely", However, some said that the only link between them was the ending, where both characters are in the studio at the same time, which they perceived to be negative, but we believe that this added to the dramatic effect, and would not change it. 15. Strengths from our Music Video All of the respondent's knew the genre of the production to be a mixture of "singer/songwriter" "indie pop" and "folk". This was positive for us, because it demonstrated that we portrayed the correct subliminal messages to the viewers. Further, they stated that it would appeal to a wide range of audiences, which was another positive, as it showed that we created a well rounded star, who was appropriate and likable for a wide range of audiences of all ages. 16. Strengths of our Music Video What people liked most about our production was the flashbacks of the female character, and how the time lapsed from him to her, being in the same place at different times. They also liked the variety of locations and shots we used. This is reassuring as it shows that the work we put in to our production payed off, and all that travelling wasn't for nothing! It was different from other productions, and this was recognised as being unique and exciting. People also liked the narrative, and though during our pre-production research most people thought it would be cliche, they enjoyed it with the visuals, and it was easier for them to see how it would work with the locations and shot variations. 17. Weakness of our Music Video One weakness of our video was confusion within the narrative. Some people felt that the plot was not clear until the end of the video, often being confused by the absence of the female character, believing her to be dead rather than just not with him at that current time. However, most seemed to get it right away, and commented how they thought it was "cute" and liked how she found him in the end, stating it was an exciting "twist". 18. Weakness of our Music Video The thing people disliked most about our video was the vintage effect on the female, not because it wasn't aesthetically pleasing, but because it gave the notion that she was dead. Further, they thought the shots in the studio were slightly repetitive, which is understandable. We had predicted this may be the case, and to avoid this used the GoPro camera as well as the standstill DSLR, but this may not have been enough. Compared to the outdoor variation of location, the studio can seem small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 19. Strengths of our Digipak and Website Digipak nice outdoor and artistic photos Clear singer/songwriter presentation good song lyrics added, good for fans Website Really nice home page, simplistic, good relative image, artistic and naturalistic. Gives option to listen to music straight away, which is main focus of the campaign. Interesting layout, scrolling down. 20. Weakness of our Digipak and Website Not clear what the relevance of James Bay is. Not enough pictures, repetition of same pictures. Social feed unclear does not look like instagram or twitter, and no option for audience to tweet directly. Subscribe to what? 21. Encoding and Decoding 22. Encoding and Decoding Stuart halls model of encoding and decoding claims that TV and other media audiences are presented with messages that are decoded, or interpreted in different ways depending on an individual's cultural background, economic standing, and personal experiences. For example, since advertisements can have multiple layers of meaning, they can be decoded in various ways and can mean something different to different people. Hall claims that the decoding subject can assume three different positions: Dominant position, negotiated position, and oppositional position. 23. The Three Different Positions Dominant position This position is one where the consumer takes the actual meaning directly, and decodes it exactly the way it was encoded. Negotiated position This position is a mixture of accepting and rejecting elements. Readers are acknowledging the dominant message, but are not willing to completely accept it the way the encoder has intended. Oppositional position In this position a consumer understands the literal meaning, but due to different backgrounds each individual has their own way of decoding messages, while forming their own interpretations. 24. Encoding of our Music Video The encoding of my music video is that Alfie is search for his long lost love and throughout the music video he is running across the country to past locations where the then couple have been together. At each of the locations, he triggers a flashback of his lost love. However, this was decoded in many different ways by our audience. They all recognised the theme of love and many did fully have a upstanding of the narrative we intended. However, some took negotiated reading and thought the girl was dead and or artist was in mourning. From this we became aware that audiences will always decode the text in different ways but will ultimately enjoy the music video which is our aim task. 25. VALS Profile Our VALS profile matched our expectations from our audience's comments on the music video. love that he can play guitar Hes soo talented Please make more music youll make the world a better They have correctly shown themselves as Experiencers who are Innovator, Groupies and Utopians. 26. VALS Profile Innovators wish to make their mark. They appeal to my artist because he prepared to make his mark by cross the world for the girl he loves. With his own music making it organic, documenting his personal yet reliable love struggle. Groupies want to be accepted, they appeal to my artist because he loves the girl unconditionally, and as he is running he is showing his dedication. He too wants to be accepted by her, making my artist relatable, a feeling that much of the audience would share. Utopians want the world to be a better place. They appeal to my artist because he's prepared to do anything for love as thats his current priority and therefore the only important thing in his life is the girl he loves. And the world is better place when we show a bit more love to each other. 27. YouTube Statistics For looking into our YouTube Statistics that only are audience only watches 61% of our video, which to me is concerning but to truly understand the narrative you have the watch the video till the end. Other statistic show that the devices use to watch our video is consistent with our VALS as our young target audience are watching our videos on mobile device such as tablets and phones as opposed to the more traditional way to watch music videos with is on TV channel such as MTV or 4Music.