A2 Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Having audience feedback is exceedingly beneficial in the production of a music video as it gives the creators the chance to make improvements. As it is the target audience who would most likely be making comments, it allows my my group and I to make changes based on their preferences. And at the end of the day, it is not really about what the director wants that is most important, but rather what the audience wants, as they are the ones who watch the video. Another reason why audience feedback is so crucial is because it means that if a lot of people make similar comments, a changeable aspect is immediately made known of, which my group and I may not have even thought about.

For our own music video, my group and I received feedback from the audience through various methods. One way was through the use of uploading a rough cut of our music video to Youtube where we asked our peers to watch it, writing reviews in the comment section. We received a variety of both positive and negative comments; one positive comment was about the editing my group and I had used. The audience mentioned how we used "good transitions between shots, making the narrative flow better"; this was useful as it showed how although we used minimal effects or transitions, what we used worked well and the audience appealed to this simple use.

However, we also received critical comments; one girl mentioned how she thought the video "needs more performance", as the narrative dominated the video. However, despite our appreciation of the constructive criticism, my group and I did not think it was a particularly major issue to regard as we purposefully constructed our video so that the narrative side of it would be more prominent. We did ensure to review our music video again after reading this comment and we included a few more shots of the artist in the performance aspect of the video, in between some narrative shots we thought they paralleled well with. However, my group and I did find that this was not the most helpful of comments as evidently it did not relate to the planning process of our video. In addition, only one person made this negative comment, as everyone else mentioned how the narrative was really good and worked extremely well.

Another critical comment my group and I received was concerning the verisimilitude of the shots of the male protagonist going to war. The audience member mentioned how the setting was not actually realistic enough. However, although we acknowledged the reasoning behind such a comment, we could not actually do much about the issue as we evidently could not have filmed in a real-life war-zone. Therefore, the best that we could do was have shots of the male character running across a big field wearing army gear and show close ups of him picking up a gun, holding it and "shooting" it. After seeing this comment, my group and I attempted to see if we could make any changed to the video. After watching it again, the only thing we could do is crop out as much of the background, where we shot the male character pointing the gun, as we could, as the location was in a garden. However, I think considering out limitations, my group and I filmed these shots well.

Another method of gaining feedback was through a rapper of "Boy Better Know" coming into our class and reviewing out work. This method was called "screening the production", and after doing so, we gained substantial feedback. Comments regarding the credibility of the emotion intensity were made and we were advised to consider including more meaningful, love-related scenes as possible, such as the couple on a walk or sitting in a café together. Therefore, we ensured that when we actually filmed the scenes remaining in the video of the couple on their first date, or the scene where they fight, or the male protagonist dying, we tried to mediate as much emotion in it as possible. This was a useful comment to us as it showed us that the video was lacking in the convention of being emotionally moving for the audience; if this was so, it would not mean the artist was presented as relatable to the audience as otherwise. 

Both these methods of gaining feedback were extremely helpful to my group and I as they allowed us to boost the quality of the video as much as possible. We found some of the comments were actually quite similar and therefore it was useful that we gained feedback, otherwise we would not have been aware of people's issues with it. Audience feedback has been a good process as it shows how a music video, or any production in general, is only finished when at least the majority of the audience approve of the elements chosen. It also shows how in a production you cannot be thinking about whether an aspect is appealing to you personally but whether it will engage the audience and focus on their likes. This is essential in the music industry as having a rough cut where the audience can give feedback would be a beneficial way for the production group to see where the weaknesses in their work are; if they can change these elements, the artist will be able to be promoted more successfully and therefore more sales will be generated. There are often specific demands of the record label to represent the artist in a certain way as the audience have particular expectations of how they would like the image of the artist to be like. Overall, I have learnt a lot from receiving audience feedback and it has been a very helpful process.