Martyn Hollinshead

13D

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Gathering feedback on my music video and ancillary texts was a great way to identify areas for improvement which I otherwise would not have spotted. Sometimes it is important to have someone else look over your work because a view from another persons perspective can make a major difference to the final product. To gather feedback throughout the development stages, I used a range of methods to present my work and allow people to comment and make suggestions. Whilst I did not use all of the suggestions given, there were some points that I had to implement in order to improve my product. After conducting some research on my chosen genre and creating an initial plan, I used the video creation website Animoto to draw all of my ideas together in the form of an animated storyboard that would accompany a pitch. After pitching my ideas to a group of students, I opened the floor to questions and was surprised to find that there werent any negative criticisms made in particular. However, I found as I was answering questions that the ideas I had in my head were just a jumble of concepts; there was no specific format as such. This was helpful though as it forced me to sit down and work out a storyline from which to produce a storyboard. One point that I did take from the feedback at the time though was that my target audience was too narrow and inaccurate for the ideas and genre I had chosen. After widening the audience from a target of 15-18 year olds to 14-25 year olds, I came to the conclusion that I would then be able to use a broader range of themes within the video, rather than perhaps one or two that were relevant to just teenagers. Upon further reflection, this was widened again to 18-30 year olds. From this feedback session, I learned that initial ideas have to be changed and tweaked in order to ensure that the direction in which the project heads is the correct one. Also, I found that by reflecting on my personal pitch as well as the feedback received, it was possible to get a much better picture of what improvements and changes need to be made; I wasnt 100% confident in my ideas, so I had to make sure that this could be confirmed before moving forward with the project. It was also necessary to gather feedback during the construction of my digipack and advert, as I needed to ensure that these ancillary texts appealed to the audience; they are both forms of advertising, so they have to not only fit with the genre and theming of the band, but also catch their eye in order to persuade them to buy the album. There were a number of suggestions that were made from various people, and again, the overall view was positive. What I learned from this set of feedback however was that attention to detail is crucial. The suggestions consisted of deleting unnecessary text, moving components such as lines around, changing text size and re-aligning images. Something that was pointed out on my advert though was that the publications I had included which reviewed the album were poorly chosen. For instance, I initially included newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The

Martyn Hollinshead

13D

Independent, however by replacing these with suggestions such as Billboard and Spex magazine, the reviews appear to be more reliable as these magazines focus mainly on music. All of these suggestions may seem rather unimportant alone, however when combined, the overall look and feel of the digipack and advert became more polished and professional, as well as more aesthetically appealing. After creating the first draft of my music video, I enlisted the help of several students and asked them to provide some feedback on what they thought of it so far. What I found was that, unlike the digipack and advert where only small changes needed to be made, it was clear that the entire video needed a re-think and re-shoot. The major issue was the locations I had chosen to film in. According to the feedback, the setting was uninteresting and didnt seem to fit with the music. This was a fair point; I had chosen to film in a park, on a football field and at a local skatepark because I thought that they would allow me to show the singer travel from place to place as if he was on a journey of sorts. The locations, however, had too many distractions in the background and were not obvious enough as to what they were. There was also criticism of the cast I had used. As I only had access to two people, I was unable to create the impression that there was a full band consisting of two guitarists and a drummer. This hindered the video greatly, and along with some criticism on a few shaky shots and poor framing, I concluded that the draft video was way off the standard that it needed to be. The only choice available was to overhaul the video entirely, however this turned out to be not as difficult as I first presumed; within a few weeks the video had a new concept, cast and locations. When it came to the stage of finalising the video, I wanted to take advantage of social networking to try and gather a range of feedback from sources that werent particularly associated with media production; all of the feedback so far had been from Media Studies students and teachers, so some of the suggestions and criticisms may have been influenced by this extended interest in media. By allowing a general audience to comment on the video, this avoids any bias, as well as gaining views from people who may look at the video from a different perspective. After posting the video on YouTube, I shared it with my Facebook account so that people who were friends with my account could view it and leave comments. This time the feedback was much more positive, but there were some interesting criticisms made too. For example, one person wrote: Up to the entrance of the rest of the band, if he's planning to disappear then I think he should be in solitude for the whole of it, maybe. Or perhaps it should have been band and then solitude Now clearly this change could not be implemented during the final stages, and furthermore, to implement this change would require re-filming everything. However, it is an interesting suggestion and a different concept that may have been more effective than my creation, were I looking to focus on the emotions of the singer. Other comments consisted of general pointers, such as:

Martyn Hollinshead

13D

I think you could of used some fast motion in places and different angles And: I really like it, I just think that on the stage at the end you could of perhaps pulled some strings with the school to get more lighting on you (like a spot light or something) A few times syncing the guitars and vocals weren't that tight with the backing. I just think perhaps you could have had them pulling more facial expressions and getting into the music a little bit more. Fortunately, these were easy enough to tweak through video editing. So from this session of feedback, I have learned that when gathering feedback, it can be useful to use focus groups that differ from one another as you can gather a range of opinions and viewpoints; whilst one person may think that something works well, another person may not for example. There was only one issue with gathering feedback thorough social networking, though, and that is that I was unable to get half as much feedback as I did in a classroom setting with other media students. The reasons for this though are variable. Finishing the final cut, I wanted to get an idea as to what people thought of the final product just for personal evaluation, so I asked some media students (again) to leave a comment below the video after I posted it on my blog. Fortunately, the comments were very positive, and it seems that the narrative was the aspect that worked mostly in my favour. The new locations were also warmly received, which contrasts greatly from the feedback I received about my draft video. There were a couple of negative points made though; the lighting in the second half of the video was dark at times due to access being denied to the stage spotlights, so this was picked up on as expected. The lip syncing was also criticised in places; this was something that I found difficult to perfect, however this technique is something which would require practice and training, so this criticism is not alarming as such. Conclusion Overall, I firmly believe that I have gained much knowledge from the feedback I have received. I now understand the crucial importance of gathering feedback from others, whether it is praise or criticism; improvements can be made where they are needed, new ideas can be formed from suggestions, and the strongest aspects can be made stronger to ensure that they are as good as can possibly be. It has been interesting to look at things from different perspectives too, making it possible to notice things such as wonky shots and background distractions; aspects that, previously, were invisible.