Evaluation Question 3

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

From the conception of the final idea for my music video, I had already gathered information relating to my chosen genre of alternative rock to build up a basic profile of what to aim towards in my video and also, who to aim for. From the viewings firstly of secondary research I found the primary demographic to market my work towards being part of 16-25 age group and predominantly male. 

The data I found was from a website which independently researched demographics across all genres within the music industry as a whole.

 

By looking at the gender information, it is clear that alternative rock is mainly followed by the male gender, which Is why I went all out to target this group in my work, by appealing to themes suited towards the male gender, such as gritty violence, drinking and smoking, and also shooting my video in an urban environment. Furthermore when I went to interview my audience and collect primary research I asked males between the demographic age grouping that was my primary target.

Target Audience Research:

 

 

 





A key piece of information I discovered from the target audience research interviews is what they want to see in the music video in relation towards narrative and performance pieces. It was highly conclusive and in fact unanimous that fans of alternative rock want to see a balanced mix of both performance pieces from the band itself, and also narrative footage. The audience want to be able to relate to the song, and visual characters enable that, yet be further captivated by the talent of performance, and so striking the mix of these two things is greatly important I learnt. Further support for this two pronged idea for a music video is supported in my singular target audience member profile...

Above is one piece of many key parts of feedback I got from the member profile which further supports the desire for both performance and narrative pieces within my work. However it also gives more, the person being question, Ben McStay, tells how he feels something controversial should also feature, his views about controversy fit in well with previous answers too...

 This particular video which he mentioned does happen to be a controversial one and turns out to be an excellent example of both narrative and performance pieces within one music video.

We can see here that there is performance which overlaps with the narrative instead of being shown to be separate. The controversy comes from the depiction of crucifixion behind the band.

Mixing the two?:

When asking the audience whether I should mix the performance and overlap it with the narrative footage I was told a very unanimous "No" as people felt that it isn't a well used technique over all and only works sometimes, like in 'Heart Shaped Box'. I feel avoiding this blend has hugely benefitted me as it enabled my video to maintain a more professional look to it.

 


 

 

Editing:

As you can see from above, I did not choose the combination of both kinds of footage and I feel that it has benefitted my work greatly. As editing and filming rolled on I continued to ask for more and more feedback to better my work which I feel worked very well, especially as from my previous research I knew exactly who to ask.

Through regular editing updates I displayed my progress for review to my peers and teacher assessing my work (both fitting into my demographic).

Some of the key feedback that I received related towards my choice of filter to go over my work, I wasn't sure whether to use a blue filter or leave my work as it was in terms of colouring. However after talking to various people, it was suggested that I use a 'grey-scale' filter. I applied this on the editing software and feel it looked better than my initial ideas. Furthermore from looking at You-Tube videos of music videos of the same genre, I can see that it is a generic idea that fits well within alternative rock.

 

 

Above is from 'R U Mine?' by the Arctic Monkeys.

 

Video Feedback: 

Feedback from my video was mixed with the majority being Positive with just some negative, which was good too as in the future it will enable me to improve pieces I produce. The areas that people really took too related mainly around the performance pieces, which apparently looked very professional and held an authentic look, similar to many videos in the genre. This is done through many takes of the band playing the song together and finding the best parts of footage from each take to be put into the video, also the cast I feel were chosen well, with the band members being very experienced with the instruments and also used to playing together. People also liked the variety of shots used during the performance pieces, particularly one shot of the drums towards the end of the song. The shot was of the wall and shadow behind the drummer with a strobe light shining towards him, therefor creating a unique piece of footage.

 

This was one my favourite shots also, and looked even better with the black and white filter over the top of it.

 

However negatives did come over the narrative footage. Some people felt it didn't tell a story and was un-related towards the song. However though this may seem apparent many alternative rock videos do not link the story to the lyrics and it was deliberately done, showing drinking and smoking and 'youths' as it is strongly associated with this brand of rock music and its themes. So although some people of my class did not like it I kept this within my video as I do personally feel it is necessary.

 

 

Digipak:

  

Again the Digipak design for my album received mixed feedback from the people I asked to view it. Starting with the positive, people liked the front and back covers most of all as they felt the two covers worked well with each other and looked professional and at a high standard. A particular favourite part of the front cover was the black and white artwork as people said "it fits well with the music video being in the same filter". Another aspect people liked was the font style, which was my first choice of idea and so pleased me that I had made the right one straight away.

However some aspects I did change due to feedback such as the colour of the text on the back cover. Originally the text was white, following the trend of black and white featured on the album and video, but people suggested the change to red to "break the mould", and "offer a form of contrast between colours". After the change I reminded myself of previous albums by bands in this genre that I had looked at which did similar designs with contrasting colour. Another criticism which came too late for me to change was the inside left colour, the image of the drums with the quoted text. People felt it didn't suit and fit in with the rest of my design, however did like the idea of a quote from the lead signer being featured, one person commented that "it adds a level on connectivity between band and audience".   

  

 

When designing the advert I asked the people in my primary demographic for ideas, the piece I got back from everyone each time was "keep it simple". In its design I felt I have done exactly that, and have also incorporated themes similar to the main album design, with the same picture as the inside of the album. However looking back at the finished product I am now not as satisfied with it as I was at first, thinking it is not as professional as the rest of my ancillary tasks and my video.