What have you learnt from audience feedback?
The audience research that we conducted before the production of our music video was very helpful; it helped us to make decisions on our video. Our audiences expected specific themes such as, death, pessimistic themes, drug use, alcoholism, and sadness. We tried to incorporate this is to our music video.
The audience also said that they expected to see instruments, with an emphasis on the guitar. Although we did not use a lot of instruments, we included a guitar, which was the most common instrument mentioned in our audience research
Everybody we interviewed liked the idea of a narrative based music video, and also thought it should include some performance elements. This is the what we done in our production
We showed the second draft of our music video to our classmates and family members; we got a number of comments which are both negative and positive. We took the feedback from the audience and tried to make changes in which would make our final production better.
One suggestion we got from our classmates was to start the music in time with the first clip or after a couple of seconds of it starting. Before the above amendments were made, the video clips which we used, started around 7 seconds before the music did. After looking over our video, we both decided this was a good idea to start the cinematography and music at the same time, the video now starts in time with the music.
Another suggestion which we got was to take out an establishing shot, this was placed at the beginning of the music video, before the worms view of the man’s feet and after the close-up on the girl’s eye. The comments we got were that the clip of the surrounding location was a good use of cinematography, however it was totally irrelevant in the position it was placed and we should consider taking it out or placing it somewhere else. We took out the establishing shot, we could not decide on a place where the shot was more relevant to the storyline. Instead we included the last shot of our video, an OTS (over the shoulder shot) which is located at a pond. Audiences said that this shot was a good use of cinematography and helps to maintain the confusion of time throughout the music video.
Synchronising the clips where the artist is lip-syncing the lyrics of the song with when the lyrics are being played; this was another comment we got back from our audience feedback which we could do to make our music video better. My partner and I are currently working of this in our editing process; we aim to have this changed by the deadline of the coursework.
The final comment that we got from our audience feedback on the music video was to make the sequence of time clearer. In our second draft of the music video, we had two clips of different clocks, showing time going past fast. One clock was going backwards, and one was going forward. This seemed to confuse the audience as the sequence of time was not made clear. We changed this in the editing process, we took out one of the clocks and left one which is going backwards; this illustrates that time is going backwards. A clip which we used from Space Odesy overlapped the sequence of the clocks, this was to reinforce that time is going backwards, this is a well known film and this sequence within it is notorious for going back in time. The audience recommended that we shorten this clip a little, so we did this. We both agree that after these changes it looks better.
We received some positive comments from the people we showed out video to. The use of locations was said to be good and effective for the genre and narrative of the music video. The comments that we received on the cinematography and visual style of the music video was good. Audience feedback showed that people liked the fact that our video was enigmatic with hidden symbols and a deep storyline. The confusion of time, hidden symbolism and inter-textual references, drew the audiences in and made them wont to watch the video over again.
I gained some audience feedback on my ancillary tasks from classmates, family, friends and lecturers. The feedback that I got was very helpful and allowed me to make some relevant changes in order to improve my music video. One of the comments that I received for my ancillary tasks was to make the text a lot clearer, this could be done by adding effects to the text, such as a drop shadow or inner glow. My ancillary tasks were produced on Photoshop, this was a completely new software for me, which I had no previous knowledge of using. I managed to make some good changes to the effects on the text, I did however have to spend time researching Photoshop effects and looking at tutorials in order to make it effective.
Another comment on the font which I used to the first couple of drafts was that it was too plain or simplistic, people said that they would prefer to see a more modern, edgy and trendy text. After looking at all the fonts which I could possibly use I decided on one which I felt portrayed the collaboration of genres and the audience which I was targeting. I changes the font of my text to a more modern, edgy font.
With regards to audience feedback, I received some comments about my ancillary tasks. This was that the Digipak and the magazine advert looked very basic and simplistic. I understood where this comment came from and looked to improve upon this aspect of the work. The whole process of using Photoshop was new and difficult to me, so producing something that looked ‘ok’ or ‘average’ was something positive for me. After I heard this comment and got to grips with working Photoshop more, made some changes to my ancillary tasks which made them better.
Before my audience feedback, the pictures which were included in my ancillary tasks were quite basic, with little or no effects to them. After I received comments that my ancillary tasks looked to plain, I made a number of changes to the images. I changed things about the images such as contrast levels, the brightness, darkness of particular aspects, these different things helped the images to look more edgy, and not as if they had simply been copied and pasted.
I also changed the picture order; the front image of my digipak had changed a number of times, from images of fire, the woods, and different images of the artist. I decided that certain images which I chose were not the best image to use, I decided on the image of the artist for my final version of my digipak and magazine advert. The reason for this choose is that some people commented that the other picture, for the front of the digipak were not very effective or relevant; even though they did help in terms of marketing and carrying out themes, symbolism and mood.
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