3. What Have You Learned from your Audience Feedback?

We learnt that audiences of all ages found our music video entertaining and immersive, and although the colour schemes, narrative and mise-en-scene mainly appealed to women, men still enjoyed watching the video. It was particularly important for us to appeal to many different audiences but especially our target audience of 15-24 year old females so we could establish a solid base of support through our products for our unknown artist.

When planning our music video we decided on our primary, secondary and tertiary audiences

Most people find one-shot's entertaining and enjoyable but we thought that our products would appeal to women in general more:

However by challenging representations of women on the music industry we also hope to appeal to women:

• Ava's funny faces/derps on the album cover and website - doesn't have to be perfect, women can be funny too
• While the song is about a relationship the video satirises it, breaking conventions by resolving the narrative without the artist being in a relationship
• Ava combines traditional aspects of femininity with untraditional female qualities such as strength and being active instead of passive within her relationship
• Ava is not pining for a relationship and isn't defined by one

When we gathered our feedback however, we were pleasantly surprised at how positively men received it as well.

Uses and Gratifications Theory:
In Lianna Le Havas' Music Video for 'Forget', a video with a similar narrative to ours of a girl unhappy with her boyfriend, made by a similar female British indie artist.

Entertainment -Liana le havas is an enigmatic performer -Humour from bad things happening to boyfriend eg bucket of water being on him -Attractive artist -Aesthetically pleasing with consistent colour scheme -May provide emotional release	Information -Seeing relationship breaking down -Possible inspiration for own life decisions
Personal Identity -Identifying with situation -Artist as a role model in terms of clothing, coolness and prettiness -Values of deserving a good relationship	Relationships -Gain insight into artist’s feelings in relationships -See her relationship with friends contrasted with her relationship with man -Perhaps a talking point especially amongst Artist’s fans -Artist show to be strong powerful and in control as well as attractive – may provide substitute for real-life companionship -Identifying with her plight

Our use of Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications Theory:

Part of the way we tried to appeal to our audience was through the different areas identified in Blumler and Katz's theory, as by meeting their wants and needs with our media products we hoped that they would not only purchase Ava's album and music video, but also be encouraged to become fans of our debut artist.

 

Entertainment and Information:

 

Personal Identity: (examtime - if some information is cut off please scroll out)
by latymermedia2012

Personal Relationships: (examtime - scroll to see more)

by latymermedia2012

We held a screening of our completed music video which we invited our actors and friends to come along to, publicizing it using word of mouth, social media and a teaser trailer to try to encourage as many people to come as possible:



Audience Feedback

We gave out questionnaires at the screening, having a voxpop and to other friends and family, as well as posting it online using SurveyMonkey.

We asked members of our target audience what they thought about our music video and received quite positive feedback:


Our feedback suggested that we had managed to make a video that  is professional-looking along with fitting into a genre and image, as many were reminded of other music videos, many of which were our influences:

However the fact that many said 'no' perhaps suggests that we weren't conventional enough, although everyone replied to our questionnaire/surveys saying that they liked the video:

 

I found it particularly interesting to learn how our target audience bought music as many still purchased hard copies of music despite the move of many music selling institutions online, with the vinyl being especially surprising but also indicating that our retro theme fits well with the current generation of 15-24 year olds:

This suggests we were right to promote the buying of our album online and our artist's large online presence might help promote online sales, but we could have included links to iTunes or other online sites.

 

YouTube Statistics:

This is particularly significant as I was surprised to learn that our music video was viewed most often on smartphones and other mobile devices.

That perhaps suggests we should have focused more on the mobile view of the website, although I did edit all the content on the phone pages to make them readable, though some of the content was not transferable.

We also were able to learn were the majority of our audience originated from:


Dislikes:

Most of the negative feedback we received we had anticipated and noticed ourselves:

• Whilst we had used the entirety of our schools' studio lighting rack this excluded some lights which where waiting to have bulbs replaced. This was particularly problematic as we were trying to achieve a high key wash as part of our cheery feel, in a similar way to Lily Allen's music video for 'Alfie'
• We had decided to challenge the typical romantic stories of most music videos and felt like our song could be read in a number of ways. The sugary sweet vocals and the hyperbolic lyrics suggest satire, in addition to the fact that Lily Allen (whose song we're using) is often sarcastic. This disjuncture may arise from the fact the 'He' was originally Allen's father rather than a lover, though I have learnt that making a music video's ideology very clear is important
• We had more male helpers behind the camera, however they did not conform to the dresscode of the rest of our helpers so could not perform in the video
• I made the windows for the cafe set up after our first shoot as I felt it was too bare, and perhaps we could have had more in the background of the boat set up
• Both the globe and the sign were cut off in that particular shot, however 'Ava's performance was best in the shots we used
• The type of paint we had was not traditional wood colour so this may have affected how realistic it was
• I think the changes are quite smooth, though the quickchanges and Ava moving backwards into the set ups could have been better and more controlled, though learning that others do not perhaps suggest that we should have asked our helpers to appear relaxed and as though they were having fun whilst they were moving the sets
• We tried to keep spirits up on the day and keep our helpers energized but the takes we used were from quite late in the day when people might have been tired

Most people however, answered 'nothing' as to what they disliked, and when people said what they liked it was always different aspects. Perhaps then our qualitative feedback just elaborated on what our quantitive feedback indicates, as everyone said they liked our video and gave it a high rating:

Album Feedback:

 

Key:

What people liked

What people didn't like

Website Feedback:
All of the people we asked said our site was visually attractive, although one said it was perhaps a 'bit much', perhaps suggesting that our website is too dense for some people's sensibilities. They also all said that it was easily navigatable ('even for older people') as well as interactive and immersive.

(Scroll to see more)

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