Focus Group:
In the video bellow, I asked four people (two male, two female and all in the age bracket for my target audience between 15-30) the following questions:
- Did you enjoy my music video? And what parts the most?
- Do you think it represented the Indie-Folk genre well and why?
- Did you like the narrative? Or how could I have made it better?
- What could be improved overall?
Good Points:
The most liked scenes were the woodland, bathroom and stair scenes. People said that my video was 'well made' and included 'creative editing'. The narrative was thought to be conventional of indie folk as it resembled a 'journey' and people found it was easy to relate to the song. Many two shots and cross cutting was used in the editing which is conventional of the genre. My narrative was said to be realistic as 'reality is presented like that' and it 'represented what we go through' hopefully, making it more relatable to the audience. overall it was said to be 'technically well made'.
Improvements:
The video could have been more abstract to fit even better with the indie genre and what the indie audience likes. Some thought the narrative was made more clear through the use of the lyrics instead of being clear through the video and some parts were quite cliche. Some of the scenes should have been re-shot (Lily and Wes fighting) because they were visibly laughing in some parts. Lastly, the lighting could have been improved on the woodland scene. The darkness makes it difficult to see her expressions.
How I used the audience feedback:
For the point about making the woodland scene lighter, I used post filming editing techniques since I didn't have time to re-film. This included changing the light balance, brightness and contrast of this scene whilst using the editing suites. Although it is not as effective as re-filming and using proper lighting equipment on set, It did improve the quality of the scene and made it look more professional. In order to make the narrative more clear for the audience, I cut out some shots that were on the original story board and changed them to scenes that I thought were more fitting. For example, Lily and Wes' fight scene. This scene, I believe makes it clearer to the audience that the video portrays a break up instead of focusing on Lily in the woods (post-break up). The use of an actual fight scene is more conventional and helps the audience understand the rest of the video.
Questionnaire:
By doing a questionnaire I have been able to get feedback from a large number of people quickly. the benefit of asking many people is that the feedback will be different and each one will have something else to improve, maximising the amount of improvements I could make.
here are some examples of the replies from the 20 questionnaires I handed out:
Audience feedback has given me a great opportunity to improve my products on areas that I may have missed. After continuously working on the same project for months, it is a good thing to get a fresh view from your target or niche audience to make any little corrections or constructive criticism in order to make your product the best it can possibly be. After listening to people's feedback, I realised that I agree with everything they have suggested, even the subtle improvements like adding some more effects on the stairs scene and improving the lighting on the woodland scene. All of these are reasonable suggestions that I wouldn't have thought about without some feedback and a fresh point of view.
Ancillary text feedback:
Good points:
Many said that the digipak and poster linked very well with my main product and there was clear similarities which would make them recognise the digipak in a music store. Every one loved the image of Lily and how I changed the opacity of her face and placed different angles of her face on top. Some said this made the ancillaries 'arty' looking which fits well with the genre and would appeal to the indie audience. Others liked the text, they said it 'stood out well' and the simplistic style makes the product professional and classy looking. Another good point was the use of features on the back like barcodes, record label logos and small print, these all made my digipak look like a real media product. The favourite feature in the poster was the star rating, this apparently made it look a lot more realistic.
Improvements:
The main improvement most people said was that the poster looked quite simple and it would look better if the text was edited a bit more and made larger. Someone also said that the digipak may have looked better if some of the images were taken from my actual video (like the bath scene) this would link the products more for maximum continuity. Finally, someone mentioned that more colours should be used in my ancillary texts to make the product stand out more instead of the dark colours I have used. Specifically in the poster where the majority of it is black.
I also used Web 2.0 to gain audience feedback as it is a common media platform that is highly used and easily accessible. In this case I used Twitter. Other social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram can also be used to achieve the same results. Even YouTube has a space to leave your comments. This is specifically good for gaining feedback from people outside your peer group and of different demographics. When asking my friends what they thought, this was the results:
The comments about the narrative and creativity was reassuring, and shows that I have taken into consideration feed back given on previous drafts.
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