In my opinion, consistently collecting audience feedback throughout the entirety of the project has been essential. Without having a main consumer group for the products or without the audience feedback it is pointless and suggests the idea that the purpose has not been fulfilled. This feedback has also given me clarification of my ideas and therefore highlighted the strengths, weaknesses and what works and what doesn’t according to the intended audience.
My main priority whilst considering the target audience for my video was that I wanted to ensure it would appeal to both males and females which I believe it does. Firstly, Kodaline is a band that would appeal to both sexes due to their huge range of songs so it could be said there is something that would appeal to everyone. The video style within itself would appeal to women more due to the nature of the storyline and the emotiveness of it which women are typically more open to. Again, stereotypically women would be more intrigued by the dance element than men would. However, my video would appeal to males due to the idea of using a female and the multiple close ups of the female highlighting the ‘male gaze’ theory. The primary age group of intended target audience would be16-30. This is mainly because if they were any younger than 16, they may not grasp the concept of the video and the 1950s due to a change in generation. Similarly, if they were any older than 30, Kodaline’s music within itself may not appeal to them.
Before I began filming, I decided to gain some feedback from both my teachers and others with a higher expertise of the technologies I would be using such as the particular lighting I should use to achieve my intended aim and the camera settings. This allowed me to confidently use the equipment and ensure it was done professionally and properly the first time to save re-shooting. This feedback was one of the most essential within the pre-production stages.
Throughout the course I have decided to constantly collect audience feedback whether it be formal and recorded data or informal. I have also been able to establish the positive and negatives out of these different forms of feedback collecting which I can use for projects in the future. The most essential and utilised form of feedback was simply asking my peers their opinion on certain small elements such as the positioning of an image on my print work or a specific shot/sequence within my music video. As all of my peers are media students, it allowed me to gain an insight into a more technical opinion using their own knowledge and experience of a music video. Moreover, media students typically tend to be very critical which my class are; this allowed me to feel confident in what they were saying and that they would not be afraid to make any changes. I find this way is also very positive as I was able to get feedback on very small sections, sometimes even just one shot, rather than the entirety of the music video which at times, for an audience member can be quite daunting to evaluate 4 minutes worth of footage all in one go. Although receiving feedback off of the other media students within my class has been extremely beneficial, it also comes with many negatives as they could all be classed as ‘similar people’ based on their knowledge of the specification and requirements. If I were to gain feedback off of others within my target audience that weren’t media students, it may have created a more generalised opinion that was not from a media-background and simply what looks aesthetically pleasing and interesting for them.
The first piece of feedback I decided to formally conduct and record was for my initial idea. In order to do so, I picked 5 students at random from my class and filmed their responses to my idea. Gaining feedback from such an early stage was highly supportive and influential throughout the creation of my music video as it told me that I was on the right track and that this idea, if done well, is something that really would appeal to my intended consumer group. One positive of using this method means that I constantly had this footage to refer back to as they also gave some opinions on what they think could develop the idea even further. However, due to the small number of people that gave feedback, it may not appeal to the different people within my target audience such as somebody in the higher age range e.g. 28. From this feedback, I noticed that my target audience were really excited to see the 1950s element of the video and said to ensure I heightened this through the mise-en-scene which is something I then focussed on during pre-production.
Another form of audience feedback I thought would help me with the development of my music video during the production stages is an online survey. I used the website Survey Monkey which allowed me to create a free survey which I could send to anyone of my choice and get them to fill in the questions I entered after watching the first draft of my video. The concept of an online survey is an exceptional idea due to the nature of how easy it is to create and access however, I found that this was ineffective and did not help me to develop my music video. As Survey Monkey collates all of the responses together to enable the creator to analyse the results, I noticed that the formal written responses did not help. For example, I received comments such as "make sure they are both the same person" despite an explanation of it being a first draft and instead of giving constructive criticism, they were all very basic, minimal answers. However, this may be due to many reasons. One of which being the sort of questions I used; if I were to use shorter questions which enabled me to get a much clearer, concise answer about small sections it may have been more beneficial. Furthermore, I published my survey on social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook which would attract the same sort of people, e.g. same age range and of the same educational status being either sixth form, college of university. This may have altered the overall responses and next time I should attempt to reach out to a much broader range of people to ensure a non-biased response.
Lastly, after I had finished an almost final draft of my music video I decided to again post it onto my personal social media page on Facebook and Twitter. Similarly to the negatives of posting a survey onto these sites, I got mainly informal responses from the same age range of people. However, the feedback I did receive was highly positive giving me confidence in the fact that my music video has fulfilled the sole purpose and has appealed to them and has given them a sense of enjoyment from watching it. Additionally, gaining feedback of the emotional responses it had on people such as them crying, further reinforced the idea that I have met my intended purpose as I wanted to create an emotionally, moving music video. The only small criticisms for my music video from this draft was to extend the sections of the older lady as a way of heightening the overall message of the music video and also ensuring each clip is slowed down by 50% to retain the smooth, slow-paced video throughout.
Overall, I found the most vital format of audience feedback has been conferring with my peers in order to get a media-influenced, critical view and also from the clarification of this feedback from my teacher to get an opinion from someone with an expertise. With regards to changes to feedback, next time I would hold more focus groups which will allow a group of people to have a free discussion of all of my products. I also will use a much broader approach in the sense that I would ask a lot more people and of wider backgrounds, different cultures and ages. However, overall I feel that without the amount of audience feedback I have received throughout, I would not have been able to create an as effective product that would cater to a specific audience as much as I have done.
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