Final Evaluation Question Three

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

(SCRIPT READ OUT IN VIDEO IS AS FOLLOWS)

Throughout the process of the A2 coursework I have been given feedback on different pieces of work from peers, teachers, ect. This feedback was useful in terms of development of the text and gaining target audience views to help influence the final product and ensure it was an engaging, interesting piece.

Research and Planning Feedback:

Feedback from both teacher’s and peers was extremely helpful to us, as a group, throughout the process of the coursework as it ensured that we remained on track with all tasks and that the group blog presented a clear, trackable creative journey leading to the end products (music video and ancillary texts) being justified and to a professional standard. 

Comments received on our initial pitch were mainly negative and made us realise the lack of clarity presented.

After these poor responses, we decided to consider the advice given from Mr Smith and revisit and alter the initial pitch to include the necessary improvements and give a clearer presentation on our ideas for the music video at this stage; giving insight to the audience on what to expect in terms of the narrative, performance and elements of the mise en scene. Through the comments on this post encouraging us to improve and update the pitch, I feel we benefitted largely as a result of doing so as adding clarity and detail to the initial display helped improve our vision for the final product.

Mr Ford left feedback on a blogpost which made us realise that as a group we lacked focus and consistency in terms of our posts tracking a journey of creation. After reading this we began to post more frequently to allow the audience to follow our ideas and justifications and also to achieve the best possible grades as we understood a clear, consistent blog was essential. We soon transformed this constructive criticism around to more focuses, regular posts to ensure we were working at the highest standard expected at this level.

            

We each understood the importance of research and planning in the task and how it would help us in achieving the best possible final products. Therefore we found reflection of every piece of feedback received effective in strengthening our ideas and performance.

Feedback from Digipak and Advert:

Most of the feedback received was positive and showed a clear improvement from the draft version I created.

Given the feedback received from teachers based on the draft versions of the ancillary texts it was made clear to me that improvement was required for me to effectively engage and appeal to the target audience. I was not happy with the low marks received on the draft therefore I decided to take a completely different approach and create a homage version of Bombay Bicycle Club’s Flaws digipak and advertisement promotion. Without having this feedback I would have settled with the unrelated, ineffective initial design which would have resulted in low marks being awarded. I feel that the comments and advice provided encouraged me to recreate my ideas and allowed me to reach into the higher mark band as a result.

    

The reassurance received from peers gave me higher levels of confidence in my ideas as I received positive responses from peers who commented on the posts via their blogger accounts. All of those who commented on the posts are also media students who had been required to design and create their own digipak and adverts, this meant that they have knowledge on conventions of these types of ancillary texts and are able to make reliable and educated comments based on my designs being effective and realistic in industry.

Jack makes reference to my draft versions in his comment on my final version of Parables’ advertisement. As he says that he feels my idea appears professional and stylish I gained confidence in my design, as he is a student who has a great passion for this subject and is someone I would consider as having knowledge in this area of media. He also references the Radio One DJ quote being featured on the advert and compares to Bombay Bicycle Club’s advertisement for their Flaws album; as this design was the basis of my design (homage) I was very pleased that he picked up on this as it shows my homage was effective and successful in achieving essentially a direct copy, which was the intention. This shows Jack was an example of a member of my target audience who interpreted the preferred reading of my ancillary texts as he understood my designs in the intended way.

MUSIC VIDEO FEEDBACK:

The usefulness of feedback from the draft version of our music video can be seen through the improvements made and included in the final version as we decided to refilm and gain more effective and relevant footage to present our performance narrative to the best of our abilities. Teacher feedback from the draft suggested that a refilm was necessary in order to access the higher marks and advice offered allowed us to notice that some aspects of the mise en scene were not developed enough for us to clearly get across the intended storyline.

Through the comments made above, the importance of the mise den scene within our video was emphasised and was clearly something we needed to improve on when filming and editing the final version. We considered all of the advice from teachers based on the draft music video and made all of the appropriate changes suggested to enhance the narrative aspect and to ensure the audience view the preferred reading.

Due to the nature of our complex, emotional narrative, it was expected that some individuals within our target audience may interpret the content in an oppositional format and not take in points in the way in which we, as the directors, had wished. However this is something which I feel is acceptable for our video as it is open to have multiple interpretations and leave the audience with something to find interesting and consider during and after viewing.

           

After sending the link to the final music video on YouTube to ten peers, me and my group  asked them to go online and visit our group blog to complete a questionnaire based on what that had seen; this feedback was useful in establishing who our target audience are and what features they would look for in a video of this type. Feedback showed that our video gained a preferred response as there seemed to be understanding of the meaning/narrative we incorporated. I was pleased with this response, although it was unexpected as I felt the narrative could have been delivered much clearer and strongly that we managed to achieve.

Included in the survey was a section which allowed the audience to comment on any necessary improvements. These tended to bring up small matters of the mise en scene which were often related to enhancing the quality of the video in comparison to those in current industry. (‘dancing needed to be a bit smoother’ ‘use different angles of filming’.) This feedback was useful in understanding what the target audience took from the video and it was interesting to see how they may have chosen to do things differently- this would be something to consider if given the opportunity to do a similar project In the future.

Despite the feedback being important to us throughout the process of completing the coursework, it could be argued that those who completed the survey after viewing the final version of our music video were unreliable for commenting as some did not have any experience with this type of media text and would not know what conventions and other aspects help define a music video as ‘good enough’. Due to the lack of knowledge of the media subject or around this area of media which some of the audience we asked to provide feedback from, we may not be fully justified in basing key decisions on based on their feedback given. However they are still within the target audience and therefore their opinions would mainly be useful in constructing an effective music video which works and engages.