Evaluation Question 3

The A focus group was set up again to have a discussion about our music video and listen to the feedback, both positive and negative. This was done so that we could receive reviews to see what was done well and things that we could do to improve our video in the future.

Our target audience said that:

"Good story line, strange effects"

"Odd effects, weird scenes"

"Good video overall, however I do not see the use of the ripple effect"

"Good video effects/good acting/good special effects"

"Text worded well on the screen"

Message from my school's PA Mrs Gunter giving her review for the music video.

What do you feel needs improvement?

It was very clear that the flaw with our video was the special effect. Even though the target audience said they liked special effects, I feel that we attempted to use too much effect, so in the process it kind of effected the video in a bad way.

What did you like about the video and why?

From the feedback each audience member had different likes. The main liking however was the story line and the special effect in which was used. The group also said that they felt that the story line corresponded with the lyrics, which was good because we wanted to go with Andrew Goodwin's third and fourth theory.

What were your favourite parts and why?

The feedback for the video was quite good. Some stated that they liked the fact that it was teenage based because they felt that they would be able to relate to the fact that it was in school/college and they are still in school. This was good because we wanted the video to be able to relate to the target audience and we did just that.

What sort of image do you think we have given to the artist?

The target audience said that they felt that the artist was represented in a loved up and relationship type way. This was good because we wanted to change the image of Rihanna and Chris Brown to a more RnB type of way because the song clarified that they wanted to declare their love and it was nobody's business.

Would you buy this album as a result and why?

The group stated that they felt they could relate and could understand the story line, therefore they would buy the album.
Due to the response in which the target audience gave back, this showed that the music video was a success but it could do with some improvements.

I ensured that the audience feedback was consisting of a cross section of society and was a niche market. This was because I didn't want the feedback to seem too biased and seem more appropriate because if we all had people who would have the same ideas and thoughts about the video, I wouldn't be able to identify the areas in which needed to be improved and would best benefit me in the future when creating another video. For example, I ensured that I also had a mix of gender because if I didn't then I might have just gotten the more stereotypical dominant male responses, which in many cases would be sexism because the video wasn't only aimed at males, it was there to be aimed at both parties and to receive the non-biased feedback.
When it comes to theories, I feel that the feedback best suited 'the negotiated reading' by Stuart Hall, who stated that 'the reader partly believes the code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interest'. I feel this theory suits the feedback because even though the target audience stated that they liked the video, they also referred some improvements in which we could do to make the video more likable and look more professional.

What have I learnt from the feedback?

I've learnt that even though when in the planning stages of the project, we tried to collect as much feedback as possible so that the video could be what the target audience liked. However due to this, we tried to make it something that the audience would like and therefore allows that thought to have a majority influence on our work. Having influence from the target audience wasn't bad because they were our selling point but we should also have our own ideas as a main feature because even though our audience might like a certain style of work, our ideas could have also impacted on them.
In our free time, we could have went out and shot different scenes that would have suited the concept of our video, for example, we could have went out to the cinema and filmed it, go out to eat together, rather than just simply having us walk around or sitting at a table talking, there were much more romantic and relationship-like activities that could have been captured on camera. I felt doing this would have made the storyline a bit more romantic and therefore more realistic; even though our storyline was said to be quite good, I feel there was room for improvement.

Because our knowledge on editing wasn't good, we weren't able to do certain aspects of the music video to its full potential, for example, we weren't able to match the lip syncing to the song correctly, even though it wasn't too noticeable, the fact that we weren't able to do this showed that we needed to learn more and improve upon our editing skills. Due to the lack of access to a more better editing software, the requests in which the target audience asked for weren't all able to be carried out, for example, they asked for SFX effects, but my group only had access to windows movie maker so these tools weren't available. If they were available I feel that our final product would have been of much better quality.
What I like about the feedback however, was the fact that the audience felt that the storyline was easy to follow. This is good because in certain music videos there isn't really a concept behind it, but just there for the purpose of being there. So this meant that in the future when creating a music video, it is essential that I ensure that the storyline is understandable and that the audience will be able to follow.