Question 3- What have you learned from audience feedback?

I collected data using Toluna QuickSurveys. I chose this online questionnaire tool because it was quick and simple to use. It also gave me many options when creating the survey for questions types such as multiple choice, rating and ordered answers. The process was easy as I emailed my questionnaire to 25 people who were my target audience in age and I have 10 questions which were:

1) How old are you?

These were the replies- 15% were 19-22 and 85% were 15-18.  This is ideal as my target audience is aged 15-24 so I have data which has been sent to the correct demographic.









2) What's your preferred genre of music?
This question allowed me to see what genre the age range prefer so I can narrow down whose going to enjoy the video most. 35% prefer indie and 15% prefer pop which is good as that means 50% of people would enjoy the song as it is a hybrid of indie, synth and pop.







3) Upon watching the music video what would you score the overall enjoyment?
This question allowed me to see how entertaining the video was as the main purpose is to entertain the audience in order for them to stay interested to hear the song. The average rating was 8.1 which is reasonable and shows that it is somewhat popular with the demographic. The themes were tailored towards the age demographic and therefore may be a reason for the scores. The lowest score received was 6 and the highest was 10 showing that there are things to improve upon.
















4) What is your reasoning for your score to question 3?

A comment for question 4

This question allows me to gain qualitative data as all data I have so far is quantitative data.





Question 5) Were you able to interpret a narrative?

This question simply allowed me to understand how understandable the narrative was. This feedback has shown me that 50% of people could not interpret a clear narrative but the narrative was able to be seen. 35% of the audience understood the narrative which shows that our narrative was fairly readable but there were some problems in terms of communicating it.

Question 6) What is your reasoning to question 5?


This question was important as it allowed me to find out why people could or could not understand the narrative. The comment on the right highlights the main problem with the music video which is the issue of conveying the narrative.

Question 7) Sort album covers by effectiveness (1= strongest)
This question allowed me to see which cover was the best one in the audience's opinion. The data found shows that (on an average) the strongest is panel 1, then panel 2, then panel 3 and then panel 4. The graph splits the ratings up and you can see which ones are the strongest. Panel 2 and 3 were similar in effectiveness. Panel 1 is clearly the most popular whereas panel 4 is the least popular as 50% of people rated it the weakest. 45% of people rated panel 1 the strongest.

Question 8) Do you think the music video appears professional and why?
This question allows me to see what the audience thinks in terms of production value. I knew that the replies may be negative as we only had access to school equipment and were therefore limited in terms of production value and camera quality.  The comments below give some good insight into what was wrong and right about it. The editing seems to be praised the most however the main problem is the camera quality as it is very clear that we used two different cameras. After this feedback I would use one camera to create consistent quality.

 Question 9) Do you think the album covers seem professional? Why?
This question allows me to gain feedback on the audience on my editing and designs for album covers. On a whole the feedback is very positive however there were two comments which disagree completely, stating it seemed unprofessional. This is something I could not help as I have not used Photoshop before this year and tried to make them appear as professional as possible.

10) If you saw the magazine advert would you buy the album?

This question can evaluate my advert and how well it advertises the band. It uses a similar design as the album covers and the comments are rather mixed. The fifth comment is positive as an advert should be eye catching. The second album is the best comment received as it shows the audience sees exactly what I wanted to convey which was the brand and music genre.

My entire data set is made up of people who fit our demographic so I know that all the data I have is representative of the demographic. This makes my results valid as I know that the feedback will be from the correct demographic I want. Also, the gender ratios were rather similar. 45% were male, 55% were female. This is good because I have an equal amount of data for the sets however the data sets are biased as they were not random. I used an opportunity sample and sent the email to people who I knew would provide me with data I could use and data that I would receive back quickly. 

The main issue with my narrative is that it came off as unreadable and confusing. There are some ways I could have tried to make it more understandable would be to just focus on one narrative instead of using an interweaving one. In indie genres the narratives used are often simple narratives however we used a multi-stranded interweaving narrative which can be confusing for first time viewers. 

Strengths from feedback

My feedback provided me with an opportunity to see what was done well. One thing I noticed was that although the specific narratives were not fully understood, there was recognition of the multiple narratives we had. This shows that we used an effective way of weaving in smaller narratives into our music video. 

Another strength was that my print productions were rather effective. The advert, front cover and panel 3 (smoke panel) received praise and was described as "eye-catching". This tells me that those print productions were effective. The panels were described as creative and had an interesting design and intrigued the audience.

One comment gave positive feedback on the print production concept which means that the concept works and is communicable to the audience. A similar comment from an indie-genre fan said they would look into buying the album. The consistency of design created a brand which the audience seemed to like.

Weaknesses from feedback

The narrative was said to be confusing and therefore it does not convey the message we intended to convey. The different narratives became confusing for some and all that was seen was a party scene.

Another weakness from the feedback was that my back cover was very weak. There was criticism towards the image editing as it was stretched and cropped poorly. As well as this 50% of people rated it as the weakest which highlights a weakness of my print productions, showing me where I have caused an issue with consistency as it is not the same quality as the others. 

There were some comments which stated the album covers came across as "confusing" as "there was too much going on". This tells me that some of the panels were too busy in terms of effects. However, I also received a comment where I was told the album covers were too simple and not creative enough so I know that I am in between so I can compromise. 

Stuart Hall's Reception Theory

I received comments on my music video which stated my music video was too confusing, boring or bizarre. I also received comments that understood the narrative and praised the video. This mixture of comments links to Stuart Hall's reception theory. His theory states that an audience member's interpretation and reception is determined at the point of consumption. When planning and creating the video we naturally placed ourselves in the situation of the protagonist and therefore had not considered how other people from different backgrounds would view the music video. People always try to sympathise with a music video and place themselves in it and their way of understanding is shaped by their own experiences with the event. Hall made 3 "reading" types which were the Preferred reading (the intended reading by the creator and in this case the intended reading was to elicit the danger in house parties that youth create for themselves and how youth is becoming fragmented), negotiated (some is understood, some is not) and oppositional (the reading is completely misunderstood) readings. 

Hall's theory may be an explanation for the different types of comments. If an indie fan watched the video they may understand it more than if a R'n'B fan would as the two genres have two different music video conventions. 

Also, a person's schema would affect how they read the music video. A person's personal experiences affect how they understand new ones so if someone had not seen a multi-stranded narrative video before they would not understand it very well.

Extra Feedback

Throughout the construction of the productions I received feedback from my teacher and my friends. On my music video we received a lot of feedback in terms of pace. Our music video initially had little climax to match the song and so we changed it by increasing shots per second as the song becomes louder and faster. We also did not plan of having artist shots in the music video at all but after creating the video with no artist shots it lacked something that would brand it. We therefore shot an artist shot which we cut into the video to make it appear more indie as our video is influenced by Chvrches' video for "Mother we Share" which has artist shots. This made the music video more effective and more readable too.

We also received feedback from friends. This feedback was helpful as our friends are in the same target age demographic so we could see their opinions and change what we had to. For example, the balloon shots and sliding bottle shots (on the right) were added in as they were aesthetically pleasing to the people we showed them to.

Conclusion

Overall I have learnt that the fourth panel was the weakest and should have been made to follow the quality of the other 3 panels. I also learnt that the music video was difficult to understand for everyone .Although most people understood the narrative there was still a large portion which was left confused to what was happening.