Evaluation Question 3 – What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The big picture My group and I started planning our music video by watching numerous of well known and not so well known music videos which

we had seen prior to the planning so that we could gain knowledge from a range of different music videos. We then conducted a questionnaire to create a database on our target audience because we knew that we had to base our music video around our target audience interests and not ours.

From our target audience research we found that their favourite artist was Drake and their favourite music genre was RnB we immediately realised that Drake wasn’t really an RnB artist although he feature in some RnB songs. This led to us conducting more research and we found a correlation with those who chose Drake as their favourite artist with liking the genre hip-hop and rap this then influenced us to pick the song Redemption which is a mixture of hip-hop and rap.

From our audience feedback we found that their preferred length from a music video was 3 minutes - 4 minutes. Redemption length is 5 minutes 32 seconds however taking on our audience feedback we felt that this was too long and our audience would then find the music video boring so as a group we decided to stop the music video at a suitable place which resulted in our music video being 3 minutes 13 seconds long we felt this was good because it would keep our audience engaged throughout.

During our editing we had various parts which we changed due to the feedback from our audience. Because every major change we made we wanted feedback on the positive and negatives of the change we made.

When we first started one location we were going to use was our school sports hall however the audience feedback that we had said that the audience wanted to see a range of locations and using the school sports hall would indicated that they didn’t even attempt to vary our location choice so in the end we decided not to use anywhere inside our school and vary our locations tremendously. Overall we had more than five different locations in our music video.

Our planningWhen we were planning we had to discuss what type of research we would undertake we decided to do a

questionnaire as it would be easier to get a larger sample with the questionnaire we also said that we would do more primary research such as asking people one to one of their interests so that we could gain a greater insight into our target audiences interests. We created a moodboard of all the interests of our target audiences which included the clothing brands they like such as Nike in our music video we tried to include a number of brands that our audience liked so that they could relate to the music in some way even if it’s in form of the clothing. We find the social media sites they (our target audience) use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and others. From this we tried to apply a number of the interests as shown in our Tour advert we have the social media sites of our artist.

We found out that majority of our target audience favourite genre was RnB however the song we choice was of rap and hip-hop genre. As a group we discussed whether we should think about another song which was RnB but we decided to stay with the initial song which was rap and hip-hop but include some RnB conventions in our music video. In RnB music video a convention is that the male wears a big fur jacket inside our music video we decided to dress our artist in a sand colour big fur jacket.

The age range was 16-18 but we handed our questionnaire out mostly in school so this influenced the age range hugely. This led to us doing more primary research and we asked those who were out of the age bracket of their interests and a lot of the people we asked had similar interests with those in the 16-18 bracket. Knowing majority of our artist were of an age were they could point out subtle ideas we implemented the fire at the start of the video and the flame dying out at the end of the music video. If our target audience were younger they may not notice subtle things like that so we wouldn’t have included it if not for our target audience research.

Filming and editingDuring the filming and editing process we targeted our audience by having short cuts and with every cut try and change

the location so that our audience stay interested. We also tried to vary the type of shots having high angle shots, low angle shots to give the music video a professional feeling. From me interviewing some of our target audience I realised that those of the age 16-18 get bored very easily even in the duration of a three minute music video. So we had to make our music video different, while editing we realised that the song constantly had three deep beats of a bass drum so we decided we would change the cut on the beat which when editing looked very good so we consistently did this throughout the music video.

When we first started filming our initial idea was to base the music video around a drug story and start the music video of in a clinic. We took inspiration from Eminem – When I’m Gone as he had the exact same concept we wanted to use. We filmed it in a hall and got 8 different actors to help us. We filmed one minute of it and thought it was good. However while we was editing it we received feedback and was told that it was too long, boring and that the camera shots didn’t look very professional. This led to use discussing how we would go on from the criticism and we decided that our target audience wouldn’t like that we filmed so we decided to change the whole concept of our music video and go with one that majority of our target audience liked which was a storyline with romance included. The initial plans would have created confusion within our target audience as it wasn’t very clear what was happening. We changed it to a music video which was based on a failing relationship which the actual song redemption was connoting. This allowed us to attract our audience because they could understand and some may be able to relate to relationship problems rather than drug problems because our age range was 16-18.

FeedbackI received comments from 11 people in this group chat about our music video after giving

them the link to it. Abdul: “The music video is great but maybe change the artist to some well known

designers” Andrew: “That was so interesting did they get back together in the end?”Anuj: “That was so good! The acting was good as well I thought it was a real music video” Daniel: “Outstanding music video however the lip syncing looks a bit weird in some parts”Gideon: “Anyone else notice the flame at the start and at the end? That was really subtle

but very well done!” Hasan: “Well done man, I liked the how some of the cuts were on the beat”Nicholas: “The locations were varied it was so good especially the church scene”Samuel: “The lip syncing was a bit weird but the acting was great and the whole filming

looked professional”Sonny: “That was terrific lol!, I want you to produce more music videos. I liked how the

flame was at the start and the end”Stephen: “That was crazy! Why is it not on youtube? It would generate so many views and

likes!”

From these comments it is obvious to say that the use of different locations was successful we aimed to have a range of locations to keep the music video interesting and we did. Another success is the filming, the camera angles were great and gave it a professional feel to the music video. The underlying message we created in the music video by using the flame at the start and the flame dying at the end of the music video was also successful. We also used the theme of the flame in the digipak which was a success also.

The lip syncing was unsuccessful in some sections of the music video as it was out of sync. We tried our hardest to keep everything in sync throughout the music video however their were some millisecond delays which made it look out of sync. If we could change anything we would make everything in sync so that it looks as professional as possible.

FeedbackI sent another group chat the link for our music video and told them to watch

it and they all gave us feedback.Bolaji: “Very good but a few parts of the lip syncing is dodgy. Definitely

should be an A though”Caleb: “This is very decent I love the way it rewinds through all the

memories” David R: “Great effort but it seems like it was based more towards the female

audience” Ezekiel: “I loved it, that lost hat, where can I get one from?” Ife: “The editing was slick what software did you use? That seemed almost

professional like” Paul: “The lip syncing seemed alright to me the use of different locations was

very good”Yeni: “That telephone box cut was cool I also liked how the flame died out at

the end” Yomi: “That Church scene was very good favourite one out of all of the many

locations you had”

I received similar positive feedback from this group chat as the other one, the range of locations was successful, the fire at the start and at the end was also successful. However criticism I received which I was yet to receive about the music video was that “seems like it was based more towards the female audience”. This is a fair point but we wanted to adhere the stereotypes of the male gender that is why it may seems as if we targeted the female audience more.

FeedbackWe also received positive feedback under the video

which we posted on the vimeo. “I like the shot with the balloons” we felt this shot was successful as it had multiple different colours and was atheistically pleasing a lot of our cuts were in dark colours so we included the balloon shot to lighting the music video up a bit and this was successful.

I wouldn’t change anything about our music video if I could I would just add the story scene at the start which Eminem – When I’m Gone had. Although we did attempt it I would like to attempt it again but make the cuts quick and the camera angles close shots so that there is much background to it because that made it look unprofessional when we tried it.