EVALUATION QUESTION 3 by Sian Olivia

Throughout the production of my project, I have received audience feedback to help me see which direction I needed to take my video in. I have received this feedback in a number of different ways at different stages of the process. I found this helpful because it has allowed me to pick out the strengths of my work, as well as identify elements I had to improve in order to get higher marks.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 09:35:49 UTC

A lot of the feedback I've received has been verbal and therefore not recorded, however I've collected a number of different pieces of feedback from both before and after the completion of my music video. I stuck to trying to get the majority of feedback from my target audience, which I definitively identified as people between the ages of 16-20, and more than likely female.

My first piece of audience feedback came in the form of a survey I created via Google documents. I wanted to find out exactly what people expected from my work so that I could expand on this and create the best possible music video.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 09:48:56 UTC

I went on to share this on Twitter in order to try and get responses from a number of different people to have a wider range to base my work on. I have a range of connections on Twitter, as it is a worldwide known social networking site, so although the responses may be similar, they did come from a range of places, namely the UK, the USA, and Sweden. I also asked my friends and some classroom peers to help out with this.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 09:53:56 UTC

The feedback from this told me many things:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 09:56:44 UTC

Firstly, most of my responses came from young women [16-20 years old] so the answers may be more biased in that respect but I always aimed for my target audience to be a similar group so this didn't affect my views. I went on to receive information on favourite music genres, expectations for a music video [in terms of whether a narrative is expected, the use of performance, editing techniques, etc], and why music videos are watched, to name a few. I used all of this feedback to begin to properly plan my project and let me know what will be expected to feature in my video.

All findings from my audience research survey can be found here [via Slideshare]:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 10:07:24 UTC

Throughout the construction process, I created rough cuts of my music video to show others where I was going with my ideas and give an idea of what my finished product would look like. My first rough cuts consisted of clips I compiled to show part of the editing techniques I hoped to use. The first rough cut I created consisted of the use of lip sync and colour editing:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 10:08:42 UTC

This rough cut was presented to the class as part of peer feedback to help each other recognise what we liked in each other's work and what could be improved. Each of us made notes for each other so that we could visually see these results:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 10:12:28 UTC

I noted the most frequent responses so that I had the general consensus of what the class thought about my work:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 10:13:33 UTC

From this, I learned that people expected me to film in more locations than the two I had shown in my rough cut. I decided that I agreed and filmed in another location to add to my video's concept. Another criticism suggested by some people was that the projection I had presented to them in the rough cut didn't seem to match the song. However, I realised that I had chosen just one section of the song and those particular projections weren't the only ones I had as some of my projection clips illustrated the lyrics exactly. This feedback helped me realise the strengths of my video [the filming and editing techniques] as well as some things I could work on as the process progressed.

When my video was complete, I sent the final product to a number of peers so that I could see if any final improvements were to be made. Again, I shared this on Twitter and asked people via text message and in person:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 10:19:06 UTC

All of the people I asked for feedback were within my target audience, which was the age range 16-20. It also consisted of all females to stay with my original audience feedback.

One piece of feedback I received was from my friend Cara who lives in Ireland.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 10:23:36 UTC

A criticism she made was that the lip sync didn't look as clean as it could have because my actor was not very confident. Whilst I agreed that my actor was not very confident with the lip syncing, I think the best possible job was done with the lip syncing segments. She also said that she liked the projection technique used - something I've found is that most people enjoy the projection element because it's not something often done in music videos, though I've found some examples of it within the dream pop subgenre I was studying.

Another piece of feedback I received was from my friend Rory who lives in MA, USA.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 11:02:30 UTC

Like me, she knows and is a fan of Halsey - the artist of the original song. As a fan, she's aware of the existing music video and the conventions/narrative it features and would be expecting my video to possibly be similar. From her feedback, I learned that she enjoyed my editing and particular techniques like the projections. I was happy to get such a positive response from her because she's well aware of the existing video and understands the meaning of the song, so it meant that her seeing my concept and thinking my final piece had achieved my goals meant I had been successful in sticking to the conventions of the genre.

I also received feedback from Samantha, a friend of mine.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 11:21:18 UTC

Sam has helped me throughout this process by telling me what she thinks about the rough cuts and helping me to decide what would look better. She, too, understands my concept as I had told her my ideas throughout the development. I then decided to send her my final video for my final pieces of feedback from her as she was someone who had followed my creative journey. Overall, I think she perfectly understood what I was attempting to show. Firstly, this taught me that I had stuck with my original ideas from the beginning of the planning process. Again, I learned that the projections are a key technique in the video for the people who viewed it. The fact that my concept is clear to the viewers shows me that although I didn't plan to have a linear narrative, the ambiguous and abstract narrative I was going for worked as my themes and ideas are still conveyed to the audience. The use of static also was important to the video's concept and I'm glad that she picked up on this.

In a further attempt to receive feedback, I posted a link to my video on Tumblr and received feedback from one of my followers:

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-27 11:33:10 UTC

It was important to me that I made a video which was clearly identifiable in terms of the genre and/or subgenre. This comment telling me it reminded an individual of a Tove Lo music video teaches me that I have done this: Tove Lo is of a similar genre to my original artist, Halsey, and the video shows scenes of a party. To me, this shows that once again I've stuck to some genre conventions as people can draw links between similar artists from watching the video.

Overall, I have learned...

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-28 10:58:31 UTC

... that the concept of my video is clear and can be linked to my chosen sub-genre of dream pop. My concept of having the actor detached from everything else that is happening so show independence has been identified by the audience. It's worth noting that the responsive audience to the finished video are all within my target audience so this shows that my target audience understands the meaning, as I hoped. I found that my concept of using static came across well and was distinctive; this would stand out to people although it's something used in a few videos of the similar genre. This would insinuate that my music video would be popular and fit in amongst the dream pop sub-genre as it can be relatable to the genre.

The feedback has been really helpful to me, especially because I've been getting it throughout the duration of this process. Each piece has allowed me to see where my work was heading and allow me to develop my work to make it the best it can possibly be. I'm glad of the audience feedback I received because it helped me greatly during the creation of my music video, and even helped to make a few changes after I sent out a near to finished version.

Caitlin from Wales also gave feedback on my finished music video.

sianoliviaaa — 2015-01-28 11:08:24 UTC

She commented more on the editing and filming of my video instead of the actual content. From this, I learned that particular techniques worked well in my video, namely the transitions and the static effects I used.