Feedback from audience members is so important because you need to know what is effective and what works well for them. This is so vital because of you have elements that audience members don’t like in the video, it won’t be as successful as it could potentially be. Getting audience feedback can massively help because they can give you ideas for re-shooting and what extra you could do with the video. This can add a little more to the video and maybe add another element that audience members say they are looking for.  

 

I feel that we did well considering that we only had one day to film and a limited time to edit. From the audience feedback we learned that the audience liked what we had produced and thought that it was similar to the actual Fireflies video itself. We also learned that attention to detail with the mise-en-scene was very effective and was very close to the actual video. This was very challenging to set up because in the actual video there are lots of toys and lamps all over the room and we had to try and make the room we were filming in as close to the actual video as possible. This took lots of planning and arrangement but we are pleased that the audience found it effective. 

 

Another thing we learned for future is that we need to pay a bit more attention to camerawork and editing with the cutting to the beat. These were only slight corrections as I feel the editing was of a high standard and was very close to the original music video. However, if we had more time we would have focused on this in very fine detail to make sure that it was perfect and the exact shots cut at the same time that the official video does. 

 

This feedback was very helpful when I came to thinking about our real production. This is because it showed us that we needed to pay close attention when looking at the Mise-en-scene of the production. Because we spent so much time setting up the preliminary video, it has taught us that the attention to detail was liked by the audience and that it was effective for the video. We had to think about this whilst filming our production as we didn’t want to rush any shots and make sure there were no small continuity errors in the music promo.  

 

We learned that people our age listen to a lot of different styles and genres of music. However, the most common genre that we found the people we asked liked was rock and pop rock. This helped us with our research because we were able to know what people of our target audience liked and what they normally listen to. This helped us as it influenced our track choice somewhat as we were able to look for a song with elements of what the audience members said they liked in. We also were able to find out how much narrative and performance they liked to see in music videos. 

 

This research would be very helpful when planning for our music video as we would be able to look back at the Vox pop and focus group to see what our target audience wanted and expected to see in a music video. This would mean that we would be able to make our video as effective as possible for our target audience. Whilst planning we looked at the audience feedback that we had got and could use ideas that they said would be effective so that they liked the music video more and could engage with the narrative and performance more. 

 

Another thing that we were able to do from the vox pop that we filmed was to see what narrative structure they liked and what would be the most effective for them in a music video. The narrative structure that our audience members liked the most was amplification. We could use this information whilst planning to know what our audience would like. 

 

As well as filming a vox pop to get audience feedback, we also made a focus group. This is a large group of people answering questions all together, as well as giving thumbs up/down for different questions. There is also then a group discussion. Focus groups are a way of answering more questions about genre and conventions in a music video with a large group giving more detail and depth. We gave everyone in the room a questionnaire with a number of questions asking things about narrative types and what they liked to see in a music video. As well as this, we did a thumbs up/down on a number of questions and then went on to do individual questions out loud. 

 

Focus groups are a very good way of getting lots of different people’s thoughts on a matter and we could gather lots of information about the different genres and styles that they all liked. As well as this, we could find out what they were expecting to see in an indie rock music video. The questionnaire was a very good way to get people opinions on lots of different things such as favourite genre and performance to narrative ratio. 

 

The thumbs up exercise was helpful to us as we could get people’s opinions however, we could not get any further information or explanation with this compared to the questionnaire where they could all write their reasons for their choices. The questions at the end were very effective because we could personally ask each member of the focus group what they thought and the reasons that they have said this. We were able to get personal thoughts very easily in this way. 

 

One of the things a few member of the group said that could be improved was the pace of the editing and it was too slow and did not build up enough excitement on the crescendos of the song. We learned that when we next go out and film to make sure that we got lots of different variety of shots so that we could include more fast-paced editing with more shots included. Leading on from this, we learned that another location would go well with the performance of the singer as originally he was just stood in the same place. The group agreed that the next locating should be a more urban location as it would suit the genre of the music and would look really effective in the video with the contrast of the field and the more urban setting. 

 

From this, we learned that we needed to focus more on the typography that was shown on the digipak and poster. We needed to make sure that both sets of text were the same and that thy had synergised with each other. We also learned that we needed to spend more time looking at the small details of the advert such as adding brands and reviews at the bottom. This is because we conventionally see these elements on real promotional packs and adverts. We wanted to make the final edit as good as we could so had to add these elements to make it as professional as possible. 

Another way we got feedback for our video was through the use of YouTube and Facebook. We uploaded the video to both sites and linked the Facebook video to the YouTube channel. Lots of people commented on the Facebook post saying that they really liked certain elements such as the narrative and performance. They also said that the costumes suited the genre well and the representation of the indie rock genre was illustrated clearly through this.