Evaluation - Q4

4) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I believe our music video received positive reception during it's screening @ the independent cinema Screen on the Green; people were clapping along to the beat of the song, Dionne was being cheered every-time she appeared on screen and to top it all off, an applause at the end of the video. It felt great considering how much we worked on it - we were constantly making changes according to feedback from our peers and teachers - constructive criticism you might say. From our rough-cut screening, the whole class agreed that some shots needed to be replaced due to poor lighting and so. This made panic slightly as I thought our entire video would be too dark in the cinema. Because of this, we amended this with use of 3 way colour-correct, brightening up the dark shady shots. Peers who had watched our rough cut saw the change in colour saturation and agreed it made for a fresh video. We also used slow-motion to add a technical aspect with our work. It was originally difficult to place as we didn't want to conflict with the existing shots we had edited to the beat. But the nonetheless, the feedback from the audience @ the screening was great. The only real criticism was in regards to adding filters; We deliberately left this out of our video as it might've made our work look artificial - I was especially reluctant about using this after my film-opening at AS; it looked cosmetic due to excessive transitions, filters and effects used. Ultimately, I don't think of our music video any differently than I did after the screening because I think with each member contributing their respected inputs and ideas, we would only go through with something if each of us were satisfied - there was no clouded-judgement unlike my ancillary work…

Rather than showing you all the feedback videos full of waffling and nonsense, I've made a short compilation to give you insight as to what the audience liked most (P.S. I was the cameraman). But if by any chance you want to check out the videos, be sure to check out my Final Cut - Feedback blog I posted a while ago.

During my initial production, I thought I'd ask friends and family what they thought of two ancillary pieces (advertisement & front-panel) through WhatsApp, the instant messaging app. I chose to seek feedback from them as appose to peers from media as I wanted views mirroring that of a consumer. And luckily enough, I found a few negatives in regards to both pieces. Some thought the main picture in the outside-panel had poor lighting which made Larah, Anca & Dionne look 'uninspiring & emotionless'. Though you could argue that performers on generic pop-albums have a blank facial expression, I think this goes beyond challenging the convention and questions whether it's really a pop album. However, I think it was a bit late to re-shoot pictures as my ancillary product took a lot of our class-time.
From my feedback, I read that cracking a smile was important as positive facial-expressions triggers a 'subconscious reaction' - this would be more likely attract someone who'd be happy to listen to it rather than your average customer - However, I thought this is an important feature to have as a pop group, especially as we're aiming for a younger demographic of teenagers and young adults. Someone else believed that the limited colour choice (black/white/red) rendered my work a bit gothic. I was initially worried about this comment as I thought it would make the genre of our album unclear, however, we were deliberately challenging the use of colour in pop music. Furthermore, my record publication (Island Records) ident and track-listing enforces that this album's spawned from the pop-genre; after all, you wouldn't see the Sugababes release an album under heavy-metal label 'Roadrunner' or contain tracks such as 'Pulse of the Maggots' or 'Danger - Keep Out'.
My advertisement received mixed reactions: some thought it looked professional whereas others thought the alignment of the text and album looked weird. Someone also questioned the necessity of having a small picture of the album in the ad - I had gathered this idea from the advertisement for Marina & The Diamond's 'Shampain'. Because of this, I thought I'd make another advertisement (this time horizontal), making note of these concerns. In my new advertisement, the main picture used was the one from the album (pulled from Jessie J & Ellie Goulding) with the text aligned in the middle of the poster.

Overall, I feel like I 'thrown' off my moral high horse; for what I thought was a masterpiece, was actually flawed. But in overview, it made to look at my work differently and change certain aspects, e.g. I made the new advertisement which I liked more than my previous one. I also added a sticker to my out-side panel to cover up some of the picture's space, but I think makes it made the album look professional. With that said I can honestly say I've learned to be more judgemental of my work and take criticism as a positive as it ultimately leads to a better product. I go into greater detail in this video in which I cover the importance of constructive criticism and changes in consumer trends. 

I also made a Feedback Reaction Slide on Slidely. Originally for this question, I reached out to my friends for their views on my ancillary work shown above. And with this presentation, I comment on the feedback given to me by friends. Though I make note of it the paragraphs above, some of the feedback I thought could have been better justified whereas I should state - in greater detail - what went wrong and how I could amend this - enjoy!