Evaluation- Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback? Once we had completed our second rough cut of the video we organised a small screening in the media room, inviting along various people inn the sixth form who had previously not seen or did not know the contents of the video, in order to get a non-biased reaction. We chose these people based on the fact that they all fitted in with our target audience age band and also they seem to be the style of people that will like the music and the themes of our music video, fittting into the description we set out in my post "Target Audience Research" Here are some photos from the screening:
After the screening we chose a selection of people give us feedback in an interview situation. We did this in groups of two and asked the following questions: * What were your initial thoughts? * Were you shocked by the ending? * Do you think the visuals correspond with the chosen song? * What do you think are the positive aspects? * What do you think are the negative aspects? * If anything, what would you change about the video? Here are the results:

Audience Feedback - Rough Cut 2 from WGSB on Vimeo.

The audience recieved the video really well and the feedback we gained was very positive and constructive, with every interviewee praising the video in some way. However this may have been down to politeness. But it wasn't all niceties there was some constructive criticism.

Elements people particularly enjoyed were the party scenes with strobe lighting and fast paced editing, as well as the setting and casting. Furthermore the subtle hints throughout to the shocking finale. On the other hand some people felt that the animal masks and the inclusion of the younger boy was confusing, and seemed 'too random' at times, however as this key idea of our video is placed to confuse and alter the narrative, I believe it worked effectively.

We used the feedback to tweak our video, including some faster cuts, in an effort to break up the monotonous scenes such as Jack getting dressed and going to the bathroom. We decided to alter this based on Mrs Mcluckie's views as well our audience and our own opinions. The main conclusion we drew from this research was that the video was a product that appealed to the target audience, and that could be used in the real world as all the viewers were pleased with our efforts. Perhaps it was a narrative some could relate to, or perhaps it acted as escapism. We tried to encapsulate a skins-esque teenage drama within the space of 3 minutes, and we hope this has been achieved.

On completion of the final cut I put a link to the video on facebook, to get further feedback from the target audience.

One of the commentators, who happens to be studying Media Production at University, with experience at the BBC, had this to say

'I liked it. Editing to the beat can be tricky when trying to hold up a narrative. But you pulled it off by using constant "flash back" clips. Also, the picture in picture effect contained just the right amount of shots. Overloading the viewer with information can draw attention away from the narrative flow.

The reference to the child, suggesting a forgotten innocence within the character, tied in well with the video's portrayal of todays youth.
Overall, the sequence included some well thought out editorial decisions and I was happy to see normal cuts, rather than quick fix transitions.

I give the Prodigy parody a 80%, I deducted 20% due to indieness.'

It was great to receive feedback to receive feedback from an experienced perspective outside of school, although the last sentence was a joke he has clearly picked up on the purposefully placed references t The Prodigy's video 'Smack My Bitch Up' which acted as a great influence in the narrative and filming of our video. In addition he compliments the fast paced editing, and inclusion of the young boy as a juxtaposition with his elder self, which some others found difficult to understand, this helped confirm our belief in the video and its themes.

Another positive bit of feedback was the final comment left on my facebook post, which stated "its amazing, I can really imagine it being the real video to doubt" this really pleased us as it reassures that the product is a credible media text of its genre.

All of this really positive feedback is great but it is always good to get negative feedback from an Audience and Mrs Mcluckie was always at hand to aid us, she often found our original work to be slow monotous and boring, if you look at our rough cut, she disliked our early footage due its static nature as well as the bad choice of lighting and cast. However I think you will find that in the later cuts our party scenes became tighter, with more controlled movement. On top of this we changed our narrative to the morning after/later that night effect that was changed due to Miss's comments about our early rough cut, into a more focused, exciting narrative, with much more interesting mise-en-scene and camera movement.