What have you learnt from audience feedback?Througout the process I have constanlty referred to audience feedback and research to

make the products relevant to our target audience. I found the best way to question the public was through an online survey creator called “survey monkey” it allowed you to publish the survey via email, social media and online to allow a large sample of answer. Also through the analysis by showing the results on a graph it allowed a quicker undertsanding of the most popular view.

The first survey was to determine the target audience. For this helped to produce the style and themes for the products. Through the questions I determined the gender and age of my audience but also what attracts them to a new song, how they view female

artists and where they watch music videos. From these results determined that the majority of people who watch Pop music are Women aged 16-25. They also like artist who are powerful and strong and attractive, this helped to understand what image to

create our star into, instead of the conventional provocative image female stars are shown in. Using this information we have found we will be able to advertise to attract this target audience and presenting the figure of the artist in the light which will attract this form of female. In advertising today it is important to narrow down your selected audience as attracting a market is vital to sell albums as people can easily illegally download music, but if you receive the high attention through a good advertising campaign the people who enjoy the artist will be willing to pay to listen. Also due to this being the audience of our age group we can use our own knowledge of what we like and find appealing to draw in others.

For this target audience social media is a huge presence in their lives, so by placing adverts on twitter and Facebook, we can make the presence of our artist seen. Other ideas that have been influential, such as the recreation of Pharell Williams’ "Happy" parody videos is allowing the public to recreate the video and post it for the world to see, as fame is seen highly in society and recognition of your work is always strived for. So creating a competition for the best videos to be posted to a website each month can encourage interest in the songs and the artist.

Next I needed to decide the plot line, through this I sent a questionnaire via our school email system to pupils aged 16 and above so that the answers fit the target audience. For the video we had a basic understanding of our theme, being that gender is a performance, however, I still wanted to question the target audience to guarantee the type of video they would prefer to watch. One question which was really important was “what do they expect to see in a music video?” Narrative came out as the most important element but also dancing

and lip sync , although our music didn’t lend itself to provocative dancing common in Pop videos, we considered using a different dancing style. This is why the question asking the type of dance that suits pop so that we know what the audience will enjoy and will fit into the genre, this showed how popular ballet would being the pop video as well as showing the grace and beauty of the dance while also emphasising femininity

which is present in the theme of our video. Creating the narrative for the plot was important and the interactions between characters, I chose to follow Levi-Strauss’ narrative theory of constant conflicts between opposites, with the audience deciding they’d prefer a conflict of passive versus active. Without these pointers at the beginning of the process it could have ended in a piece of text that didn’t draw in our intended audience.

After I decided my song choice and target audience I had to create the image which will become the star that the product will be based around. I knew from the survey that my

target audience were wanting a female who was aged 16-25 who was viewed as “Strong” and a true representation of femininity. Now that the personality was determined I needed to decide upon a name, I began with Stella. This was perfect when we had decided upon using a Chinese girl with short, gelled hair as it fit her appearance well, however, when she could no longer partake one of our team had to stand in. The name no longer fit, so I conducted a survey asking which name each person would prefer with an attached picture of the star. The most popular choice was “Maiya” it is different to other names of artists around so no confusion over the identity of the artist would occur. Also after creating font for my digipak the sharp bold lines of "MAIYA" lend itself to describing the strong, bold woman who is breaking the conventions to portray her own form of beauty that may go against what society think.

During the process of making the video after the end of each rough cut we asked people of their views of how they view the video so far. After the first rough was posted we conducted a discussion group of teachers involved in creative subjects at our school to attain where needs improvements, by choosing this age group and profession of people we should get more technical and detailed answers. Through this we learnt that; they did understood the message but it was not immediately obvious, this meant I needed to rework the video to make the message clearer, although due to the reception theory that we are allowing them to not be passive to the text so the message can be created within the relationship between the text and the reader. They also confused the dancer with the character doing the lip sync this was an aspect due to how involved in the video we didn’t notice but do to the similar clothing colours and actions they did appear the same. We needed to shorten some of the lip sync shots as they were too long and not adhering to the 2.5 second MTV rule. They found the application of makeup scene too long as well as the dancing scene being too long on each clip.

From this feedback being of an older age range than our intended audience we conducted a questionnaire designed for girls 16 and above to determine is this was a similar view held by our target

audience.

We found that they shared views that the video should be tried in black and white to see if the transition between scenes is made more seamless. Also that there is a need for more close ups, both teachers and target audience stated how they enjoyed the dancing and the close up but they felt there needed to be more instead of more distanced shots of dancing. The target audience also was confused who the dancer was with many thinking they were the same person, to alter this we added a split screen of both he dancer and the star doing the same motion instead of the actions being followed by another. This gave the appearance of both the actions in unison making it seem more unrealistic that they are the same person.

One main concern brought up by the questionnaire was the view of the bridge sequence. In this scene we had used an alternate location by the beach, however, this wasn’t viewed positively by either group who found it “confusing” this is the opposite of the desired outcome as we want to allow the audience to feel absorbed into the narrative and confusion only will alienate them. This confusion was sue to the short nature of the scene being shown but also the irrelevance to the location. So from this first audience feedback we learnt that we needed to remove specific scene, film more footage for close ups and to create a new way for our message to be clearer.

After these changes were made we reposted the same questionnaire with a few alterations, by using very similar questions it means that I can directly compare the result to view improvement. These final group of questions associated with the video hope to achieve a majority of the audience to understand the themes of the video intended and to have produced an enjoyable product. From the rough cut we; added a split screen, placed the footage in black and white, removed the bridge scene footage, filmed extreme close ups of the dancer and cut down some of the lip sync. The questions we asked were: 1. How much did you enjoy the music video? This is one of the most important questions to ask as videos are watched for enjoyment so are produced to advertise the song. A video that is not well received by the public will not be shared to friends and won’t be repeatedly watched. Overall the video when viewed was enjoyed by over 50%, this is positive feedback. By having nearly 20% very much enjoying it, it shows that we have created a video that fits to the particular audience well. Our video, as we know, isn't a conventional Pop video as it is not fast paced so we understood in advance it wouldn't be to everyone's style so by only having less than 10% disliking the video it was a success in our view, as no video can be enjoyed by everyone.

2. Did it hold your attention?This follows on from the previous question as with no video do you want to find yourself bored. This is why we tried to keep the action constantly changing and engaging with the dancing, the narrative of the star and the lip sync. Once the results were analysed with nearly 75% being engaged shows that the imagery obviously kept their interest. However, the people who lost attention we can only assume it may have been down to the slower type of song or the dancing

instead of the typical, fun Pop video.3. How do you rate the camera work?For the footage we need to use a variety of camera angles but maintain a sense of continuity by the use of match on action. By doing this it will make the action seem interesting and varied rather than sticking to one type of shot throughout. So by asking how the camera work is rated, it reveals how the shots flow together and the changing views of an image are viewed by the spectator positively. We found that the majority of viewers viewed the camera work positively with around 88% thinking the camera work was average or above. This shows that on average the changing camera angles are liked by our audience which is vital in the video as if the camera shots were sporadic it could become confusing.4. How do you rate the editing?

For the editing we wanted to keep it simple to still provide a sense of continuity by mostly using match on action changing shots during the same scene. So through this we are wanting to see how the audience think the video is flowing and if they believe it is jolting between different images. The results show most people found the video flowed due to the high ratings in editing. This links to other music videos which all flow smoothly fitting conventions of having a sense of continuity.

5. Would you watch the video again?Watching a video repeated times is how music today can be boosted into the charts. This is why it is important to gather is the video is viewed positively enough for repeated viewing. With over 90% saying

"yes" that they would watch the video again it shows the video was viewed well offering the chance of success with the album.6. Does the video reflect the style of Pop?

This questions answer is vital as to draw in a Pop audience you need to display a product that they will enjoy so to include similar genre conventions of Pop. As our video is very different to other forms of pop video due to its slower tempo, lack of colour, a powerful women star who isn't being displayed for a male gaze and no group dancing, we had to clarify that the viewers of this genre would still consider the video Pop. Our video

was successfully viewed as Pop so we know that we will be producing our video for the right target audience. 7. On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest, how would you rate the video?Due to our investment in the video we cannot tell how it is rated by an external viewer. So this duration allows us, as a whole to grasp how our work was taken by the audience. With a majority rating of 4 we were thrilled, this shows that audience highly viewed the video and with no one rating it a "1" we feel this was a great success. However, due to the participants being people we knew it could be biased as they may not have wanted to be negative about our work.8. Who do you think the dancer is?This is a question I asked in previous surveys, for our piece we are wanting the message of

the dancer and the star to be separate but from previous feedback we have found that the audience became confused and thought they were the same person. So from that feedback we have altered the footage adding a split screen of both the character to hopefully make this clearer. From these changes they have made a significant difference with over 60% understanding our idea of the characters being separate.

However, due to different representations we cannot make everyone see the same message so to have a majority is great.9. What is the message behind the video?For messages portrayed in the video, this was also asked in previous surveys, we cannot guarantee one message will be the only thing portrayed, however, our main message was that gender has no limitations and that women don't have to be conventionally feminine. The majority of answers understood the main message we were portraying with

gender being a performance and the understanding of diversity. However, with a small proportion thinking it meant to be "more like men" it could be due to the original meaning of the song being transferred to our video.10. What do you think of the dance footage?

Out of the footage taken, my favourite and I believe most effective clips were during the dancing sections. So through this question we can see whether this footage, as although different to other videos, is viewed positively as well. The footage was mostly viewed well with it being seen as interesting with clear footage and causing the footage to appear fast paced which is effective for our video due to the slow tempo of the song.

From the results of our survey it made us come to the conclusion that the video was complete, after a

discussion the only method for a larger success would be to film yet more footage and due to time restriction this wouldn’t be possible. However, from the overall audience research throughout I have learnt the useful tool it can be for audience feedback as they can help with suggestions while offering constructive criticism on issue you may not have noticed yourself in the work.

Even though the video was our main product I still found a huge need for audience feedback and involvement in the designing and production of both my ancillary products. This is because for an album to sell they need a good advertising campaign to attract the audience and giving the information for the new album.

I started with the digipak, we started by posting a message to our Facebook friends asking what they look at in a digipak most, by picking this form of distribution it will go to people of our target audience and allowed us results quickly.

From their replies we

learnt that the main thing viewed is the main images which they like to be creative, this means this will become the main focus. At first the images from the footage shot for the video

became the main images for the digipak. I also used some colour and effects to give the images a glamourous, patterned effect. An important aspect I think for a digipak is how the images blend disjointed and won’t create one clean product. From the findings with the majority voting no, this made me need to reconsider my images and take another photo shoot for better images. Through the feedback on social media we learnt the importance of the images, therefore the images of a digipak had to work well together but also be strong on their own. They needed to be clear and look professional for a digipak to sell. However, I have found my digipak was viewed as unprofessional and the pictures were pixelated, this is the opposite of the desired view so I needed to change the images instead of using screen grabs from the video. My overall first digipak was unsuccessful with the main concept being to help sell albums, however, the view was that they would not buy the album showed the digipak needed drastically changing.

From this feedback I began the next photo shoot keeping in mind the idea of getting creative, clear photos with an element of synergy so all the images flow together well. After the shoot I realised this research should have been something I had done before the first digipak design to allow the time not to have been lost. Once the second digipak was complete

I created a new questionnaire which was then published. I used the same questions so that the answers were directly comparable so I could see if there was an improvement. With over half voting for the images

blending well it shows that there is a strong continuity between the images showing and improvement from the

previous digipak. The images were nearly viewed as by nearly 90% of people as clear and professional which is the main aspect needed in the digipak. Also the chance of purchasing the album is extremely successful

showing the design is appealing and offers promise of a good album to the customer. Finally with a high agreement in the synergy of the product is an improvement from previously. Overall the audience feedback helped create a more effective digipak that would appeal to the target audience.

My final product was my advert. My advert used the main image from my digipak but with a reflective effect. Like my other products the audience feedback is vital to work out if a

prospective audience would be interested by the advert. The theme of black, white and gold is used through both my ancillary tasks so the audience liking this theme would be vital to sales, with 80% liking the colours it gives a good

representative that the majority of our target audience would also like the theme so would be more interested in the product. The overall view of the image was that it

looked professional and clear, however, the view that is was unprofessional and pixelated

was still high, therefore along with the feedback that audiences expect at least 2 different advertisements for an album I chose to create another advert. However, this advert was still viewed well as it ranked 3 out of 5 making it viewed as average with a strong sense of synergy.

For my second advert I chose to use the same image but to edit the image to give the message of diversity and how in a postmodern society our image has been produced from other before us. After it was produced I used the same survey for the advert to determine what the consensus was. I used

the same questionnaire as the questions still apply to the new advert. Although the colours of black, white and gold are less vivid the audiences view is still highly rated. The image is viewed as clear and professional, which is really successful. The small number of votes that it is unprofessional are most likely to do with the

effect as by laying multiple faces it is unusual. From the audience feedback I learnt that the second advert was much more positively viewed with a high rating of 4, showing that this advert would be effective without target audience due to the high praise. Finally the synergy I think is less obvious with this advert due to the colours not being present as clearly, however, the public still see the link between the products which is important and both the adverts

used together will provide a strong link to the album. I feel that the advert was successful so would attract the target audience well.

Therefore from my audience research I have learnt what an audience may expect from the Pop genre. From their feedback I was able to tailor the products to directly influence women aged 16-25.With their opinions I was able to improve all my work and now I think that all would be effective in the sales of the album.