QUESTION 3: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

WHO ARE MY POTENTIAL TARGET AUDIENCE AND WHAT DO I AIM TO ACHIEVE FROM MY FEEDBACK AND RESEARCH?

My initial aim, was to conform to an audience to which I knew a lot about, and could easily identify with in order to promote my band and video in the most engaging way possible. The mixed genre of music that the Piratones create, with their combination of reggae, punk, and hip hop influences, gave me a broad area to choose from in terms of which potential audience I may choose to target in specific. With the majority of my friendship group being interested in a new punk sub-genre, I figured I had the most insight into what I potential target audience for this genre would engage with, and so chose to make my music video punk orientated in order to identify with an audience I was personally familiar with. This would later allow me to gain feedback easier, since my potential target audience consisted of a group that many of my friends fitted into.

The punk genre was additionally a tactical decision made my myself, to engage with a potential target of a white (Caucasian), British ethnicity of around the age 16 - 21. I wanted to target this group specifically since the punk genre originated from rebellious British youth, against hegemony in the late 60's and early 70's, noticeably perpetuated by bands such as The Sex Pistols. Since myself and my friends are also of the age bracket 16 -21, this would allow me to identify easily with my potential target audience and gain feedback more effectively (since I can identify with the target myself and use my friends as potential feedback as well as gaining feedback from those who aren't my friends). I have also decided to predominantly target a female audience, who I feel may be able to identify with my fierce and strong female antagonist further, since it is a video where she rebels against both hegemony and the male influence. This is not to say however that males would not enjoy the video also however, seeing as it's rebellious and conflicting ideology is applicable to all genders and young people.

WHO ARE MY POTENTIAL TARGET AUDIENCE AND WHAT DO I AIM TO ACHIEVE FROM MY FEEDBACK AND RESEARCH?Living in Norwich, and within my school, there is also a lack of racial diversity, with the majority of my Sixth form being of a white ethnicity. This added to my decision to target white British, simply because due to the lack of racial diversity, this group would count for the majority of students I would be gaining feedback from. My video also coincidently used only white British actors, because these were students from my sixth form. Theorists Bulmer and Katz suggest that a white British audience may therefore identify with the film more as recognising themselves within the narrative.

Because of my aims to conform to the punk genre, my niche audience may also enjoy alternative fashion looks, with statement make up such as that of my female antagonist. They may even wear the typical trend of doc martin shoes, popular in the 70's amongst punk ideology. Due to the political ideology embedded throughout my video, my potential target audience may also be students, perhaps going into University and more politically driven against the recent cuts of University fees or are perhaps angry at the discrimination against arts subjects that to some extent fuels punk ideology, by exploring individuality and an alternative to the academic subjects the authorities place pressure on young people to commit to. By embedding these elements of punk ideology within my music video, I have tried to form a means of collective identity, by which my potential audience can engage with. I have used my female character to perpetuate the punk genre, so that her style is recognisable to my target. This creates an encoding/decoding model (Stuart Hall) of the relationship between text and audience that will enable my audience to identify with the text further.

By using these elements to engage with my potential target audience of white British, (potentially females) aged 16 - 21, I was able to gain my feedback easily and effectively using various different methods to do so...

FEEDBACK FROM MUSIC VIDEO:When gaining feedback for the music video itself, I chose to create my own Facebook event and invite approximately 20 people of mixed boys and girls, all of the age bracket 16 -21. In some senses, this would have been better if I hadn't selected the people in order to gain feedback. This is why I also posted the video as a status on Facebook, to check I gained feedback from others that did not feel obliged to be kind to me as a friend. On the event however, having chosen this group of around 20 16 - 21 year olds, I linked them to an online survey that I had created for my music video. This was a remote method I had used in order to gain feedback anonymously. Furthermore, although I had chosen people to begin with, I had no idea who was saying what and it didn't matter how harsh or positive they were. All I knew about them was their age and gender. I also then advised these people to pass the link onto their friends of the same age bracket to gain feedback from people I also didn't know, allowing me to build up a wide range of responses. Here, QuickSurveys allows me to see the report on the survey immediately and in a coherent and organised manner that would be less achievable if I hadn't used a graphical source. What became particularly useful, was the websites ability to organise my results into different graphs and charts to see quite clearly the difference in results between male and female samples or positive and negative comments.

METHOD: Facebook and QuickSurvey

FEEDBACK FROM MUSIC VIDEO:

RESULTS:

Comments on genre were overall very positive, recognising

the importance of the symbol of the forest to the genre and

the connection of Freya (the female character) to the punk

ideology. This is particularly evident in comments made on

the importance of the female antagonist and whether she

was represented appropriately. The comment below

assured me that my aim to deliver a strong female

representation in relation to the rebellious punk genre, was

achieved, seeing as I had worried there would be confusion

of her vulnerability dominating the video due to the motif

of her troubled mind and split personality. The fact my

audience recognised this, suggests they are recognising an

identity within the female character, that they are engaging

with her. Perhaps, forming a collective identity (Giddens)

between audience and the character that makes them want

to watch the video.

FEEDBACK FROM MUSIC VIDEO:RESULTS

FEEDBACK FROM MUSIC VIDEO:

When looking at how to improve the video, comments were made on the lack of depth to the male characters or the suggestion that the female character's 'madness' could be explored in other ways. This sample also commented that the editing may become confusing to some. I took this advice into consideration and chose to explore differing facial expressions with my actress Freya, in more depth. I took these with mostly close up shots, to enhance emotions such as crying or anger in the eyes and face to suggest her rebellion and her confusion in a society that doesn't accept her. I chose to keep the editing at the same speed, however just add these varying close ups that enforced her emotion further, in order to incorporate this sample's suggestion and make sure the audience were aware of the story following her character in depth and were not confused by the narrative explicitly.

RESULTS:

FEEDBACK FROM MUSIC VIDEO:

In addition to collecting feedback from a remote method, I also chose to gain feedback from Questionnaires I had printed onto paper and handed out to another media class. These questionnaires asked questions slightly less specific to my video, but more broad to music video's as a text, with questions such as 'Does the video successfully promote the artist/band/group?'. This sample was of 9 different students, anonymous apart from their gender and age where I found 4 to be male and 5 to be female, giving a slightly higher representation of female feedback, but overall more or less a balanced representation of feedback between the genders. Ages varied between 17 and 18, with 5 students giving the video an overall rating of 4/5 while the other 4 students gave it a rating of 5/5. When asked what could be improved on in the video, any negative criticism came down to the confusion in editing. This is something that samples then backed with phrases such as ' but overall very good' which made me come to the conclusion that I would leave the fast paced editing. This was because my aim was to leave the story ambiguous to the audience and disorientate them intentionally to provoke that confusion as the female antagonist feels in her rebellion. Also, when asked 'what is the best part of the production' 6/10 said the editing whilst the other 4/10 commented on the camerawork and shots being the most appealing part of the production. This made me think that the audience for the most part, understood the aims of the shots and narrative to focus on the female character and knew it's significance throughout the video. Furthermore, since applicants didn't seem adamant that this added a majorly negative impact on the video, and since I felt it was integral to connoting the imagination of my female character and the rebellious punk ideology, I chose to keep the narrative how it was.

METHOD: Paper Questionnaire

FEEDBACK FROM MUSIC VIDEO:

Using Youtube and posting the video to Facebook additionally helped me gain feedback. Interestingly only women commented on the video, suggesting the theory that females will decode the video more due to it's female antagonist to be true. Comments such as ' Really powerful. .quite chilling. Music works well with the action' demonstrate this idea of female empowerment further, with a female sample noticing the power intended within the video. A problem with uploading this to Facebook is that all friends of mine can see it. This means that samples of all ages have commented on the video, when I am only looking to target the age bracket of 16-21. By creating an event on Facebook to select a group, I can achieve this more efficiently.

RESULTS:

PRINT PRODUCTIONS

FEEDBACK FROM PRINT PRODUCTIONS:

When gaining feedback for my print productions, both Magazine advert and Digipack, I chose to also the graphic method of using Facebook to gain comments on the event I had made specifically for feedback for my coursework. I did this, by creating a post on the event to explain what questions would need to be answered when commenting on the print productions, and then linking my potential audience to my blog where they could view the Digipack, magazine and flyer. These were the questions asked :

How much do you like the prints out of 10?

Do they work with the genre of the video?

What do you like most about the prints?

What could be improved?

What genre would you say you thought the album was from the prints?

How old are you?/what gender?

Which panel/aspect of the print productions works the best e.g. is it the flyer, panel 1, panel 2, panel 3, panel 4 or the magazine advert?

Are you offended by any of the images?

Do you think the video has a certain ideology from what you can gather from the print productions/if so what?

METHOD: Facebook

FEEDBACK FROM PRINT PRODUCTIONS:The results from this feedback showed that the majority of my potential audience liked the white outlining around the image of Freya on the back of the flyer, with 13/20 saying it was the best of all the digipack/advert. This feedback was also particularly interesting since it enabled me to see the split between male and female opinion, with 6/10 females understanding the perspective of the female's imagination throughout the video and continued into the digipack with the idea that the white outlining suggests a forest like image. This contrasted to the 3/10 males who noticed this as a dominating aspect of the video and prints, enjoying the white illustrated design for it's links to the Disclosure album that connotes a young and current style of music that they would be interested in. Minor criticisms were made in regards to the back of my flyer.

In specific, a sample (Chris McDonagh) said they thought the white outlining of Freya was effective, however couldn't grasp how the forest was being embedded throughout the whole package and the flyer, in order to identify with the title 'Forest of Sin'. The sample suggested adding trees to the back of the flyer, however as a user of Photoshop I knew this may look less effective since it wouldn't blend into the black background and my tutor had advised me to not manipulate an image too far. Using the Facebook event, I was able to debate this with my potential audience sample, suggesting another way of establishing the forest throughout the package - by heightening the green and earthy colours present in each of the images with the Photoshop colour grading tools. The sample believed this would work, demonstrating that my way of collecting data from the Facebook event became useful for me to debate and come to a conclusion with feedback from my potential audience. I would not have been able to achieve this with a questionnaire.

RESULTS

FEEDBACK FROM PRINT PRODUCTIONS :

The advantage of debating with potential audience members, was part of the reason I chose to use Facebook for this as opposed to QuickSurvey. This is because this way enabled me to check my feedback more regularly and quickly. This is due to the fact that I am a regular user of Facebook and it allowed me to comment back and fourth in order to ask questions regarding criticism and just generally converse with my potential audience in a way QuickSurvey perhaps doesn't let me. This was a much more informal way of feedback, however nevertheless effective in debating what works for my prints and what does not. A weakness with this however is that some people may feel more obliged to give positive criticism since their comments are being view by other friends and they're conversing with the person who made the productions. It could be seen therefore that QuickSurvey was less bias in this sense, however I do believe conversing with my audience benefited me by communicating with my target and understanding what look or style they would identify with more.

METHOD: QuickSurvey

FEEDBACK FROM PRINT PRODUCTIONS :

Another way of receiving feedback from my print productions, was via Blogspot, from my tutor Miss Barton. This was particularly vital during the construction of my print productions since she was able to influence the creation of my Digipack. This was evident for aspects such as conforming to general conventions of the digipack layout, to which it didn't matter that she wasn't part of my potential audience demographic because her knowledge was informing us of conforming to the conventions of a text and not the genre of young people. The advice I gained form my tutor was essential in this respect, for me to create a production that was professional looking by conforming to basic conventions such as a bar code or the title on the front of the album. Without this knowledge and feedback, my audience would not have engaged with my digipack as a coherent and legitimate text.

METHOD: Blogspot

EVALUATIONOverall, it was integral for me to gain a wide range of feedback from a wide range of sources and samples. This is because

it gave me the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate whether I had appealed to my young potential target audience in the best

possible way. Though I was aiming more predominantly at a female target audience, it was essential that I also gained a

balanced range of feedback from a male target, seeing as my research may contrast my previous opinion and suggest I

should be aiming at a male target. Feedback demonstrated this was not the case however and that broadly, a female target

was able to identify with the rebellious female antagonist in the video, suggesting Bulmer and Katz's theory to be correct and

Kress' encoding and decoding model to be correct also.

My initial aim to target a bracket of ages 16-21 of a white British ethnicity equally proved the right decision, since my

feedback showed me that students from my sixth form identified thoroughly with the empowered statement of rebellion from

the female antagonist. This was my way of mirroring the punk-sub genre of the music, which the majority identified

thoroughly through the 'jerky' or 'jumpy' narrative (commented by some) and the fast paced narrative that suggested chaos

and rebellion that they could decode as youths themselves perhaps seeking to create their own identity as Freya does within

the video.