JD, SA & RB - Evaluation Question 3 (Audience Research)

• When we were first developing our concept the quantitative audience research that we did helped to reinforce some of our ideas, such as the fairly anonymous yet urban locations and our costume ideas of fairly casual, indie clothes.
  

• The audience research also challenged some of our ideas. Our main concept was to have something extremely abstract with no distinct narrative but our audience research suggested that there should be some sort of narrative in our video.

• When we presented our first rough cut to the class we were given a few things that people didn’t like and thought needed to be changed. The main point that everyone seemed to pick up on was that the loud, emotional parts of the vocals in the song was not carried over in the performance.
  
  

• We combated this by re-shooting these parts in the drama studio. Shooting this key parts of the lyrics also helped to bring the studio shots of the instruments together and tied them into the video.

• For example at 1:06, at 1:36 and at 2:56

• After our second rough cut, which was full length, there were still a couple of points people felt needed to be improved upon. One of the most obvious points was that there was a lot of repeated shots and we fixed this by replacing them with some new shots that Rob filmed at home of flour dropping and some flames on a black background to add to the abstract element of our video.

• Some of our class members also picked up that some of the syncing was slightly out, which we rectified almost immediately before we forgot which parts specifically that were out.
  

• For example at 2:02 and at 3:12.

• Finally we carried out some audience research to test the finished pieces to an audience. I posted the video on Facebook to get some reaction from people our age to the video, the response was positive and it reassured us that what we originally planned out worked.

• Some quotes, that we gained from showing the video to some students at other schools and students from our school in the year below, are:

• "..the performance was convincing..."
• "...there should have been dancing..."
• "...there is a cohesive band image..."
• "I feel it is about being lonely and confused..."
• "I like the mystery surrounding the male character..."

• There was also lots of praise and congratulations directed towards us by other students and teachers alike which boosted our confidence and made us feel very proud of our music video.
  

• We encoded the text to show randomness and uniqueness. However our audience thought that is was more about loneliness and individualism, although a few people thought it was about uniqueness.
  

• It was clear that the preferred reading was about loneliness and individualism as most of the people that commented on our video thought this.

• The digipak and adverts also reinforce this as there is an absence of artist images, the audience also though this was about individualism and loneliness. However the abstract images caused more people to comment about uniqueness.
  
  
• It is evident that the video stands up to both focused and ambient viewing as the fast cutting rate makes people want to watch it more to understand it, and allows it to stand up to repeatability, but it has a strong enough narrative fuzz that your not pulled into the story, but just watch it for the enjoyment.

Written by Jake, Rob and Sam