Question 3 - Miss Georgiou

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

 

(written answer to question 3)
There were several ways in which we received audience feedback for our music video, for example, the use of focus groups and questionnaires helped us to identify what our target audience would want to see in an ideal indie music video including the use of an easily accessible location such as the park or train station as this would help to make the video more relatable because it is likely that they would have been to these places themselves. These types of locations are also conventional as indie is not a mainstream genre of music and will not have a huge following, therefore indie artists will not make a lot of money that can be spent on hiring out a studio or using a green screen when creating a music video to make the location appear more exotic. A prime example of this is the music video for Ellie Goulding's song 'how long will I love you' as the majority of this video is set outdoors and in locations such as the train station and forest, which gives the audience the impression that she lives a more natural, down to earth lifestyle. This is subversive of how they would expect someone like Goulding to be due to the fact that the music industry is popular and for that reason can be very wealthy, therefore the audience would expect someone who is high up and well known in the industry to live a wealthy lifestyle.
I feel as though YouTube was the best way to receive feedback from the target audience as the application is easy to use and can be used on a worldwide scale, therefore the music video will be able to reach a worldwide audience. Another benefit of YouTube is that it can show us the number of likes and dislikes that the video received and allowed the audience to comment their opinions beneath the video, which we received notifications about, thus helping us to stay aware of how our target audience were reacting to our video.
The target audience were important to consider during the production stage because they were the ones who could determine the success of the video and the artist herself. This feedback would benefit my production as it would help me to improve the rough cut of the music video and enable me to identify and change aspects that the audience may not like, thus helping to make the final video more appealing to the audience. This was important for me to do because if the audience like the video they are going to be more likely to recommend it or want to watch it again themselves, which has the potential to boost the success of the artist. Moreover, YouTube can link into social media such as Facebook which is becoming a prominent aspect of our society today, therefore this gives me the ability to increase the exposure of my music video. The audience have the option to share the video via social media, and if they do the video will have the potential to reach new audiences of people who may not know who the artist is and will therefore be likely to never have seen the video had it not been shared.
One reason for audience feedback is to foreshadow the success of my product as the audience have the ability to express their likes and dislikes regarding the rough cut of my product onto YouTube, therefore I will gain a better understanding of the aspects that I need to improve in order to ensure that my video appeals to the audience who I am hoping will buy her music. Also, by participating in small focus groups with people from within my target audience I was able to receive face to face constructive comments which meant my audience could clearly express their detailed opinions allowing me to gain a better understanding of exactly what I needed to improve on so that I could target and change these specific areas, for example, one of the constructive comments that I received was the need to include more elements of performance within the music video, however, I purposely decided to make the video heavily narrative based in order to express the deeper meaning of the song and lyrics which is conventional to the indie genre because indie artists are often perceived as writing their own music based on real life experiences, therefore the lyrics are personal and relate directly to the artist which allows the audience to get to know more about the artist. Moreover, lyrics can often be quite ambiguous, therefore the use of a narrative clarifies to the audience what the lyrics actually mean and helps to give the song more meaning. After receiving this comment I decided to include more aspects of performance in the video to break up the longer sections of narrative, for example, in between the shots of the artist and the male character saying goodbye before he went off to war. Adding more performance to the video was easy to do because while we were filming we filmed extra footage of the artist singing to the camera in case we ran short of narrative or needed to include more visuals of the artist just singing. The use of performance shows the audience visuals of the artist which helps to clarify who she is and what she looks like which is beneficial to the artist because she is new to the music industry, therefore not many people will know who she is. Our artist will need to expose herself in order to build up a loyal fan base of people who are going to buy into her music and increase her chance of being successful within the industry.
Another constructive comment that I received for the rough cut was that the audience could not identify a set colour theme throughout the video. This was partly due to the fact that my group had decided that the lighting would become more lower key as the video progressed in order to show the audience that the narrative was developing (suggested by the fact that the lighting was becoming darker), for example, the audience can see that the male character dies towards the end of the video, which is followed by the artist scattering his ashes. These particular scenes are not intended to make the audience feel happy but to show them that there is a deeper meaning behind the lyrics, for example, the line 'the darkest fairy-tale' arguably foreshadows the death scene and will make them feel more emotional when they watch the video which I felt would help to make the video more memorable. However, after looking back over our music video I have decided to enhance the filters that we have already added to the video such as 'combat' in order to make them more visible to the audience. I feel as though by making the used filters more obvious, the audience will be able to understand the mood of the narrative better and see clearly how the artist is portrayed as feeling during specific points within the video.
A positive comment received was that the audience liked the use of fades and transitions between the shots in the video, for example, the most common transition used in the video was cross dissolve. Achieving a smooth transition between scenes was important because they helped the video to flow better which makes it easier for the audience to watch as it helps to make the video feel more like a short film rather than a music video. I also felt that a clearly explained and performed narrative was more likely to be remembered by the audience when compared to only including visuals of the artist singing which they would be able to see in all of her other music videos, therefore this video would have lost its originality. The story would help the music video feel more personal to the artist because it feels as though she has put thought into the music video and has taken the time to plan out a personal story that she wanted to share with the audience.
Another positive comment that I received regarding my music video was that the audience enjoyed how detailed and clear the narrative was. The idea of a using a narrative conforms to the indie genre as indie music videos are often heavily narrative based because indie artists are known for writing their own songs based on real life experiences which makes them more personal to the artist and are usually used to express a deeper meaning to the song which can then be expressed to the audience through the use of visuals. Receiving a positive comment regarding the narrative was important due to the fact that a lot of time was spent on deciding on a storyline and ensuring that the story would compliment the lyrics to the song we had chosen, therefore it would have been disappointing had the audience not liked or understood the narrative.