Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Below is a video constructed to collect just some of the audience feedback that we had gathered, to help us evaluate our music video.

Audience Feedback Sheets 

Below, I have compiled and summarised a few of the constructive comments that we received when we showed our music video to Year 10 and Year 11 media students (detailed previously in our  ‘Creative Arts Evening’ blog). We asked the pupils to fill out a questionnaire which asked: ‘was the constructed mise-en-scene effective?’; ‘was the target audience catered for?’; ‘did you enjoy it?’. We also asked them to write down their age and gender to help us make an informed decision on whether we had effectively constructed and subsequently entertained our target audience demographic with our music video.

(Gender / Age)

Male / 16

+ Splitscreen is good

+ Similar to a real music video

+ Appeals to teenagers of either gender

– Unclear narrative at times

Male / 16

+ Narrative is open – the stalker could be an alter ego?

+ Understood narrative

Female / 16

+ Good song choice

Male / 15

- Too many burning photos

Male / 15

+ Abstract narrative

+ Good lip-syncing

Female / 16

+ Appeals to target audience (teens); I enjoyed it

Male / 15

+ Good lip-syncing

- ‘Headbanging’ is ‘cringey’

+ Feels like an original music video

Male / 15

+ Good lighting

+ Good setting

Female / 15

- Too horrifying for kids

+ Good mise-en-scene

Male / 16

+ Crossfade worked well with story

Male / 16

+ Lighting and flashing images were effective

Female / 15

+ Paint on wall is good

+ Characters and costume suit song

+ Words in song relate to shots

- Some scenes could be longer

Further Audience Feedback

After collecting the above evidence to positively suggest that we had entertained our target audience with our music video, I also asked a University student, studying Film Studies, to analyse and evaluate our music video (feedback found beneath this paragraph), in order to collect a more detailed audience analysis of our video. This feedback was essential to help us understand that the methods that we as a group employed to construct the mise-en-scene of the video were noticed by the audience. This particular evaluation below helped us realise our narrative's potential - we had crafted a narrative that engaged audiences through 'Reception Theory' - the idea that different audience members take away different things from media texts - our narrative could be interpreted in different ways. Indeed, our text was polysemic - the 'spooky' character of Joanna, 'the stalker', was said to be the lead-singer's alter-ego, while others said she was merely a jealous villain. Despite the fact that it is a open-narrative within a music video, the video still manages to conform to Toderov's 'cycle of equilibrium' - the equilibrium of the band performing disrupted by the unsettling image of their pictures being burned by another character. Further, Vladmir Propp's 'character function's theory could be applied to these characters; the band are shown together, smiling, positively interacting - the heroes, while the 'stalker' is presented with unnatural and unsettling lighting, in a dark, confined room - going 'crazy' - the villain.

"The video used quick, changing images / shots to compliment the fast pace of the song. The directors of the video did not hover on the same image for more than 2 seconds; if they did, the video would not have worked.

I liked the use of synchronised sound, which was used occasionally - but not overused - throughout the song. At the start, the song was literally 'kicked' into life, with the lead singer performing a jump-kick, just as the guitars and drums began.

There were two things going on throughout the video: 1) the shots of the band performing the song, and 2) the creepy young girl in the darkened room, consumed by jealousy for the band's lead singer. This story reflected the 'misery business' of the songs' lyrics. I liked that this wasn't a literal representation of the lyrics; it could have been easy and predictable to have showed someone crying / throwing a tantrum to reflect their 'misery'. However, this story was very clever, and much more subtle than that. By having this brooding girl confined to a darkened room, with very little light, immediately enveloped her in a sinister, menacing shroud. The video also used some fuzzy black and white shots of this girl, which enforced this dark, uneasy atmosphere. She was surrounded by loads of photos of the band, which she had collected herself, presumably, a result of her horrible obsession with the singer.

I kept watching the video with interest, for I feared what terrible climax awaited, as this girl was so clearly unhinged, and harboured such hatred towards the singer. Indeed, her setting alight to the photographs of the lead singer was not only a powerful image - not least because the fire often provided the only light in the darkened room (a technique known as chiaroscuro / light and dark), but this act fuelled my fears of a climatic ending.

The fact that these shots of fire ripping through photographs was used throughout the video only heightened the suspense. The removing of the wig was a very haunting image, and the hallucinatory (?) shots of the girl and the singer confronting each other continued to move this story forwards, without losing my interest / lessening the suspense.

In my opinion, the song had quite a rough, crude quality to it, and I felt this was reflected in the choice of location - an old warehouse, with a single, stark light source. There was clearly no glamour here. The cold, harsh, minimal palette used throughout the video further complimented the song; I am thinking here of the black graffiti spelling the band's name on the white wall, at the start of the video; the white walls and black pipes of the warehouse; and the darkened interior inhabited by the jealous girl.

The video gave a strong impression of the 'brand' of the band / what this band is about: from this video, I can see Paramore are a no-frills, gritty young band, whose songs address dark, meaty themes, such as jealousy, despair, and obsession.

Overall, this was a very crisp, professional video, which followed the conventions of a music video: shots of the band performing, and a side-story to compliment the song. It employed media tools such as splitscreens, synchronised sound, slow-motion shots etc., to good effect. It is testament to the makers of the video that I found myself enjoying, and even gripped by video, even though I do not like the song. The quick, ever-changing shots helped, as did the powerful, spooky images of the jealous girl, whose actions, and potential actions, kept me gripped."

 - Michael Winter, Film Studies Student 

 

Evaluation: How did you use new technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

 Throughout the process, new technologies have been a necessity in every aspect of the construction of both my ancillary and main task. Although it is evident within my blog that I have used 'new techonologies' throughout the process, I have also outlined each aspect below to evidence this fact further.

Research & Planning

I researched existing media products using the Internet, on sites such as 'Youtube', where I could view music videos of varying genres. I also visited record shops such as 'HMV' to research existing CD and DVD Digipacks, to help inform my designing decisions regarding my ancillary task. I could then take pictures and scan these CD/DVD Digipack's in order to use them on my blog.

Construction

Constructing both the main task and ancillary task has been a process that has truly embraced new technologies. The latter has seen me explore and use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator to design and construct my CD digipack and advertisement. Photoshop helped me edit images that I would then manipulate further in both InDesign and Illustrator. 

The music video required us to use Premier Pro, a video-editing software that allowed us to edit and manipulate footage. The editing process became an essential part of this operation as we explored and subsequently enhanced our footage by manipulating our film - through adding layers, altering the speed of the footage and adding filters.

Evaluation

The evaluation of our products throughout the process has been a necessity, and one which would be impossible without the use of 'new technology'. By creating a YouTube account and uploading our latest footage we were able to share our videos for potential feedback with ease. Instantly, due to the globalisation that is brought about through social websites such as YouTube, we could gather comments from people all over the world to help improve our work.

We used social-networking site 'Facebook' to post our video to friend's and ask them for feedback

However, we still maintained a more personal approach to audience feedback through showing our video to our peers. This allowed us to capture their responses on film; having their evaluative comments on video gave a new dimension to a potentially repetitive task.

For an extensive list of how and why I have incorporated the use of the internet into my research, planning and evaluation stages, click the following link to open up a new window that contains the blog post 'Evaluation: Software'.

http://8225trinitypaulhealey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/evaluation-software.html

Evaluation: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

After our first attempt at filming (below), which was in our school's drama studio, we uploaded our video to YouTube to help generate some audience feedback to evaluate what the audience liked and didn't like, in order to improve on any weak aspects. Indeed, as mentioned before, our first attempt made us aware of many potential pitfalls that we should be aware of in future filming; the mise-en-scene in particular subverted many conventions of the genre - from the location to the actors themselves - yet for no particular reason.

First attempt at filming: having two females and one male in the rock band was seen as 'unconventional' to the extent that one member of the audience said it 'didn't represent the rock genre by having that band line-up'. Indeed, the costumes, which included blue hair-extensions and home-made 'paramore rock' t-shirts, coupled with the fact that our drummer and guitarist didn't look professional as they didn't actually know how to play their respective instruments, furthered the idea that the actors weren't conventional for the genre of Rock-music.

To try to rectify our mistakes that our audience feedback had made apparent, we looked again at real media products such as the official 'Misery Business' music video (above) and other videos that were of the rock-music genre, especially those with a full-band present to help inspire our next session of filming; by examining current codes and conventions of the rock-music video we could choose to subvert and/or convert them for particular reasons.

In our final music video, we had learnt from our previous efforts and carefully adhered to the codes and conventions of real rock-music videos. Our location had changed to an industrial warehouse (above)- the gritty nature of the set complimenting the narrative that we were trying to portray. The fact that the band shots were permanently housed in this warehouse helped to enforce a professional consistency to the video.

  

Indeed, our final mise-en-scene for the video was conventional of the genre - our band (above) looked like realistic and appropriate musicians of the genre (similarities exists between our band and the real 'Paramore', shown below). There was now two males in the band, alongside the female lead-singer - all of which learnt their respective musical parts; this set-up inspired by our audience feedback.

Regarding my ancillary tasks, I wanted to show that my products were conventional of the genre and product itself. To evidence this, I used Adobe Photoshop to plaster my own advertisement into existing media products - the flyer's (above and below). I feel that my product - due to it's adherence of the codes and conventions of the magazine advertisement  (such as one main image, the band name prominent, consistent font and colour-scheme) fits alongside these 'real media products' effectively.

Similarly, I have placed my own ancillary product - the CD Digipack - alongside real media products (Paramore's 'Riot' and The Used's 'In Love and Death' - both of the rock-genre') in the following pictures to represent visually how my design conforms to the conventions of existing media products:

Front Cover (bottom left)

Inlay with Insert (middle)

Back cover with Booklet (middle)

Booklet's double page spread (middle)

When evaluating our moving-image media product alongside existing media products, it is clear that we have both developed and challenged the conventions of the rock-music genre music video with justified reasons.

Below, I have taken stills from our own music video (left) alongside those of Paramore's own 'Misery Business' video (right), to evaluate certain aspects of the video.

To follow the conventions of the 'music video', our research had shown that the main focus of band shots was the lead-singer; we maintained this conventional focus by having close-ups and extreme-close-ups of our singer - which we kept interesting through using different filming techniques, such as the lead-singer holding the camera herself.

Wide shots that featured the whole band were also common aspects of rock-music videos - we incorporated this research-finding into our video by including several wide-shots of the band. These shots were effective in evidencing our synchronisation of the instruments and singing to the diagetic soundtrack, whilst also simultaneously showing the iconography of a music video - the band themselves and the instruments.

We felt the genre of rock music that we had chosen appealed to young people and we wanted to capture the band having fun whilst they performed; we filmed the band members through two-shots that captured the band members interacting, such as the lead-singer singing to the drummer.

In the research stage, I had noticed that the music videos belonging to the rock-music genre had a focus on the instruments more-so than those of other genres. To ensure that we had portrayed the genre conventionally, we included many close-up shots of the instruments themselves.

The narratives in music videos have clearly defined characters due to the carefully constructed mise-scene; we tried to achieve this feat too by constructing Joanna's character to be instantly recognisable as slightly 'different' and 'unsettling'. We did this through lighting, costume, props and set - as well as using unusual and clearly manipulated editing such as multi-screen shot below.

Below is a still image evidencing our use of splitscreen within our video. We subverted conventions of a music video by including split-screen's as they weren't a common occurrence when researching existing music videos. However, we felt it's use would be appropriate as it captured the fast pace of the song - the quick visual barrage of three different scenes on one screen matched the rhythm of the soundtrack.

Below, is an example of how we have used a unique motif throughout our music video. To add to the unsettling nature of the 'stalker' character, we used several editing techniques to add to the 'spooky' atmosphere, such as the grainy 'home-made-video' filter and multi-screen which resembled a security camera-like effect. This editing helped enforce the 'unhinged' character which we were trying to portray.

Finally, another motif, seen below, carried on the theme of enforcing the 'stalker' character as one who is unstable and antagonistic; her setting alight of 'Paramore' pictures, resulting in a flame. We felt the flame represented danger, and it's returning appearance would be a reminder to the audience that this character is possibly dangerous herself, which serves as a narratorial hook - just what is she capable of/going to do next?

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts?

As the picture above illustrates, we have had a consistent location for our ancillary and main text. As we felt that the industrial boiler room setting helped represent the rough attitude of the rock-music genre, we incorporated it into both our texts helping form a synergetic relationship between the two; my research had shown me that advertisements for new music and musicians were part of a campaign and so forming this bond across different media-platforms was essential to maintain a degree of professionalism by using my research to follow the conventions of a real advertisement campaign. This re-occurrence of the same location helps it become a motif for the band's adverts, giving the audience some familiarity within each text.

Indeed, I wanted to maintain this familiarity between texts and so without using the exact same location for a third time, I instead used the backdrop of an urban wall for my magazine advertisement. I felt that the street art that was graffiti'd onto the wall coupled with the ominously absent lead-singer helped keep the urban and gritty mise-en-scene of the boiler room that was featured in both my album and music video. Indeed, the advert (left) itself shows an effective combination of my texts, as the advert not only promotes a fictional concert but also the release of the new album - my other ancillary text -in the bottom left corner. Similarly, I have also included on the poster the website for the band 'Paramore'; this single print advertisement therefore including references to other media-platforms that are part of the same campaign - it is this conventional synergetic arrangement that helps promote a strong and consistent campaign.

I have also used all of the conventional motifs that would be seen across a combination of media texts; I have maintained a consistency regarding logo, record company, credits etc. The record company 'Fueled By Ramen's black logo for example (below), is conventionally present across all of my print texts; again, to reinforce the fact that I've created a brand of products as opposed to a sole text. 

Music Video: Misery Business - Paramore (Final Version)

Evaluation: Finished Ancillary Task

CD Booklet: Side One

CD Booklet: Side Two

CD Case: Back

                                                                 CD Face

CD Insert (Front and Back)

CD Poster: Side One

  CD Poster: Side Two

Advertisement

Evaluation: Personal Development

Over the course of the project I have learnt new techniques while also having the chance to improve on skills that I had already utilised before. As well as adapting to work within a group, I have learnt how to operate several new technologies throughout the process; Adobe Premier Pro was new to all our of my group - yet through editing several video blogs and filming our 'band-shots' and narrative many times, we were exposed to the software constantly and learnt how to use the software effectively, to the extent that we could use more complicated features such as adding synchronisation of sound and image; adding filters; manipulating the timescale of footage etc that all helped construct our media product effectively.