POST 10: REFLECTIONS ON FINISHED OUTCOMES/TARGET AUDIENCE RESPONSES

In the reflection of my media products, my music video and website, I have asked for feedback from members of my TA and my media teachers. This is documented below, along with how I have progressed following the suggestions from their reviews. I have asked both groups of people to allow for feedback from contrasting perspectives, with target audience members likely to be focusing on the entertainment value of my music video while the teachers would evaluate how well I met the demands of the brief and pick out more technical elements. I am also using other people's reviews, to allow me to self-assess my work, reflecting on whether I fulfilled my own intentions and analysing the effectiveness of my cross-media production when listing my post-review improvements.

REVIEWS OF MY MUSIC VIDEO

Members of the TA:

I gathered an audience group of "culturally sophisticated," young people aged "16-25" and of a "class AB demographic," my target audience outlined in the brief and showed them my finished music video. They were of different genders and ages within the demographic and I used different methods for getting their feedback.

• Joshua, male, 18= questionnaire (with follow-up questions)
• Immy, female, 20= questionnaire (with follow-up questions)
• Ross, male, 17= questionnaire (with follow-up questions)
• Sammy, female, 22= group discussion
• Hannah, female, 23= group discussion
• Benita, female, 22= group discussion
• Bora, male, 16= one-to-one conversation

Over all the target audience feedback sessions, I asked the similar open-ended questions to encourage discussion in the session, whether that was between myself and them or in the group. They were inspired by the 'What Went Well' (WWW) and 'Even Better If' (EBI) method:

1. Positives:

"What did you like about the video?"

"What was your favourite section/shot?"

"What appealed to you about my artist?"

"Did you find anything else in the video particularly appealing or original?"

2. Improvements:
"What aspects of the video were you not fond of?"
"What do you think could be improved in my artist's performance, brand identity or look?"

"What do you think I could've done to make my video more conventional?"

"Was there any parts of my music video that you didn't enjoy?"

I think that getting a range of people within the demographic was crucial to getting a range of feedback, as different people answered very similar questions very differently. The notes from my review sessions are below.

Members of my TA enjoyed...

• The build-up at the beginning of the video as it introduced the artist's name and face slowly and matched the song's intro.
• The regular introduction of new set-ups, commenting that it kept the music video interesting throughout and the changes of colour particularly impressed some, who said "the bright colours matched the upbeat song."
• The colourful dance shot, saying it was their favourite shot due to its "artistic" quality. They went on to comment that the stomps in the chorus also "drived the beat forward" and the colours matched the Heathers intertextuality in the first verse.

One of my target audience member's favourite shots

• The park shots, with two members of the TA really passionate about different exterior shots. I think they particularly enjoyed it due to the frequent variation in distance and angle in the set-up while the maintaining the same bright, colourful style.
• The incorporation of the Heathers and Mean Girls intertextuality as it would make the music video re-watchable for a member of the TA, who would want to "spot all the references."

My TA suggested that I...

• Made the lip synching more obvious at the climaxes of the song where the artist is normally seen "pushing their voice." The TA member gave the example at 2:24 in the song, where my lip-synching was very similar to before. Despite this, the same TA member said they enjoyed my facial expressions throughout as they "reflected the mood of the song and the meaning of the lyrics."
• Repeated the FRNKE logo at the end of the music video to repeat it at the end of the song, as well as the beginning, to remind the target audience of the artist.

Media Teachers:

My media teachers focused on the more technical aspects of my music video and the way it was edited together. These reviews were based on previous cuts of my video, not the final cut, whereas my TA were shown the final edit after my teachers' suggestions.

During my review, my media teachers suggested I...

• Experiment with the speed of my clips (e.g. by using slow-motion) to make some of the individual shots more interesting.
• Emphasise the upbeat nature of the choruses to differentiate them from the slower verses through my edit.
• Adjust the orange coloured background in my final pre-chorus to make it more consistent across the set-up (made particularly noticeable as I just used my orange-background shots in this section of the song).

The orange HA shot where the background didn't match the rest of the set-ups

Improvements Made to my Music Video Following the Reviews:

• I thought about the comment made about repeating my artists' logo at the end and experimented with the text. However, after some tries it didn't look right and in reflection, the person watching the video can find out more about FRNKE through her website or similar and her name can be seen underneath the video, as it would be uploaded on her Vevo account anyway. Furthermore, it isn't conventional to have the branding repeated twice in one video, as I realised after going back to my research.
• In my choruses, I cut to the 'dance squad' (four dancers, back-lit with four different colours) set-up more regularly to keep the choruses fast-paced. I also decided to repeat a particular stomp action at the end of each chorus to signify that the upbeat section was over and the slower verse was starting.
• I re-edited my orange section in the final pre-chorus by adding some slow-motion effects and working specifically on the colour grade by using the 'three way colour corrector' together with 'ProcAmp' to get all the backgrounds to match and be more consistent. I was happy with the improvement, although it still didn't completely match due to the way the high angle was framed.

REVIEWS OF MY WEBSITE

Members of the TA:

I showed my target audience my finished website and from there they also looked at my two social media accounts (Instagram and Twitter) and commented on the availability of interactive elements on all the platforms and their thoughts on my artist's brand identity overall.
[The same TA members were asked as for my music video]

My target audience particularly enjoyed...

• The varied imagery across my website, with different colours (from neon to sepia-toned) used across both of my pages. They particularly liked my main homepage image and described it as "quirky" and "original."
• The excellent social media presence of my artist with both feeds featuring on my homepage and Twitter being used as a platform for the competition which my reviewer said would "definitely" make them more likely to enter. All my reviewers agreed that they would follow FRNKE on her social media accounts, either because they liked her content (images or tweets) or the fact that she posted regularly.
• One of my target audience members were very fond of the frequent external links, commenting that they were "really convenient" and encouraged them to interact with the content on the website. They particularly liked the link to Kiss FM's website and said it made them more likely to tune in.
• Overall, my audience were very keen on my artist's overall brand identity and following this, the choice of colour scheme and design of my website, with the same colours seen on her social media.

The members of my TA told me they would've liked to see...

• Some Instagram posts with shorter captions as they wouldn't always like reading "paragraph long" ones, if they were just scrolling through Instagram. Despite this, they liked the content on social media as well as the easy access to the website from both accounts.
• The Mac product that they would win in the competition, as this would be likely to encourage them to enter the competition, particularly if they knew the price of it usually.

Media Teachers:

As well as checking that my website's links redirected them to the correct linked and external pages, my teachers looked at whether the content on my website and social media encouraged cross-platform synergy and fulfilled the requirements of the brief.

My media teachers were pleased with...

• My focal image at the top of my homepage and were fond of the 3D-esque filter I put onto it, which differentiated it from other images on my site and differentiate my artist from other artists and the more boring images found on their websites.
• The correct embedding of my Instagram and Twitter pages from my homepage's social icons and feed links lower down. They were happy with my general abundance of links, buttons and calls-to-action across my webpages, which would encourage my audience members to click, watch and engage with my artist however they wish to.
• The detail of my news articles and different elements that featured on my full articles, particularly the GIF from my music video.

My media teachers suggested that I looked into...

• Correcting typos on my news articles and across my website and checking that my layout was suitable for all computers as I had gone over some of the dotted lines which meant that the website may be cut off on certain smaller screens.
• Providing more industry presence in my site and having a way in which the viewer can contact the firms (indie prod comp, record label).

Improvements Made to my Website Following the Reviews:

• I looked through my whole website with a fine-toothed comb and corrected any spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes that I may have made and moved everything on my website within the barriers to ensure it was suitable for all computers and bring it up to a professional standard.
• I shortened two of my Instagram captions and condensed all of them to make them easier to read and less like essays, as my reviewer had suggested, which would not always appeal to my young TA with a stereotypically short attention span.
• I made the Mac campaign more specific, naming the Mac Studio product and editing the pack shot of the product on my focal image to encourage my TA to enter.
• I added London Creative Klutz's (my independent production company) and Universal Music Group's (my conglomerate record label) names, logos and year of copyright to the footer of my website with a link to both company's websites, although my production company's leads to a dead page 'klutzcreative.com/london' as it isn't a real company.