Evaluation - Question Three

Question Three - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to make sure our video was of the highest standard we could possibly get it, and to ensure it catered to the expectations of our audience, we asked for feedback on each draft of our video. We ended up with three rough cuts and one final draft.
For the first rough cut we already knew there were elements we could improve upon, such as a few clips being out of time and one shot we didn’t really like. Using both questionnaires and asking the audience for just general notes we found out what was good about it and what could be improved upon.

 For our first rough cut, the audience enjoyed the majority of our shots and the locations we chose to film in. The boat shot was particularly popular. We received comments on the appropriateness of the mood of the video to the tone of the song and that the narrative we had chosen was clear. The montage we placed at the end of the video seemed to work well and received positive comments. Our lip syncing was good and our camera work was given positive feedback. However, the audience also did not like the shot we were unhappy with and were not sure on the longer guitar solo shot that was focused on the band member Jon at nearing the end of the video. It was commented that the guitar in the shot could not always be seen. We decided we would remove the shell shot that was not liked as the pull focus we wanted did not work as well as we would have liked, but we kept in the shot of Jon because the purpose we intended the shot for was to focus on Jon and less on the guitar he was playing in order to fit closer with Goodwin’s theory and having a close up of each member of the band. We did however shorten the length slightly. Another issue we addressed was during the Christmas scene the presents exchanged looked too similar. We had filmed this multiple times with different presents so it was not difficult to swap to a different present in order to make this scene flow better.
 

The Shell shot that was deleted

The Jon shot that the audience was unsure of

Our second rough cut was received better, but there were still issues we had not spotted or considered before. The audience were pleased that the shell shot had been removed and that we had swapped the present shot for one that looked different and made it clear they were two separate gifts. However, a few members of the audience felt that the wine pouring went on for too long. On top of this, they were still not happy with the shot of Jon, feeling that it went on for too long and misinterpreting our intention of the focus being the guitar instead of Jon. Another thing we had spotted was our framing was occasionally out, cutting off heads of the band. This was something we were unable to address without organising for the band members to come back down from Crew in northern England and re-film using taller mirrors to create the backdrop. Unfortunately, with the time we had and the varying availability of the band we could not do anything more to address this issue. The wine was much easier to fix, we noticed that we had cut it on the wrong beat, and shortened the length of it to make it cut correctly and in time making it flow much better. For the Jon shot, we listened to the audience this time as it was obviously something they did not like at all. We cut it right down and used the part that had most of the guitar in it as well as focusing on Jon. When the Bass head-stock appears in the bottom of that frame we cut to a close up of the Bass instead of remaining on Jon.

For the third rough cut the audience were much happier with the edited Jon shot. However, we spotted a few more things we had missed previously and the audience picked up on. There was a continuity issue nearer the end of the video where the singer Jade switches hands on the microphone and then isn't touching it at all. We solved this by swapping shots round so that the continuity flowed and Jade was no longer suddenly holding and dropping the mic between cuts. There is another part where the black backdrop had fallen partly down, so we needed to crop that out in that shot. Other than that the audience felt happy with the overall video. However, we decided after watching a few other people's videos in the same genre and looking at the feedback they received, that it would be a good idea to add on an effect over the top of the narrative side of the video to tie it all together and give it a finished look. A few people left us feedback to add on a filter, so we felt like it would be a good idea.

The fourth rough cut had the effect on, but for the final cut we decided to take out the effect we'd put on as it lowered the quality and made it look too purple. We also included a few more band shots in place of the fire scene because we received some feedback that it would look better and be more enjoyable with a few more band shots. This was our final cut.

For our digi-pack and poster we also gained feedback from our audience to see what we could improve upon and to make sure the audience could see how we linked them to the actual music video.

The majority of the audience we asked could clearly see the link we had made, with the two actors being seen in a location that is featured in the video and also seen on both the digi-pack and the poster.  We saw a typo on one part and we also reconsidered the design of our logo, deciding it would look better without the white surrounding it. There was a few comments on the lack of a spine too, so we added that on after our first draft of the digi-pack. The font was not liked by all, but eventually we decided that the font did fit with our genre, it was just not to everyone's tastes. We also had feedback on the size of logos on both the digi-pack and the poster, so we scaled down the sizes and also added in more information at the bottom of the poster after looking more at other examples of music posters. Another comment was about how the track list was on the inside instead of the outside of the digi-pack. We tried to move it to the outside, but because of our chosen picture it was harder to see, so we decided to leave it on the inside of the digi-pack.