3). What have you learned from your audience feedback

Audience

Throughout our project, especially in the research and planning, and the post-production stages we tried to get as much audience feedback as possible as this is crucial in the development of our products. We were especially interested in hearing the opinions of those from our Core Audience, the 16-24 year old female demographic, on wether or not our ideas were working. We would often invite friends of ours into the media block so that they could view our products at different stages of the project. These feedback sessions became incredibly useful to us, and I feel that it was important for us to hear the opinion of someone outside of the media department, to give us a more fresh and new opinion on what we were doing.

The word cloud below highlights the different words that we would use to describe our core, secondary, and tertiary audiences. We think these psychographics really reflect the campaign that we have created so far.

The psychographics of our core, secondary, and tertiary audiences.

Audience Feedback During Construction

We felt that it was really important to collect audience feedback throughout the construction process of the project, and not just afterwards. Asking for feedback during the construction stage allowed us time to reflect on the feedback and make any necessary adjustments according to the feedback we received. The video below shows some feedback we received from Gavin - a member of our secondary audience after watching our first rough edit of the music video.


Gavin, male, 18.

We conducted an interview with Gavin, a member of our secondary audience; we thought this was important as we wanted to ensure that we reached a wider audience with our products. Gavin mentioned that he liked the effects that we used in the video, like using several layers on top of each other to create a more interesting image. Gavin said that he noticed the synergy between the album cover and the paint fight scene in the video which was promising for us to hear as this was our intention. He did say however, that he thought there were too many shots from the paint scene next to each other, and that it got a bit repetitive, We took this criticism on board and changed the order of shots in our video to create a wider variety of shots for the audience. We then asked a number of members from our primary and secondary audience what they thought of the new changes to our video; the feedback was positive and everyone agreed that the new edit of the video was better than the last.


As well as receiving feedback on our main media text, we also welcomed feedback on our ancillary products. Whilst producing the album art for our album cover we came up with several different versions of the same design.

From the different designs that we produced, we were unsure of which we preferred so we asked a group of dance fans between the ages of 17 and 19 which design they thought was more appealing. Almost everyone we asked said that they preferred the design without the a pattern on the top. This was quite surprising to us because it is a convention for albums of the dance genre to feature bright colours and laser-like effects as they usually connote live music. We decided that it would be the best idea to listen to our audience feedback and so we continued to work on the design that did not feature any overlaying images of lights and lasers; this was so we could appeal to our target audiences as much as possible. 

After receiving really useful feedback on the album cover, we also asked for some feedback on different features of our website; including the logo and banner design that was key component to the look of the website. 

The colour scheme that we used throughout the project was mainly pink, blue, and white, as pink is stereo-typically a feminine colour, and blue is a more masculine colour we thought that this would represent the mixed-gender band. In our original design we used predominantly pink powder paint but then we had second thoughts as this may have come across too feminine to appeal to both our primary and secondary target audiences.

After conducting some positive audience feedback from males and females between the ages 17 and 19, we concluded that the design with blue as the more prominent colour would be most appealing to both audiences. What was interesting to us however, was that lots of the boys that we asked actually said that the pink design was nicer, but that the blue design would attract their attention more so we went for the blue design in the end.







Before we made the final edit of our music video, we wanted to hear the opinion of someone from our core target audience to see how they felt about our music video, as well as our website and album cover. We really wanted to gain some audience feedback on the video before we made the final edit so that we still had time to make changes, within reason. We invited Izzie, a member of our primary audience, to the media block to take part in an interview, made up of questions about our music video and the ancillary texts; the video below shows this interview.

Izzie, female, 18. 

From this interview with Izzie we learned that our theme came across clearly; also we learned that despite our narrative being clear, a different, and possibly longer ending could have improved the video. This was particularly interesting to us as it was the first time we had heard this opinion; however, we decided not to act upon this piece of feedback as it would mean that we would have to re-think the entire video, changing the narrative, and the timing of the other scenes. 

We also asked Izzie to look at the website, she though that the layout was clear and that it was easy to navigate between the different pages, with interesting content throughout. Izzie like the album cover, and thought that the editing of the imagery on the front cover reflected the track 'My Head is a Jungle.' As Izzie is part of our target audience the feedback she gave us was particularly useful as it assured us that we had been making the right creative decisions in order to target our primary audience.

Conducting a Survey

This slideshow shows some of the questions and results that were produced from the survey that we created on SurveyMonkey online, we tried to maximise our amount of responses by sharing the survey online through social media networking sites.

Group 4 survey

These are some of the popular responses we received in our survey:

Narrative

These responses illustrated that some of the audience got the general gist of the music video when we asked if they had understood the narrative. However, there were also responses from people that said they hadn't understood the narrative very well. Unfortunately, this was a response that we had expected as we had picked up on issues with the narrative towards the end of the project.

We received some feedback that said if the beginning of the video had been longer then the narrative would have been clearer. We all agreed with this feedback as this was something that we had originally done with the music video. At the start of the project we had written in a longer opening, with scenes that showed Naomi (the singer) walking up to the white room, before she entered it. Unfortunately, due to time constraints against the music, we decided to cut down the opening so it would match the music of the song better.

Editing and Filming Style

We received lots of positive feedback with regards to the editing of the music video; this was nice to hear as we had all spent such a long time editing the video in post-production. We also received complimentary feedback about our set design and the camerawork in the video.

One piece of feedback that we received a few times was that although the paint fight scenes were good, they could have looked better if they were filmed inside, like how the other scenes were filmed. However, unfortunately due to the extremely messy nature of powder paint, we weren't allowed to film in the studio - or anywhere else inside the school for that matter!

This Padlet shows some of the responses that we had on our survey that we created on Survey Monkey and shared via Facebook.

Finally, I have learned a lot from our audience feedback throughout this project, I think that in the end we managed to successfully appeal to our target audience although were certain things we would have done differently in hindsight. As a group I think we all could agree that our music video left the most room for improvement if we had understood the audience's needs and gratifications a little better.

4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning, and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning Stage:

• Facebook - we used Facebook, the online social media site, as a means of communication between the group. Each member of the group had existing Facebook accounts, and we each had the app on our smartphones. This meant that we were able to use the messenger feature of the app to message each other in a group chat, and receive the messages instantly to our phones, similar to texting, as long as we had access to WiFi or 3G internet. We also made a group on Facebook where we could post any pictures/videos/questions relevant to our project and discuss them in the comment sections. 

I have compiled a list of pros and cons below, and a chart which demonstrates how the pros of using Facebook outweigh the cons.

  

• iPads - we found the iPads available to us in school very useful as they were easily portable so we could use them in different rooms whilst we were having our group meetings, it also meant that we didn't all have to crowd around a computer in our meetings which could have lead to distractions. 

• The Internet (Web 2.0) - we used the internet thoroughly throughout the duration of our project; in this stage of the project we mainly used the internet for watching other artist's music videos, this helped to inspire us with ideas for our own video. We also used the internet to look at artist's websites, this was incredibly important for us as we used them to learn the conventions of musician's official sites, which in turn led us to design our own.

We used websites such as YouTube to watch a wide range of other music videos; Spotify and Soundlcoud to listen to other dance tracks, Tumblr and Pinterest to find inspiring art and images, and other artist's websites.

• Adobe Premier Pro - One of the programmes that we used during our research and planning stage was Adobe Premier Pro. We used this software to create our steal-o-matic which is the video shown below. A steal-o-matic is almost like a video mood-board; it is a collection of different video clips and stills that we reference, and that have influenced us during the project. We also put the song we are using on top of the steal-o-matic which was useful as it helped us to visualise what the video may look like. We've all used the programme before, in our AS year of media so we all found it quite quick and simple to use.

Premier Pro steal-o-matic project open across 2 screens.

We also used PremierPro to create our animatic which was a really simple, linear timeline made up of the different shots which we want to use in the music video. We used really basic sketches that we used on our story board, and put them in order to the track so we could see how long each shot would last. On Premier Pro we can add text to the image so we would give a brief description of each shot as it appeared on screen. The video below is our group's animatic which was created in the early stages of the project.

• Spotify - I found Spotify to be a really useful platform in the research stages of the project; this was mainly due to the wide access to different artists of all different genres. A really useful feature on Spotify is the ' Related Artists' page which made it really simple to find tracks similar to the ones we really liked, even if we had never heard of the artist before. This also gave us a good reference point to look at other artists of the same genre which we could refer to throughout the duration of the project.

Construction Stage:

This Padlet highlights the different new technologies we used in the construction phase of the project.

Created with Padlet

In the video below we explore the pros and cons of the three different cameras we used during the production of our music video; the Canon 5D Mark ii, the Canon Legria, and the GoPro.

In this video, Ellie and I show how we used the lighting technology that we have access to in the studio for the purposes of our music video. The main technologies we used was the Leapfrog lighting desk upstairs in the studio and the lighting rigs that had to be operated manually from the studio floor.

Construction Stage:

• Adobe Premier Pro -  we used this programme to edit our music video; we also used it to edit other videos that feature on our website such as our "behind the scenes on our music video" video.

This double screen capture shows what our workspace looked like whilst using PremierPro. The monitor on the right-hand screen shows us what the video looks like at the point selected on the timeline. This is the screen we look at when watch the music video through.  On the far left hand side of the left screen is where we can search through our documents, and import different media files onto the timeline.

Both screens of Premier Pro on our final edit of the music video. 

The picture below is a screen capture of the timeline of our final edit of the music. The timeline is really easy to work on as it enables us to move different clips from the video about, and change their order, as well as their length. We had various different sequences on this project, but the sequence below 'Sequence 17' was our final one.

The timeline of our final edit of the music video.

• We used our smartphones to communicate with each other off-set, this was useful as it meant we could contact one another if one of us was running a bit late, or other similar situations.

• We used Wix to construct our website, I found this website easy to use as it did not require knowledge of coding to design it.

• We exhibited our music video on YouTube and shared it on social media sites such as Facebook to reach a wider audience 

I shared our music video through my own personal Facebook video.

We also shared the music video via Twitter.

Evaluation Stage:

The new media technology that I used throughout my evaluation was Blogger, the blogging site which I used to post the four seperate answers to my evaluation. Blogger has various different features and functions which make it particularly useful for this project.

One of the most useful points of using Blogger was that gifs could be used in blog posts to help illustrate a point. Gifs are also really useful in making a blog post more visually exciting and interesting. It was particularly useful when trying to help demonstrate different types of editing in the video. The gif below is one of many gifs that I made for my blog.

Blogger allows the user to make use of the HTML tab which enables you to embed any HTML code that you may have copied over from sites such as YouTube, Padlet, and Prezi. Although the coding looks complicated, you don't have to learn how to code properly to be able to use it on your blog.

Blogger also had its downfalls; it was often difficult to adjust the formatting and the positioning of images on blog posts, and they would often appear different on the blog once they had been published. This required lots of time and shifting around of pictures and gifs to make them appear in the right place.

Overall, I feel like Blogger was an invaluable new media technology in the evaluation stage of this project; and its positive points definitely outweigh its negatives.

I also used other sites and webtools to help me create my evaluation points; these are demonstrated below in the following prezi:



Over the duration of this project we used a wide range of media technologies from the research stage to the final posts of our evaluations. I think that we took full advantage of the technologies that were available to us, and we used them effectively throughout each stage. Although almost each technology had its negative points, this project would have been completely different without them. If we were to have done this project ten years ago then our results would have been entirely different as many of the technologies we used had not yet been made. I think that we are extremely lucky to have so many different technologies available to us at our fingerprints.

Album cover

We began working on our album cover by looking through the pictures we had taken of our artist members, and chose the best ones. We decided that we wanted single portraits of all three of them, instead of having a group picture. This meant we could choose images that they looked best in individually, instead of having to find one picture where they all looked really good/focused.

Choosing a portrait for Georgie didn't take long at all; we had taken lots of pictures in the studio and they all looked really good and they were all quite similar so it didn't take much deliberation over which one to choose.

Choosing photos for the boys was a little bit more tricky as we had different angles to choose from. Although the difference in angle wasn't a huge detail, it made a big difference to how to overall image on the album cover would look as a whole.

These were the two best pictures that we took of Eugene. One was completely side profile while the other was at 45 degrees angle. In the end we decided that the picture with Eugene facing more towards the camera was better as it means you could see his face clearer, we felt like this was important for the artist image as it was their debut album and so we wanted to make all three of their faces visible on the cover.

We did the same thing with Gavin; and these were the two best photos we took of him. We wanted all three of them to wear plain white t shirts so that it would be kept very simplistic against a plain white background. Having them all wear plain white t shirts meant that it would look much more effective when we overlayed the images of them on top of each other, and wouldn't look so messy. We chose the 90 degree angled portraits so that Georgie wasn't so much of the focal point, and we didn't want to take attention away from the two boys.

We searched through hundreds of different fonts until we found one suitable for our artist. We knew that we wanted to use the powder paint in our logo, so we looked for a style of typography that looked like it could've been written with paint. We found this font and we think it works really well. We used it on our album cover, our website, and on all of our merchandise to achieve a strong and synergistic brand image.

We used clipping masks of the text on photoshop so that we could take layers of images of the powder paint to fill the letters; it gave it the effect that it was written with powder paint. I think this effect worked really well.

After listening to some audience feedback we decided to change the colours of the paint, we changed them so that it was much more blue, instead of pink.

We overlapped the images of the three of them so they were on top of one another like this, and then we had three images of each portrait and laid them over the top of each other as well. This created this blurry effect. We then added the logo to the top of the page.

We felt like our album cover needed to stand out more and have another dimension to it so we took images of lasers and lights used in DJ set ups and put them over the image, and made them blue and pink in colour to match the colour scheme.

We had several different attempts at this but in the end we decided that it looked better without the lights over the top, so we reverted back to our original image.

Banner for website - artist logo

We looked at the websites of different artists that are all quite similar to our own artist, and we looked at the different banners they all had for their website. Some banners were very active, like Chase and Status' for example, they used their banner as a music player, a link to their spotify, and a link to their social media sites. They also used it to promote their latest show that they were involved in with Red Bull.

Chase and Status website header.

Other artists like Clean Bandit and Disclosure just had a very simple header for their website which contained a simple artist name/logo alongside their menu buttons.

Disclosure website header.

Clean Bandit website header.

Artists such as Ellie Goulding and Katy B kept to their colour schemes much more and this was really evident as it stood out on their home page. They both used bold colours, imagery, and pictures of themselves on their banners.

Ellie Goulding website header.

Katy B website header.

Artist Logo - first edit

Screen grab of Photoshop document of the original website banner.

We used photoshop to make our banner. We took the powder paint that we used during our shoot and we scattered it over white paper in various ways and took some pictures. The paper looked really yellow in the pictures and the colours didn't stand out very well. To fix this, we used photoshop to select only the powder, and put it onto a new white layer, to get rid of the paper underneath. We created lots of different layers of the paint and put them over eachother to create a more full effect; we edited the colours to make them more vibrant so they would match the colour scheme that runs throughout.

Screen grab of uploading the original banner onto the website.

This image shows how we used our website builder to put the banner onto our website. We wanted the paint to overspill into the menu bar a bit so it didn't look like a very 2D image that we just put at the top, we wanted it to look more integrated into the page.

New banner.

We made the artistic decision to change the colours of the paint on our banner so it was predominantly blue, instead of pink. We made this decision as we asked for lots of audience feedback from boys, and the majority said they would be more attracted to this with more blue, instead of more pink. However, the blue isn't overpowering and the pink still really stands out, so I think we made a good choice here, as to not push away our secondary audience.

New banner on the website home page.

I think that the banner worked really well on our site and made the home page stand out nicely.