Sarah Williamson's A2 Media Blog: feedback

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I gained a huge amount from constantly getting feedback from various audience members. Audience feedback is incredibly important when putting together a product as, in this web 2.0 landscape, the audience shapes the media more than ever. Throughout production I posted rough cuts on facebook and my advert was decided purely on the huge positive response one of the two options got (which you can see in this video for Q4).

In order for my products to be successful I also had to look at who I was aiming my video at. My target audience was 16-24 year olds who like to watch music videos, specifically dance music or remixes of pop songs as that is the song I chose.

From this post

As the research I found was that the a big proportion of people watching a video with a female artist was male I also began to think about female representation, which I looked at here. I looked at representation quite a lot as I thought it was an important message to get across and a great way of subverting the conventions of a dance music video. I wanted to present a strong female protagonist that the modern women could identify with. Through this aim I came up with the idea of using flashbacks as I wanted the narrative that she has been in a relationship but actually now prefers to be single to come through. Therefore portraying the relationship through rose tinted eyes (emphasised by using a 'romantic' filter on iMovie) can help contrast with her now in 'reality'.

Quite early on I researched the type of audience member who would watch my video and found that almost half of teenagers watch music videos online rather than on TV. This made me think about how I could grab the audience and keep them watching as well as highlighting how social media has grown in modern society.
I learnt a lot from the feedback I got and made changes to my production based on their comments. For instance, when putting together my first part of the video - the interlude section - I posted two different versions on facebook (one with lyrics and one without) in order to see what they thought. There were a few conflicting answers and so I compromised by reducing the amount of lyrics as well as taking on board the advice of having the footage in black and white - something which I found worked and made its way into my final cut.
It was clear from the beginning that this was an incredibly useful resource and so I posted frequently, another time being when I couldn't decide whether to have the ending with my female lead looking out to sea or walking back towards the camera. After posting one facebook I decided to cut it short which I talked about in my Rough Cut #1 Director's Commentary.

After finishing my third rough cut, I was more confident about it nearing completion and so I decided to show it to a focus group class of year 9 students to see what they all thought. I got lots of positive and helpful feedback from this which led me to my final cut. I learnt from this that the narrative was much stronger now I'd included the flashback sequences and that this class of 13-14 year olds, while a little younger than my target audience, picked up on a lot of the subtext of the video which I was extremely pleased about as it showed that it was clear: I was worried initially that it might have been hard to follow.
Throughout production I was anxious that my preferred reading was coming across to the audience...

Audience Theory: Readings of my text
Stuart Hall’s theory relating to Reception Theory was that of encoding/decoding. He put forward the idea that the text’s encoded by the producer which is in turn decoded by the reader. However there can be a big difference between the producer’s and audience’s readings. So, in order to try and bridge that gap, the producer can try and use recognised codes and conventions which can position the audience into reading it how he/she wants them to.
This can be termed the ‘preferred reading’ which is something Morley also looked at.
Morley’s theory looks at how texts have different readings due to the individuals reading them all being from different backgrounds. Therefore the audience has four responses to a text; dominant, oppositional, aberrant and negotiated. The dominant or preferred reading for my text would be the recognition of female empowerment, where the audience takes away a feeling positivity surrounding the end of a relationship rather than the typical weepy ballad. Yet some members of the audience, particularly males, may instead have a negotiated reading where they see the message I’m trying to make but don’t agree with it and would rather see women being objectified. Other viewers may have an oppositional reading as they may think that the end of a relationship is sad and that actually she may still be sad now she is on her own. An aberrant reading is where someone has missed the point entirely and so may see my video as enjoyable to watch and may not interpret any of the narrative. All these different readings can be had by different genders, class, ethnicity or age. As I, the producer, have my own background and cultural experiences then not everyone will agree with me - however as part of my target audience’s age range I hope that will help me.

example facebook comment

example youtube comment

example yahoo comment

I gained audience feedback by talking to my peers as well as posting rough cuts and ancillary drafts on sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Yahoo as a way to gain ideas and constructive criticisms. Modern audiences are much more aware of how a text is put together due to Web 2.0, meaning that much of the audience are producers themselves. Therefore modern day audiences are more aware of the conventions of a text so appreciate when the conventions are subverted, which is something I have tried to do.
The genre of my music video is dance and so there are many conventions that come with that genre such as quick editing to the beat, dancing being featured as well as it being creatively filmed. As Hall said, I tried to include these conventions so that the audience watching will recognise the genre as well as it being more likely they will have a preferred reading. As the song is about love I used a rose as a visual signifier of this as it connotes passion. Therefore the audience’s interpretation of the protagonist destroying the rose will hopefully help to cement the narrative that she is over the relationship. The flashback sequence at the beginning of the video is a way to make the audience aware of the relationship and how serious it could have been which correlates with the lyrics “we could have had it all” which is repeated throughout the video with the images of the lips singing it to highlight the importance of that line. Therefore the audience can hopefully read the significance of the relationship to the protagonist and thus identify or empathise with her.

original cover idea

In terms of my ancillaries, I started off using a photograph of my female protagonist and editing it artistically as were the conventions of dance/remix covers. I gained audience feedback and found they wanted something more simplistic, which eventually led me to the idea to move towards the jamie xx brand of the 'X' and the convention of using a still from a music video, which I think looks a lot more professional and sophisticated thus fulfilling the conventions and meeting audience expectations.

final cover

Last week I showed my third rough cut to a class of year 9's. Before the screening I found out that what they wanted most from a music video was seeing people having fun. Also when discussing modern music videos they described Lady Gaga as "weird", "sexual" and "terrifying", which was interesting to hear!

In terms of what they liked about my video they said they liked the use of scenery as a way to reflect the emotions in the video. They saw that she was happier in the brighter locations such as the beach and then a little more sadder in the darker locations such as the forest.
They also liked the editing, including the varied images being on the beat.
Another thing that stood out for them was the circular narrative, as they liked how it began and ended on the beach, neatly tying everything up.
The majority of the class managed to understand the narrative being about a break up and they liked that it portrayed a strong female on their own.
Lastly many of the class commented on how much they liked the interlude section as it showed her in a plain room and they said that was very effective.

They also mentioned a couple of things that I could work on, including making sure the audio/visual were in sync. An issue that I wanted to know was if the flashback sequence at the beginning with the different song was confusing or made it more interesting to watch. The class took a vote and the latter view won, but I shall try experimenting with new ways to make sure that it definitiely makes sense to the audience in the future.