1. 3. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
In an attempt to improve my music video and my ancillary text I used a
number of methods to get audience feedback. One method I used
was the website Survey Monkey to produce a questionnaire and
publish it on my blog. This helped identify who my target audience was
and what they expected or wanted from my video. For example from
my feedback I discovered that the majority of my audience range from
the ages of 15-20. This made me realise that the video would be more
attractive to the audience if the actors in the video where younger. I
also found out that the majority of the audience enjoyed the final video
and found the concept easy to follow with one comment claiming it
was “very good”. This was also reflected on the feedback that was
shown on the YouTube video as the video received ten likes and zero
dislikes on the comment bar.
The reason the feedback for my final video was so positive was due to the
corrections I made to it after the feedback I got from the survey I created for
my first draft of the music video. From the original draft of my video the
audience said that the video was “non-satisfactory” or that it “could be
improved”. To fully understand what the specific problems were with the video I
asked the audience “how would you improve the video?” I used a comment
box for this question so I could understand all the issues that the audience had
with the video. The comments showed that they did not like the mise-en-scene
as they believed it was too busy. Some believed that the busy setting was
affecting the acting and making the concept harder to understand. The
feedback to this question also showed that the audience did not like the ice
skating scene as it was to cliché. To address this we filmed the footage again at
a different location and also decided not to include the ice skating scene.

2. I also created a survey to gain feedback for my digipak. I did this to see
which of the three digipak’s I created the audience liked most. The
feedback showed that the audience were most fond of my final
digipak design. The audience showed that the previous two digipak’s
were not typical of the R&B genre whereas my final design did. The
results also showed that the majority of the audience preferred the font
that I used for my final digipak. Although the feedback that I obtained
for my digipak was generally positive, there was one member of the
audience that did not understand believe I created a post-modern
artist very well and believed the digipak would have been better if I
kept the artist in a constant style through the music video and digipak.
4. How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
During the planning and research stages of my coursework YouTube
was very useful. The site helped me research a number of different
music videos from the R&B genre as well as allowing me to see other
genres. This was helpful as it allowed me to notice the different codes
and conventions of my music genre but also allowed me to
understand the conventions of other music genres which helped me
understand what I should included in my video to make it
recognisable to the R&B genre. As I did not have any experience
using video editing technology I Further used YouTube to watch
tutorials on how to use I-Movie, Photoshop and Final Cut. This helped
me use these software’s more efficiently and explore new ways to
create effects in my main product and ancillary text. For example
during the photobooth scene it was difficult to create the effect of a
real photobooth so I researched the tutorials on YouTube to give a
realistic effect.

3. I also used the website Survey Monkey to get feedback on my work. I
used this as it was a more time efficient way to get feedback on my
work rather than writing up and handing out a questionnaire. This also
gives me a broader number of people to see and judge my work, as
it is open to everyone on the Internet rather than the people I hand it
to. This gives me a more rounded view of my work as it opens the
main product and ancillary text up to a larger audience. I also used
YouTube to gain feedback from our video through its comment
feature and like/dislike button. It also organises the statistics in a chart
which makes it easier to read. This was helpful in showing the specific
areas in which the video needed to be improved. For my planning
stages I used the blogger website to organise my work and to keep
up to date with new work through the teacher’s blog. This gave me a
direct source of communication with my teachers when I was not in
school which made it easier and more convenient for me to do my
work.

4. After filming the completed footage for the music video I went on
to use Final Cut rather than I-Movie. The reason I did this was
because it gave a more professional and enhanced view on the
video. Although it was more complex and difficult to use, for some
scenes (e.g. the photobooth scene) it was far more professional
and smoother to use Final Cut rather than I-Movie. With the help of
the YouTube tutorials from the researching stage and final cut I
learned how to alter the contrast and the colouring of the video,
which helped me, simulate a real photobooth. This also helped me
continue to create voyeurism as the realistic look to the scene
made it seem that the audience were actually watching the date.
I also used both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to
create my ancillary text. To conform to my genre, on the final
draft of my ancillary text I decided to have a greater focus on the
setting rather than the using computerised effects. As I only had a
basic understanding of how to use these software’s I still
researched tutorials to try and smooth out any imperfections in the
images I used. On the previous drafts of my ancillary text however
I experimented with the colouring effects of the image and the
background.