A2 Media Studies Advanced Portfolio

1. Evaluation Question 3. What have
you learnt from your audience
feedback?
James Cook

2. Feedback
The following slides are points made on our
audience feedback sheet followed by my
interpretation of what these points have enabled
us to do in our music video, as well as what we
could have done in order to improve areas of the
video.

3. Use of narrative/storyline
Our video follows a set narrative of events and from
our audience feedback I can see that it is something
they found interesting about video, as kept them
hooked wanting to know what was going to happen
next. Additionally, with the narrative we were able
to build on the suspense of the video and pass on
the emotions of each actor/singer to the viewer. Our
feedback also suggested that the set events in the
music video complimented the soundtrack and
matched the mood of the song successfully.

4. Variety of shots/camera angles
Our audience feedback suggested that through our use of different camera angles and
the mixed variety of shots in our video we were able to present different views of the
characters and represented the emotions being displayed in the actions in the video.
In the fighting scene we were also able to create a sort of visual hierarchy effect to
show dominance of one character compared to the other. Low camera angles were
used in these scenes so show the hierarchy. This particular camera angle made the
viewer feel sympathetic for the main singer/actor and successfully passed on the
emotions being represented. Throughout the video we used a variety of shots and
camera angles. Looking at our audience feedback I can see that this has made our video
more interesting and allowed us to hold the attention of the viewer for the duration of
the video.
In contrast to this, our video contained some shots that were slightly too long
compared to the majority of other shots in the video. Our audience feedback suggested
this reduced the suspense being built because the video dragged out on some
unnecessary shots that were too long. Although not a huge problem to solve, we would
just reduce the timings of certain shots to make the video flow more smoothly and
sustain the suspense that was being built through the previous shots.

5. Time lapses/sped-up footage
Another main camera/visual effect that we used in our music video was the
use of time lapses and sped-up footage. This particular effect allowed us to
create suspense and create more tension when the music’s tempo increased.
Some of the feedback we received included; the sped up shots contrasted well
with other areas of the video and also synced with the beat of the soundtrack.
In order to film the sped-up footage shots properly, we used a GoPro to get a
first person point of view shot. When sped up this effect just made the
surrounding environment move quicker and created a nice juxtaposition
between the fast and slower shots.
Looking at our audience feedback we came across a point that we used an
excessive amount of GoPro shots which began to remove the suspense in the
video because there were too many in contrast to other parts of the video. To
improve on this and take notice of the point made in our feedback we could
remove some of the sped-up shots filmed and replace it with normal speed
shots.

6. Costume/Props
In our music video we aimed to use clothing that
was grey or a more neutral colour to keep up
with the Indie genre stereotype. From our
audience feedback we can see that they liked the
props/costume that were used in the video, as
they matched the music and the type of mood
the song put across.

7. More enthusiastic actors
Because the artist of the song chose lived locally to
us, we decided to use him in the video with his
permission, obviously. We knew that our artist
wasn’t that confident in front of the camera but he
still agreed to appear in the music video. From our
feedback we understood that we should have had
more enthusiastic actors to make the mood the
genre stand out more and get the point of the
narrative across more successfully. Our audience
also found that the lack of enthusiasm from the
actors limited the emotion/message being put
across to the audience.

8. Clip length
Some of our audience felt that some of the lengths of the
clip were too long in areas of the music video. From the
feedback we found that they felt it removed areas of
suspense in the video and took away parts of the build-up
in the narrative.
We also found that in relation to our genre research, a lot
of clips in indie genre music videos are quite short. The
majority of our video follows that mood but in certain
areas we drift away from that and have longer clips when
they don’t need to be as long.