The document summarizes feedback received from various audiences on a music video draft. Feedback was received through a survey, from other students and teachers, and targeted the expected conventions of the indie/pop genre. Key feedback included expectations for symbolism of love and emotions, dim lighting, isolation, dark costumes, and natural or dark makeup. This feedback helped the filmmakers better understand audience expectations and informed changes they made to incorporate more genre conventions and improve the narrative flow.

1. 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The audience feedback we received is from our questionnaire responses in SurveyMonkey, the same
students gave us their initial feedbacks on the music video draft edit. We also received feedback from
different teachers and our media classmates. Getting a range of audience feedback was really
beneficial as each group were able to offer a different perspective but also looked at it with different
focuses.
Our target audience is young females, ideally our age. From our questionnaire responses, I learnt that
the majority of the respondents watch Indie/Pop music video ‘every week or over a week’. But all of
them expect to see symbolism of love, sadness and lifeless facial expressions, crying and arguments
within the narrative. In terms of mise-en scene,the feedback was a expectation of dimly lit or natural
lighting within the scenery and a sense of isolation in a music video that is about heart break or lost
love. The audience feedback around costume was that it should be a dark, grungy yet simple and
suave look; leather jacket, skinny or ripped jeans, vans/converses,boots. The audience feedback
around make-up was interesting as I had initially felt it would be necessary to have a dark look, but
they said that their expectation of the genre was make-up that is either dark glamour or natural. This si
an example of how informative the audience feedback was and why it is valuable to gain such
feedback,instead of using just our own understanding of the genre
What our target audience said:The respondents expressed that they would like to see within the
narrative a symbolic message of emotions; loss, love and/or isolation and references to the past tense
of how the romantic relationship ended. They also expected abstracts shots,such as artistic
approaches,time lapses and black and white filters within the genre. For performance based,they
would like to see a live performances piece, a depiction of the urban areas as well as dark and
‘isolated locations’. Their favourite music videos are Lily Allen – The Fear,The1975 – Chocolate,
Coldplay – The Scientist and Lana Del Rey – Summertime Sadness. The majority of respondents
watch these music videos on YouTube.
This feedback was extremely effective because it further expanded our knowledge of the conventions
of Indie/Pop and they were essentially the experts on this genre as they are the fans. We also learned
that Lana Del Rey was their most favourite Indie/Pop artist and we used this information to focus our
research on a lot of her work as she is obviously a popular icon within the genre.
The inter textual references that they wanted to see in the music video were vintage references e.g.
Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, referring to the 1950s based life in the Catcher in the Rye,
vampires and to the classic story of Alice in Wonderland.
We asked specifically which location/setting that they would usually expect to see,they said urban or
surreal areas,to be outdoors mostly; stage, and park and beach was their examples. One respondents
said that regal, glamorous and elaborates homes would suit the glamour persona of an Indie/Pop artist.
All this information was incredibly useful, because although we went on to examine and explore
conventions in the genre in detail, we still wasn’t sure which features were more popular in the genre.
What we did with the feedback: We took a moment to explore which conventions identified by the
audience would actually suits our music video’s speed and volume. We made a conscious effort to
respond to all the feedback by incorporating as many of the suggestions into our planning as possible.
In terms of the costume; we decided for it to be glamorous for some shots for the music video and for
the magazine ad and album cover, there was shots of our location as suggested from the respondents.

2. There was a black and white filter used in the music video, to reflect the past relating to love and we
were inspired by Lana Del Rey initially, so we glad to hear that the target audience/respondents like
this artist the most. In response to their feedback I decided to research more into how the artist is
represented throughout other media texts.
Initially, we were concerned that the feedback would not be a useful as they may suggest unrealistic
ideas, but their advice was in fact useful although there were elements that were beyond our budget
and restricting in terms of the context of our video being just a student project.
One part that we found really insightful was particularly the intertextual references that they
suggested. However it proved to be too challenging to refer to Alice in Wonderland or Catcher in the
Rye, instead it was easier and efficient to have the scenic locations, which was an Indie/Pop
convention that they referred to.
We recorded the response from our target audience after a screening of our first draft because we
wanted our target audience’s input on the music video before properly completing it. What they did
and didn’t like, if they recognised the abstract shot and the relevance of it. This feedback was useful
because the target audience already have the natural interest in Indie/Pop music, it was obviously best
to take their feedback and use it to improve the editing. They said in the video that as the audience,
they could resonate with the singer, as in feeling her emotions and actually emphasise with her. They
had no other criticism for the music video, which gave us the impression that they liked the video.
Looking back I think the downside of this video is that we didn’t have a big enough sample. It would
been good to have the time to have a range of feedback.
What our Media class and teachers said: Asking our media class was the most effective feedback
as they understood how to be realistic and practical when producing a media product, their feedback
was just as important as the teachers due their past media production experience and the fact that they
were carrying out similar projects themselves.
In addition our media teachers’ feedback was just as effective as they were able to guide as around
the assessment criteria. They told us make sure that we kept continuity consistent within the music
video, having too many contrasting abstract shot was confusing to the viewer, even if it was a concept
based music video. They wanted us to use less ‘random’ props (tea cups, glasses, paint dripping
down, wallpaper, flowers, window shots), and focus more on scenic shots; the rain drops in windows,
location shots and the lip-syncing. Their feedback on our draft video was that it didn’t flow together
and although there was an expectation for the narrative to be broken and to have abstract shots and
lip-syncing cut back and forth throughout- it needed to be better connected.
Based on this we had to ensure that there was more depictions of the continuity that shown through
the symbolism in the music video; the painting shots, the projection scenes,the forest and the hands.
Since the speed of the song was slow, mellow, we were also told to keep the filters to a minimum, as
the initial draft edit had too many artistic filters, which didn’t flow with the mood of the music video.
We decided to keep just the black and white filter of the hands moving and coming back together
shots, because this was supposed to illustrate the past; the significant memory of the singer, when she
was in love. We reversed the last shot of the hands, so it looks like the hands are coming back
together to represent that continuity of the hands symbolising the singers desire for love, also it links
with a line from the lyrics, which is ‘‘Let our love begin again’’. We kept the other shots in its

3. original colour, as the lighting was perfectly suited for the depressing and emotional tenor within the
song. These changes were made as a direct reaction to the feedback given.
I think this year more than last year, I appreciated the importance of audience feedback. In actual
fact,looking back if I did this project again, I would manage the production and planning in a way
that allowed for more feedback opportunities.