MEDIA STUDIES THE EVALUATIONS WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
What have you learned from your audience feedback? Having been offered the choice of track to base our music video around, we decided to run by the class our initial ideas after one listen of the song itself. Discussing our idea, we received positive feedback. The first comments were, ‘you’re making the video’s narrative concept relatable to your target audience’ and also, ‘I believe your clearly highlighting different representations of teenagers’ in society. Our first and most complex idea was to present a young, innocent and vulnerable teenage girl, that finds herself isolated within society’s constraints. Through the video we wanted to show this character’s inner ‘Demons’ attempting to break out. Here we would be showing the struggles of a teenage girl in society, trying to fit in.
When dressing this character, we wanted to show her innocence. To do this, I consulted Twitter and two of my follower’s came back with:
So, using this feedback, we dressed the girl in a small, summery dress, flat shoes and tights. I felt this attire was suitable for attempting to portray the attitude we so desired.
Placing books, magazines and photoshoot copies, in front of the shot, was our way of trying to convey her place in society. We intended to show her desire of being beautiful, thin and much like a model or celebrity. Another representation we wanted to show was with the Demons. These characters were intended to look as though they were inside the vulnerable girl’s head, like the Demons of society. The Demon’s were to adhere to society’s stereotypical ideology of teenagers. What’s that I hear you say? A Stereotypical Teenager? “Loud, obnoxious, rebellious, out of control, and up to no good… these are just a few of a wide number of stereotypes that are attributed to American teenagers. What is it about teenagers that make the rest of society seem to turn against them?” This is the question I wanted to answer and through my video, I wanted to show the many struggles of teenagers. After much deliberation and discussion within the classroom, we found that the majority of the class thought the narrative plot would be too confusing for an audience of first viewing. Getting this feedback was helpful, as this way we were able to focus more on the performance side of the video. Receiving feedback on Facebook was particularly helpful, as I was able to get an idea of what different ages would want to find when watching a music video from my poppunk/rock genre. This subsequently helped me to come to the conclusion of which target audience would be best suited. My primary target audience is 15-24 years old, because of the vibrant, young and modern track. From our initial idea, most comments said to ‘attempt a simpler idea’, ‘look more into the performance side, perhaps with instruments’. Some said different. ‘I think instruments are too predictable in this genre, it would be nice to see a new, more modern music video that didn’t contain this idea.’ With this feedback in mind, I moved over to YouTube and found that many music videos of the same genre had the inclusion of instruments. I wanted to subvert this convention to ensure my video stood out. Here, both Facebook feedback and YouTube comments came into great use. I created a Youtube video, where we were asked some basic questions about the plot of our music video. I felt this would help clarify our story line and this way, we would be able to come to a decision that we felt would aid our video’s progression.