Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Target Audience ProfileThe target audience for my production is predominantly females due to the way in which we use a female actress throughout our production and thus the audience would, essentially, be able to identify with a character of their own gender rather then of the opposite. In a similar way, the age category of our audience would be between the ages of 16 and 20, in order again, to allow for a relationship to build between the character and the audience members because of the similar age group. However, the age category was also chosen due to the way that there are implications of drug use and thus this would not be acceptable for a younger audience. Additionally, the inspiration for the video would not apply to an older category as the production was based upon fairy tales which would be more plausible for a younger demographic.The audience members would also be of a white British ethnicity and nationality due to the way that the characters/ chosen actors within the production represent young people within that category. In terms of the psychographics of the target audience, I would presume my audience to have interests in similar products and texts; filmography such as Pans Labyrinth and artists such as Mumford and Sons and Radiohead due to the genre and the dreamlike state of many of these artists and their songs.

Audience FeedbackIn order to gain feedback from my specified audience members, for my production as a whole, I handed questionnaires to those who fit my specific age category. By doing this, I was able to find out areas of improvement and equally, strengthened areas from which I could based my improvements. Once concluding the questionnaires form my target audience, I constructed a questionnaire for my production, for those who did not fit into my target audience, to identify any areas from which they believed also, to be improved but also to maintain, knowledge that I had in fact addressed my target audience carefully and correctly.

Reception TheoryReception theory is the idea that a text is not just passively accepted by an audience but the audience interprets the meaning of the text based upon their own life experiences. This idea links to Stuart Halls suggestions of the encoding and decoding of media products in the ay that those who create a media product encode it and then we, as audience, decode it and can conclude different interpretations of said product depending on our own background.Therefore, for my production, it would appear to one audience that there could be more than one interpretation of the narrative. For example, depending on the viewing audience, it may appear that the narrative tells the story of numerous fairy takes in an innocent and angelic way, relating to the original fairy tales form which we took our inspiration. However, to another audience group, it may appear in a more disillusioned way, portraying the idea that the female character, at the beginning of the video, drinks a substance within the drink that could be classed as drugs and therefore, all of the narrative itself is a hallucination due to the way that she falls into a mysterious world and meets fantasy creatures.

Uses and GratificationIt has been said that media products are created and that those how consume them, are using them for their own gratifications rather than using the product for its original purpose; to entertain. This idea relates to our production as it correlates with suggestions from Jay. G. Blumler and Elithu Katz of whom imply that media products are used in five, various ways for different audience gratifications. These ways are; social interaction, identification, information and education, entertainment and escapism. Therefore, the suggestion of audience members using media texts as a form of escapism, does in fact, relate to our product and the fairy tale atmosphere allows for the character to escape her own life at the beginning of the production and thus, this enables the characters to identify with the character, allowing for a sense of entertainment and as mentioned previously, escapism.

Music Video Production (Feedback)The questionnaire that I constructed with my target audience, consisted of thirteen questions, allowing the audience members to respond to my production in the best possible way for my improvement and the identification of my strengthened areas. The first four questions on the questionnaire tackled the idea of the audience interest and the straight forward strengths and weakness of the mise en scene and the camera work and editing. On looking at the results from the first four questions, I found that by calculating the average of all of the question together, the females gave the better results, with more scores of 4 and 5 than the males in this category. Therefore, I can see from the first four questions of my questionnaire, my specified target audience of predominantly females found the production, not only more engaging, but also of a higher standard.

Music Video Production (Feedback)When looking further at the feedback from the chosen target audience, I found that questions 5 9 concluded that the media product that I had create was of the correct length and that each of the individuals would listen to the track that we had created a video for again. This enabled me to decipher the conclusion that we had edited our piece to the correct standards for the audience members, allowing for a piece that held their attention more so than possibly an older or younger audience. Additionally, questions 8 and 9 resulted in the idea that there were no offensive or confusing aspects for either gender, and thus the music video was again, suited for the best audience demographic.

Music Video Production (Feedback) Question 10 of the questionnaire, was the most important in terms of recognising where my strengths were. For example, the use of costumes and colour were often stated as being the best part of the production but also the fairy tale aspect. However, the various answers allowed me to realise that female responses said that camera and mise en scene work was my biggest advantage and thus male answers focussed more on my editing skills implying that they needed improvement. Therefore, I used this feedback to develop my skills with editing, and on reconstructing that particular part of the questionnaire, I found that this also became a strength.

Music Video Production (Feedback)Within the final part of my questionnaires for this section, I found that on all questionnaires answered, responses concluded that the video production reflected the style of the music that we were attempting to promote, thus making this a promising factor for the production. However, although many responses said that the video successfully promoted the band/ artist, some responses concluded that the individual was undecided about whether this was a factor that we covered. Therefore, when looking into this idea, I found that although the narrative is clear, it is in fact, slightly unclear as to the band name or such s thus, I addressed this further in my print productions.The final section to the questionnaire was a rating of the overall music video and when looking at the scores given for this section, I calculated the average again, finding that over all, females gave a higher rating for the video than males thus supporting the target audience theory that we had decided on with predominantly white British females of 16-20 years of age.

Print Productions (Feedback) In a similar way to that of music video feedback, I created a questionnaire, asking about the quality and interest of the music video for the audience members. Within the first five questions, I again, constructed the mean for each gender and found that overall, the product that I created gained better reviews from male audience members as apposed to female audience members. This could be due to the way that I addressed the feedback from the previous questionnaire, regarding the video and used my editing skills as a focus for improvement rather than my composition and photography skills.

Print Productions (Feedback)Questions, 6 and 7 asked whether the individual would be encouraged to buy the digipak or go to an event by the artist. From analysing the data I gained form my questionnaires, I found that all of my responses to these questions, besides two indicated that the individual would feel encouraged to do either of the mentioned motions. However, I was given two responses that indicated that one male was undecided about going to an event by this artist and one that indicated that a female was unsure about whether they would buy the digipak. Therefore, when looking at the previous comments and statistics from the other responses I can understand that the female response here correlates with the over all female total that I received from the first five questions; when it was concluded that the digipak appealed more to males than females. Additionally, the male response here about the event of an artist is also understood as the previous information gained about the video equally, concluded that the artist may not have been fully or successfully promoted and therefore, the individual may be unsure if the event.

Print Production (Feedback)The last few questions of my questionnaire asked the audience if there were any offensive aspects of the product such as the representation, gender or ethnicity and for all of my responses, I counted that none had any reference to any particular aspect of my digipak, thus implying that the pack was suitable for the target audience overall. The next question (question 9) asked the audience what the strongest aspects of my digipak were and from my results I found that the imagery and the sketches that I created or my inside panels were unique and thus one of the strongest features in correlation with the video production that we had created. Another strength of my work was that of the text and the font. For example, one response quoted that the track listing alignment worked well with the images, creating a simple but effective feel to the final panel. These comments allowed me to understand, not only my strongest areas but also those that would need improving in future products, such as the difference in colouration between panels 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 and also the eye flow of the front panel. An improvement would be making the band name bigger in order to make it more coherent with the back panel.

Feedback During processesAt a midway point through creating our music video production, we handed a questionnaire to a potential target demographic in order to recognise the strengths of our piece so far. When looking at the feedback we received, we could see that the demographic, so far, found that the music and visual links, relating to Andrew Goodwins theory, along side the link to the fairy tale inspiration, were our strongest features. Therefore, we continued to include many similar aspects when finishing our product. In relation to this, when I crafted my digipak and magazine advert, I created a range of designs on a single piece of paper, along side some comment boxes. By creating range of designs, especial in terms of my magazine advert, I was able to gain feedback into the best possible design in regards to my audience pleasures and also the genre of my music as the chosen target audience would have heard, seen and responded to my previous production.The responses that I gained from my magazine advert concluded that the target audience found a more simple and less cluttered advert would entice them to reach for that particular genre more often. Also, I found that the positioning of the text allowed the audience to decide on a definite advertisement design for themselves, as the image became clearer when the text was moved. This added to my piece as I edited the text boxes in accordance to the feedback and the positioning of the image itself.

ContinuedI created two, somewhat, contrasting digipak designs, originally. The first design consisted of four edited photographs, two of which were screen shots from the music video itself with the other two being the current panels one and four. The second digipak design consisted of the two current panels (one and four) and two drawings of the characters (two and three). On constructing research into which digipak was the most successful, I found that many of my target audience found that the second digipak was best suited for their demographic. I received comments for the first digipak such as panels two and three appear pixelated and the third panel does not create a fluent feel for the other panels and therefore, on receiving compliments such as unique for the inside panels of digipak two, I chose to use this as my final piece. Therefore, I can conclude that this was my most vital piece of audience feedback as it, effectively, added the finishing touch.

Digipak Design 2 The final piece

Digipak Design 1