Evaluation - Q3

What have you learned from your audiece feedback?

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In order to gain audience feedback I put together a poll on my blog, which consists of many quesions as seen below:

The reason behind why i created this pol was to not only incorporate different forms of media into gathering my research but also to gain information about where it is that audience watch music videos created by their favourite artists and which genre of music is currently popular on a small scale of the music industry. I then presented my results and findings from the people who took my poll through the use of pie charts that I created using Microfost Excel.

What is your gender?

Male: 2

Female: 10

What genre of music do you prefer?

Acoustic/Indie: 7

Pop/Singer/Songwriter: 1

Dance/Electronic: 2

Hip-Hop/rap/R&B: 3

The result from this poll shows that more independent music is becoming more popular than mainstream. Although mainstream is very successful as they have the facilities and advertising methods to gain an audience on a worldwide scale, the small individual labels and more local artists are gaining more popularity as they can gave a more one to one sense of relationship to their fans. Festivals have caused the growth of this as well as youtube which I will go on to discuss for my next poll findings. Local bands and artists can gain their popularity by supporting the more well known music artists and with this they will give out free CDs and links to their social media sites to get more people listening to their work. Its the sense of knowing an artist right from the very start and seeing them grow that i think is the reason why more people are choosing this genre of music over the more popular and media publicised artists as they cant give the one to one connection that independent artists can.

Where do you listen/retrieve your music from?

Youtube: 9

Spotify: 1

iTunes: 1

Physical: 1

The results from this poll also answer the results from the one below showing that more people do listen to music digitally and favourably on youtube. The convergence of media growth makes it much easier for people to discover artists digitally and it has caused a huge decine in physical music purchase. The days of vinyl records and CDs have largely faded and it is digital formats that now dominate the industry. Although some people still buy CDs, they will often tend to listen to tracks where they see music videos on youtube before deciding whether to buy the album physically or not. As youtube is also free there is no stopping audiences quickly checking out what their favourites artists are producing and its this way of advertising that is making artists more and more successful and well known. Not only in terms of successful existing artists but new and upcoming artists also have turned to youtube to advertise themselves whether that be just a voice recording of them singing with an image overlaid or a homemade music video of them performing It allows them to advertise themselves for free and on a much larger scale than if they was to just made a CD and hand it out in their local area. Performing scouts also search youtube for new artists that they will turn into the next big star so it is now the obvious choice of advertising if you want to get yourself known in the industry of music.

Do you watch music videos?

Yes: 11

No: 1

This again highlights the growth in technology and how this new method of advertising is not only being used by the big stars but the news and upcoming as well as audiences across the world.

If you answered yes where do you watch them?

TV: 6

Youtube: 9

Vevo: 3

Other: 1

Overall from my poll I have came to the conclusion that most of my audience who took the poll enjoy Acoustic/Indie Music that they listen to/retrieve from youtube. This method of consumption is also probably the same way a lot express themselves too through homemade music videos or recordings. Youtube allows people on a worldwide scale to not only watch videos but present themselves too helping to gain recognition and show people what they can do. Not only mainstream celebrity artists can be found on youtube but also independent individuals like i just mentioned which relates back to my preferred music genre from my results. It wasn't a surprise to see that only 1 out of 12 people now purchase their music physically due to the increase of globalisation through the growth of the internet Web 2.0, and peer to peer sharing. Obviously if I had a larger scale of answers, what I am discussing may be completely different in terms of all the results so what I have said can only be based on my findings alone and not an assumption of the worldwide population.

 

 

My next method of audience feedback was a questionaire asking the following questions.

I aimed the questionnaire at people who are the age of my target audience ranging between 16-29. This questionnaire helped me to gather information about what audiences gain from music videos and the impact the ideolgys have on their own lifestyle. I have created a slideshow to show what i found out from doing my hand written questionnaires.

My target audiences listen to music almost daily as well as viewing music videos due to interest of a possible story to a song, if they are new or to simply fill up spare time. They all think a music video can change your opinion on a song whether that be for a good reason or a bad. "It may make you look at a song in a different way if there's an emotional story" or "if the videos weird it could put them off the song". There are mixed opinions to whether they are influenced to purchase fashion items based on the ideology's that they see but they do all conclude that if there was something they liked they would probably end up buying it whether it be because they saw it in the video or not. Narrative stood out as the most favourite style of music as its "more interesting" and they get to find out clearly the meaning behind the message of what the artist is trying to say.

I have also created a focus group video within my research and planning stages of this project, asking two people of two contrasting ages some of the following questions: what they would like to see in videos, who they like to listen too, where or if they even watch music videos and also their favourite genre. One of the people in the video is 14 the other being almost 40. The reason i chose an age difference like this was to see if the change in music has had an impact on older audiences or if the way they was use too still remains the same. In terms for the younger audience interviewee, I wanted to know how music effects their lifestyle and if they like to incorporate ideology's that they see in music videos into the way that they live.

Music Videos effect and influence the younger generation of today including the easier and faster ways of downloading music digitally and through peer to peer sharing. For older generations who use to listen to music through vinyls and cds this remains as their method of consumption. Music videos don't seem to impact their lives, they may listen or watch them but are not persuaded by the ideology's as much as the younger audiences who now see it as 'the norm' to want to be like music artists by copying what they wear and how they act due to what they see in music videos.

For my three products i gained feedback in several ways, first being social networking site messages and text messages for feedback of my full music video draft 1 as seen below.

Paige -

Here is some feedback I received off a friend Via mobile phone text.

Ellie -

Chloe -

Becky -

Feedback Via Facebook, Social Networking site.

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I used social media sites as it is a common way for people to easily share their work on a worldwide scale gaining large scaled audiences. It was also quick and easy to link my audience to my music video from a simple YouTube link that they just has to click to be transferred to the video.

From my feedback received I gained very positive feedback a lot aiming at the coloured effects i incorporated to reinforce and represent the idea of travel through teleportation which highlights its abstract style. Improvements were suggested from my text messaging audience suggesting i introduce some shots earlier to avoid a jumpy overlay which I then went on to amend, improving my video just how the audience feedback had recommended. 

For my full music video draft 2 I gained face to face communication feedback from my Media Teacher Becky after my second draft saying:

Becky - "There is not a lot to change in your music video as it is abstract and really works well. I really like the light aspect which I would incorporate a bit more on the scene were you are show the males hands. The mirror effect of the female is really nice and the graphic image at the start is really interesting too, relating well to the galactic theme of the video. At the end of the video were you are shown the candle being blown out I would incorporate the image again to incorporate the galaxy aspect again to finalise the piece. Overall it is very good and with those small additions it will finalise to be a very nice piece."

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From this i used my teachers feedback to again improve my video for the final time adding an overlay of the light shot as she suggested over the shot of the male hands and also i added the galaxy image I had taken and manipulated at the start and placed it over my final shot of the candle with a low opacity so both can be seen.

I again received vocal feedback when asking for a brief opinion of my digipak half way through the making of it. I did this to gain an idea of what my target audience thought so far and that the work i was doing was successful in order for me to continue on to make the full product.

"It definitly looks realistic, its got all the logos that you see on real life cds as well as a music record logo, barcode and parental advisory logo" - Paige Rodmell

"I didnt realise it wasnt a real album at first, the back is definitely the most believable with the label information writing and all the logos" - Rachel Widdicks

" I wouldnt of known it wasnt real if you hadnt of told me, its really good" - Sharon Graham

"I like the writing around the edge of the cd as well as on the back, it gives it a professional finish that is very believable" - Katie Craven

Once all three of my products were completed I created another questionnaire asking my audience their final thoughts which can be seen in the slideshow of the results and also my conclusion of findings below.

On average my music video was rated 10 out of 10 as my audience feedback says i showed clear continuity with a clear advertising aim. Fonts, colour, effects and overall galactic theme clearly links the three products together effectively showing they all are combined media texts. This results to my products being a success as my aims have been met as confirmed through the use of audience feedback. I have created three media texts that all effectively link together making them realistic and professional just how it would be expected to be presented in the music industry.