Evaluation Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My audience feedback has shown me that narratives can be interpreted in different ways, and that fast paced editing is something to be weary of. After completion of the project, we conducted an online survey, as well as handing out physical questionnaires to viewers of our music video, website and album cover.

Feedback was largely very positive. The feedback to our survey was as follows:
 (Click images to enlarge)

 

As can be seen, it is hard to draw a conclusion on the quantitative research because the survey is not over a large enough range of people and the questions are too general. It did give us the general indication that our video was liked, but not much which is useful to learn from. However we were able to say that we learnt:

• That people would watch the music video again.
• That while the video made people more likely to buy the song, the positivity on the question relating to this was less consistent than with other questions.
• While people got a sense of band identity it wasn't that strong, particularly in respects to getting a sense of each band member.
• People were more positive about their abilities to follow the narrative than we expected them to be.
• People were less likely to look the band up online than watch the video again.

Our qualitative research was much more informative. We have presented the results to our survey on our music video in the form of a padlet:

(use scroll bar to read more)

As can be seen, generally people liked the style of the video, the editing was thought to be good however the fast cuts at times made the video overwhelming and hard to follow. Some people found the narrative a bit confusing which goes to show that in the future we should try harder to make narrative more explicit. 

Our Website Feedback

Similarly our website feedback was largely positive. Here is a list of some of the things that were liked by people in the questionnaire:

• The revolving gallery.
• The triangle images and banners.
• The bio pictures and layout.
• The store.
• The social media.
• The news page layout.

However our feedback group did also give two points which could have been improved:

• The contact us page is a little defunct.
• The home page is very busy with little structure.

I think these are both valid points. Were I to make a website again I would take both of these points into account.

Album Cover Feedback

Our album cover feedback was also largely positive. Here are some of the things which people said that they liked:

• The paint motif.
• The consistent colour scheme.
• The way the paint is mid drip.
• The hands on the back cover look good.
• The band members all look the part.
• The way the triangles are consistent with the website.

They did have some negative Feedback as well:

• The purple box on the back cover looks a bit weird
• One of the fingers on the back cover is cut off
• There were no triangles on the back or front covers, which would be the ones on show in a store

I agree with the feedback. I think while there were reasons for use of the purple box on the back cover, such as giving a clear place for us to put copyright information, we could have planned better and allowed there to be space for the copyright information in the photo rather than having to superimpose a purple box onto the picture. 

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From our focus groups and web-based online surveys, that we conducted after we finished all the texts, with multiple audiences that ranged from primary to secondary and more, we expected to have understood and satisfied the uses and gratifications of our targeted demographics. We realized though, that some audiences seeked different things to what we had originally regarded.

We initially created audience profiles to help us during research and planning.

We had many ways available for audiences to send us their feedback. This includes feedback sessions where we recorded them talking about the music video, questionnaires on the music video and on the website and album cover.

The feedback session allowed us to gain qualitative feedback from primary and secondary audiences and discuss different aspects of the music video with the audience directly. We asked a range of questions ranging from talking about general likes and dislikes of the video, to questions about whether the music video inspired them to visit the website or generally learn more about the band which would help us understand whether we had a successful campaign or not.                                                                                        
We realised that our purple iconography was successful and the people we asked pointed it out as something they saw and remembered. 

The main criticism we received was that we hadn't differentiated the narrative from the performance enough. This meant that it was harder for the audience to understand what was going on at times, which in turn, meant that they could not suspend their disbelief fully in the diegesis.

Primary Audience Comments

This is a summary of all the comments our targeted primary audience offered us after the screening.

From these comments, I realized that:

• They all wanted to watch the music video again
• Most of them liked and understood the narrative
• They paid attention and enjoyed the costumes/props and settings. 
• Although they many not have entered the diegesis immediately, they understood the pop star and her story.

We also held a large screening and created a survey online to gain quantitative feedback. 

From these results we can see that:

• The narrative was followed well enough by all of the audience.
• Band identity was prominent, noticed by mostly all.
• They all liked the video in general.
• Most said they would at least consider buying the song after watching the music video.
• Most would watch the video again.

From this feedback, I can see that there is room for improvement in the music video when considering the narrative especially. Although the general audience thought the narrative could be followed, I feel like we could have introduced it better and it seems the introduction we included to achieve this was not good enough. I would re-evaluate this if I remade the music video.

WEBSITE

When it came to our website, the survey I conducted gave very clear answers to a few important questions.

Everyone that answered appeared happy with the navigational abilities of the website.

It seems that although we spent a lot of time creating an impacful brand with our colour scheme and imagery, we should have spent more time creating a more visually appealing website. We could have included a larger variety of shades of purple and reduced the clutter of the home page.

Most people thought the website had everything someone would expect from such a site.

Finally, I asked if they liked the website over all, and they all seemed happy to say yes.

ALBUM ART

Throughout the focus groups and surveys we conducted in real life, we also showed the audience the four panels of our album to see what they thought.

Here are some examples:

Do you think this represents an electro/rock album well?
Most people said they definitely saw the electro aspect, but they didn't get the rock side. They lent more towards pop but some said that considering this is a mixture of both genres, the album cover does justify the concept.

Do you notice similarities between the album and the music video/website?
All the people asked noticed the purple and the triangles meaning that our branding was successful in a sense as they remembered the purple from all texts and also the triangle shapes in our website.

Would the album stand out in a shop?
Most people said yes, the conceptual aspect of the anonymous face and paint is something that appeals to them and they would find interesting. They also liked the triangles in the foreground of our inside left panel. This represents the needs of a contemporary audience that we didn't know we had portrayed, although we aspired to a similar goal. 

Can you rate the album out of 10?
Out of all the scores, we got an average of 8, with some people commenting that the imagery inside, although fun and visually striking, did not represent the genre well enough. This is interesting as we wanted to portray each band member as an individual, but it seems we could improve on that aspect.


Conclusion

As most people wanted to look up the band online, and also enjoyed the websites and album art, the aim of persuading audiences to spend their money or at least lead them towards that path was successful.  as each of our products in turns promoted each other though a synergistic campaign.

From the feedback we gathered, I can see that we targeted the correct audience demographic and understood the needs of a contemporary audience. Although, as our narrative was the bases for pleasing such contemporary audiences, showing them the music video more than once and asking what they noticed each time would have helped us understand what our target audiences picked out each time so we could see what we could have changed to intentionally present to them what we wanted them to see first.

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used various new media technologies at all stages of this product to make our work better and more efficient.

Research and planning: 
Because I was in a different media class to Alex and Sam, we had to specifically designate time to do research and come up with ideas together. We used new media technologies, such as Facebook and Skype, to help us communicate whenever we had an idea but were not together, and to develop our research. This allowed us to get feedback from each other instantly, which really improved the efficiency of our group.



A big inspiration for our style was Hayley Williams, so we often looked at her instagram to see what pictures she had posted and get inspiration.


Construction

• We used the Sony HVR V1E to film our entire music video.
• We used a Canon 5D Mark III to take pictures for our album cover and during our music video shoots.
• We used Adobe products such as Premiere Pro to edit our video and Photoshop to make our digipack.
• We created a Twitter account to raise awareness for our band, and used Facebook frequently to contact each other about shoots.
• We also used Wix to create our website, which was extremely easy to use and put all our social media links on.
  

Evaluation

Our group all use social media very often, so we promoted our video on various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to reach as many people as possible. We then used SurveyMonkey to get feedback from all over the world and get less biased opinions from strangers.

All the media students in our year also created a Facebook event for the music video screening and shared the trailer made by another group on various social media platforms to reach as many people as possible. 

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

New media technologies was essential to every stage of our project. Without it none of our three products could be produced. Now more than ever having a cross platform marketing campaign is important as audiences are using a wider variety of platforms and the larger the assortment of technologies which are used to advertise a band, the larger audience reach it has.

This is a table of how we used technology at each staged during or project.

I will now go into depth about how we used new media technology in the process of constructing, researching planning and evaluating each of our media products.

The Video

We put new media technology to various uses during the construction, research, planning and evaluation to achieve various different effects. In our planning we used Facebook and Skype in order to better allow communication between our group members. This increased efficiency, and allowed us to easily arrange meetings to further discuss ideas in person.


Once we had established which song we were using, we started to plan out our video. When we had a rough idea we used adobe premiere pro in order to edit together a visual breakdown of what we wanted our video to look like. We found images which mimicked different aspects of the video we wanted to create, such as lighting, location, and shot types. We put this to music so that we could have a good idea as to how the pacing in our music video would pan out. This is our visual breakdown:



Once he had our ideas planned out it, we planned shoots, and selected our camera:
(Click unmute button in the top left hand side of the vine to hear audio, hover over the vine for button to appear)


During our shoot we used lighting in order to make our video looked how liked it. I think that I took well to learning how to light videos, and I am very pleased with how the result. In order to light we used a studio rig featuring Arri 1000k redhead ceiling lights and 300k redhead floor lights. We continuously used three point lighting on each camera in order to build up depth in contrast, which I think went very well.

Once shooting we started editing. We tried to do this as efficiently as possible by syncing up performance tracks and then cutting away parts we didn't need so that we didn't have to continuously resync the performance with the music. While editing we tried out a few different techniques including stuttering a single shot and cross cutting at high speed between two shots. We used these two techniques recursively throughout our video, and here Alex and I talk through how we achieved each effect:



Once we had edited our video together it became time to colour grade our video in order to make the colours stand our more. We used brightness and contrast to produce the subtle difference in colours between the original and the graded which is shown in the gifs bellow.

Once finished we exported our video and uploaded the finished file to YouTube

The Digipak

Once we had come up with an idea for our album cover we made a mock up using Adobe Photoshop and images found through google images:

This allowed to ensure that we all had the same idea as to what our album cover would look like, as well as giving us reference shots to use at the photoshoot. Once the photoshoot was done, we used Photoshop in order to further edit our pictures. 

The Website

In creating the website we used new media technologies in order to allow audiences to interact with the content. We created a QR code so that viewers could access the website from their smart phones.

This shows convergence of technology between desktop and mobile viewing . Not only this a qr code can be used to quickly send out links digitally which would give a viral element to our products. We also used html to code a mailing list submission form. This allowed users to sign up to receive exclusive emails from the band, which would appeal to the core target audience to our band. Similarly we had a competition in order to promote our band by appealing to viewers who may be interested in finding out more about the band as well as pleasing our core audience.

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This table summarizes how we used new media technologies throughout the project:

Stage	What new media we used and how we used it.
Research + Planning	·         Web 2.0 – Research bands, videos ·         Youtube/Last.fm – find music videos ·         Wikipedia/websites – Learn about theories and conventions. ·         Facebook/Twitter – Research  social media integration
Construction	·         Sony HVR V1E – film our music video ·         Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr – create our social media accounts for our band ·         Canon 5D Mark II – Take pictures for our merchandise/gallery and used in the photoshoot scene. ·         Adobe Photoshop CS5.5 – Create merchandise/ Logo/ album cover. ·         Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 – Edit our music video ·         Blue Yeti mic. – Record introduction to music video.
Evaluation	·         Blue Yeti mic. – Used to record voice-over for videos ·         Prezi – Used to present information visually and more interactively ·         Vine – Used to portray information fast ·         Youtube – Used to portray a mixture of voice and visual elements ·         Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 – Used to create videos and gifs ·         Blogger – Portray Evaluation ·         Padlet/ SurveyMonkey – Visually portray audience feedback.

During planning, as well as having group meetings in real life, to communicate online we used programs such as skype and facebook.














Once we had an idea of genre and style, we wanted to find a song that we could implement our ideas to. We used web 2.0 with sites such as last.fm to find less mainstream songs that wouldn't already have a music video.

Once we found the song we wanted to use, we used Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 to create a visual breakdown of our music video.




This allowed us to present our idea to actors that would then understand what we are aiming for stylistically as well as the general chronology of the video.

We then began testing out lighting for the performance.

We used the Sony HVR V1E camera for the lighting test as we planned to use that for the real music video.

 We decided to use the ARRI Redhead 300k floor lights so that we could create lens flares that added atmosphere and made the video more interesting and more high concept.

The roof lights we used were ARRI Redhead 1000k and to have an idea of how we wanted to light our performance as well as narrative scenes further, we created bird-eye-view maps of the lighting setup on Photoshop CS5.5.



After shooting our music video, we used premiere pro to grade and edit our music video.

This video shows how we used high speed cross cutting to comply with conventions of editing to the music.



Here we explain how we stuttered certain shots in the narrative so that the editing would be different than in the performance.



With grading, as we had used the same camera, our variation in grading different shots was only based on the lighting (whether it was high or low key lighting).

Website:

Interactivity was important when creating the website, so used new media technologies such as QR codes that increased the platforms people could view the website from. This includes technologies with a camera that would be able to scan a QR code such as smartphones and tablets.















For Web 2.0, we also integrated social networks into our website to allow for easy access to multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

Digipak:

We used photoshop initially to create mock ups of our front and back cover. This allows us to get images from Google and other websites for a more realistic plan of what we wanted.
















In the final version we included interactive web 2.0 features like a QR Code. With this, we developed the convention of having the website included in the back cover, as instead people can just scan the QR Code and get taken straight to the website as technological convergence allows systems like smartphones to be able to scan the QR code.

Interactivity

To increase interactivity on our webpage, we included many ways the fans can interact with the band.

Competitions

 Competitions are a convention every artist and band include in their campaign to gain awareness and fans, and as a debut band, we need to include as many conventions that fit with our branding as we can.






QR Codes

QR Codes are a fairly new form of technology, as they are very easy to understand and implement in everyday life. By including one on our site, we are making it easier for people to access the mobile site. Also, but placing this not only on the website but leaflets as well.












Mailing Lists

A mailing list is important to keep our fans updated on the latest news surrounding the band.

Interviews

Our research showed that a convention for rock bands was to have interviews with rock magazines, such as Kerrang! and NME, so we created a fake interview with Alternative Press who have had interviews with bands such as Paramore, Fall Out Boy and Evanescence. We put this on a page on our blog, so fans of the band could learn more about them.