Transcript:

In order to conduct my audience feedback, I gathered a sample of 10 students in my target audience (11-20 year olds) and asked them general questions in the form of a questionnaire about the video to see what went well and what could have been improved.

 

One recurring comment on the video was the editing side. Many of the people had said that the video felt “well done” as the clips were edited in time to the rhythm of the song, making the flow of the video more complete and satisfying to watch. As well as this, people commonly commented on the fact the people in the performance section looked very confident in what they were doing - it was hard to tell they weren't in an actual band as all the guitar chords matched up to those being played in the audio and the lead was lip syncing in time. For me personally, I agree with this this point as I know that I briefed the rest of the band before filming the video to make sure they were familiar with the song and knew what they would be playing. And the fact that it was shot inside meant that I could control variables which could have potentially hindered the outcome of the video.

 

This links onto a comment which was made frequently about the shots which were taken outside. Many people said that in the first four seconds, the camera seemed really shaky and more like a “home video” than a music video. As much as i would like to disagree, this is true. When shooting outside, it was hard to control extraneous variables such as the weather and terrain we were on and this hugely impacted the outcome of the shots as tracking shots of the protagonist were not as stable as I had planned. This could have been overcome if I would’ve used a camera stabiliser however the sixth form did not own one of these so I had to improvise and try to stabilise the shots during the editing stage.

 

The biggest positive comment I received was that the video was genuinely enjoyable to watch. Every single person I asked commented on how aesthetically pleasing it was watching the powder paint fight shots and said how the variation of camera angles helped to establish the full experience. This helped to show me that even from a non-media point of view, the video still came across as effective.

 

One aspect of my video I received mixed comments about was the narrative. Many people commented on the fact at times it was hard to know what was going on, although this was true, i was not too concerned about this as I know that in most music videos the narrative is never clear cut. This is because it defeats the object of the audience having to watch it again to work it out. On the other hand, of those who did understand the narrative, everyone loved the plot twist aspect. One response claimed “it was really clever because I did not expect for that to be what was really going on, not only was it a great video but it also plays on your mind”. Comments like this made me really happy because even when I was deciding on initial ideas, I knew I wanted to include some kind of plot twist that people may think about even when the video isn't playing and this goes to show that the ideas were put across exactly as I had planned.

Lastly, many people commented on how the lighting made the overall video seem more professional. One response said how “the lighting in the outdoor shots really helped to emphasise the colours of the powder paint and gave the video a happy feel”. Although the colourings of the powder paint was manipulated during the editing process, the lighting was very bright and visible which really helped during the day of shooting. As well as this, the fact that the audience caught on to how the lighting links to happiness lead me to think the video was effective as I specifically intended for the colours and lighting to seem slightly over saturated so it would seem like the “reality” is too good to be true.