In an attempt to improve my music video and my ancillary text I used a number of methods to get audience feedback. One method I used was the website Survey Monkey to produce a questionnaire and publish it on my blog. This helped identify who my target audience was and what they expected or wanted from my video. For example from my feedback I discovered that the majority of my audience range from the ages of 15-20. This made me realise that the video would be more attractive to the audience if the actors in the video where younger. I also found out that the majority of the audience enjoyed the final video and found the concept easy to follow with one comment claiming it was “very good”. This was also reflected on the feedback that was shown on the YouTube video as the video received ten likes and zero dislikes on the comment bar.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The reason the feedback for my final video was so positive was due to the corrections I made to it after the feedback I got from the survey I created for my first draft of the music video. From the original draft of my video the audience said that the video was “non-satisfactory” or that it “could be improved”. To fully understand what the specific problems were with the video I asked the audience “how would you improve the video?” I used a comment box for this question so I could understand all the issues that the audience had with the video. The comments showed that they did not like the mise-en-scene as they believed it was too busy. Some believed that the busy setting was affecting the acting and making the concept harder to understand. The feedback to this question also showed that the audience did not like the ice skating scene as it was to cliché. To address this we filmed the footage again at a different location and also decided not to include the ice skating scene.

I also created a survey to gain feedback for my digipak. I did this to see which of the three digipak’s I created the audience liked most. The feedback showed that the audience were most fond of my final digipak design. The audience showed that the previous two digipak’s were not typical of the R&B genre whereas my final design did. The results also showed that the majority of the audience preferred the font that I used for my final digipak. Although the feedback that I obtained for my digipak was generally positive, there was one member of the audience that did not understand believe I created a post-modern artist very well and believed the digipak would have been better if I kept the artist in a constant style through the music video and digipak.4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? During the planning and research stages of my coursework YouTube was very useful. The site helped me research a number of different music videos from the R&B genre as well as allowing me to see other genres. This was helpful as it allowed me to notice the different codes and conventions of my music genre but also allowed me to understand the conventions of other music genres which helped me understand what I should included in my video to make it recognisable to the R&B genre. As I did not have any experience using video editing technology I Further used YouTube to watch tutorials on how to use I-Movie, Photoshop and Final Cut. This helped me use these software’s more efficiently and explore new ways to create effects in my main product and ancillary text. For example during the photobooth scene it was difficult to create the effect of a real photobooth so I researched the tutorials on YouTube to give a realistic effect.

I also used the website Survey Monkey to get feedback on my work. I used this as it was a more time efficient way to get feedback on my work rather than writing up and handing out a questionnaire. This also gives me a broader number of people to see and judge my work, as it is open to everyone on the Internet rather than the people I hand it to. This gives me a more rounded view of my work as it opens the main product and ancillary text up to a larger audience. I also used YouTube to gain feedback from our video through its comment feature and like/dislike button. It also organises the statistics in a chart which makes it easier to read. This was helpful in showing the specific areas in which the video needed to be improved. For my planning stages I used the blogger website to organise my work and to keep up to date with new work through the teacher’s blog. This gave me a direct source of communication with my teachers when I was not in school which made it easier and more convenient for me to do my work.

After filming the completed footage for the music video I went on to use Final Cut rather than I-Movie. The reason I did this was because it gave a more professional and enhanced view on the video. Although it was more complex and difficult to use, for some scenes (e.g. the photobooth scene) it was far more professional and smoother to use Final Cut rather than I-Movie. With the help of the YouTube tutorials from the researching stage and final cut I learned how to alter the contrast and the colouring of the video, which helped me, simulate a real photobooth. This also helped me continue to create voyeurism as the realistic look to the scene made it seem that the audience were actually watching the date.

I also used both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create my ancillary text. To conform to my genre, on the final draft of my ancillary text I decided to have a greater focus on the setting rather than the using computerised effects. As I only had a basic understanding of how to use these software’s I still researched tutorials to try and smooth out any imperfections in the images I used. On the previous drafts of my ancillary text however I experimented with the colouring effects of the image and the background.