Evaluation 3

Throughout my media project, audience feedback has been the basis of my work and has helped me a great deal when i am in need of improving my work in order for it to better appeal to the target audience.

The first piece of audience feedback we received was when we presented our pitch to our media class. We gained feedback through the use of a guided conversation, in which they wrote their thoughts and feelings down based upon a set of qualitative questions which we set out for them. Our audience feedback helped us to make a rather large valuable decision within our project, as we had first planned to film our music video on a beach setting. However with the help of our target audience we decided that this option was not a sensible one, due to a number of reasons including the distance. This helped us extremely as we were able to come up with a more feasible option of filming our video in the forest nearby.

Later on in the process we then gained some audience feedback on the rough cut of our music video. We asked a group which we felt fitted our target audience to watch our rough cut, and provide us with information on what aspects of the video they felt were good, and which they felt needed improvement. From the audience feedback, once again we gained valuable ideas as they pointed out that the performance element of our video was not up to a professional standard and found that the lip syncing was very off. Therefore from analysing our feedback we have been able to further improve our video for our final cut, by producing an improved performance element, which we are much happier with, and which our target audience also feel is much more geared towards our target grade and gives a much more professional image. 

When I started creating my print products I also gained a range of audience feedback. First off I ensured that my target audience played a key part within my creation of the print work by asking them which font and colour scheme they preferred. After taking their views into consideration I then went on to use their choice within my print work. This paid off as I then gained feedback for my final pieces of print work. They found that the products looked very professional, but needed a few adjustments in order to make it look professional and up to date.

How have the audience read the values expressed in your video?

The cultural studies approach states that there are three ways in which media texts can be interpreted, preferred, negotiated or oppositional. From the feedback we gained from the rough cut, I believe that our video has had a preferred reading. As they noticed that the video was aimed at teenagers due to the fact that we used people of a similar age to our target audience within our video. They also recognised that the brand of our video was indie, due to the style of clothing in which our actors wore.

To ensure that our audience feedback gave us a clear insight into what our target audience truly thought we ensured that we used qualitative research throughout. This meant that we used open ended questions when interviewing our target audience in order for them to be able to elaborate on their initial thoughts and to allow them to give us feedback that would help us identify what we have done well with our project, and what aspects need to be improved on in order for us to reach a higher grade and to create a more professional, appealing package.

If I were asked to complete this project again I think I would ensure that I experimented widely with a different variety of techniques for my print work, in order to create something that totally appealed to the target audience by getting them more involved within my decision making process. I also would ensure that we had more time set out to film our music video, as we were quite rushed for time due to the fact that we had to re-film the performance element.