Final music video

Evaluation post question 4 (prezi)

Evaluation post question 3 (video)

The purpose of audience feedback is to allow the artist or creator of the music video to make the necessary changes and take feedback on board for future purposes and work so they can keep up with the audiences demands and ever changing requirements. One way of receiving audience feedback is through the use of YouTube comments. YouTube is a good way of receiving audience feedback as it allows all audiences to have their own opinion on the music video, not just the minority, and it shows the most popular comments so the artists know what changes to make. It also shows what positive and negative feedback the artist can receive so they know what necessary changes to make and how they can make their target audience happy. As well as using questionnaires, focus groups, professionals feedback and vox pops for audience feedback and opinions. I used YouTube by uploading the rough cut of our music video and having people with a good and knowledgeable media understanding to give their feedback.

One positive comment I received was that it had a good clear narrative with good transitions to support it. This shows me that I was successful in creating a conventional and relatable storyline for my audience and will not have to make changes to this, however the negative aspect was that I could use more editing techniques at the begininng of the video. This allowed me to identify what wasnt succesful with and plan what conventional and proffesional techniques I could implement into the video to make it more succesful. I then done this by adding a fade transition at the end of all of my shots as it made it look more realsitc and added a smooth and subtle effect before the start of a new scene and the 'dream' filter on some fillar memories so audiences could identify the storyline better and what shots were meant to be the current date in the video, as well as giving it a natural and innocent feel that indie artists tend to portray. Another comment I recieved on my music video was that what I done well was engage my artists character with my audience and show a lot of emotion. This showed me how I was succesful in my filming and concept of the video, however the constructive comment I recieved was that I needed to include a variety of different preformance shots. I therefore went away and shortened the preformance shots I already has in place by replacing the order and strucutre of my video and filmed a number of different preformance shots in conventional settings that combinated with what the audience want to see and the concept of my video so I use the picnic scene and open park as this featured in my narrative and created a passionate and conventional feel for my audiance.

I feel having made the neccasery changes to my video that it is now more succesful and proffesional as I have combinated it more with my audiences prefrences by taking them all on board and got rid of all the mistakes and unconventional scenes or shots that was preventing the success of the video. I have also learnt from my audience feedback that it is vitally important in making the product more conventional, both in the music industry and my media product as the audience are the people who make it more succesful and go far so it is important to include what they want to see. As a media producer, the comments I recieved made me feel as though I created a proffesional and realsitc media product and the criticism I recieved was only constructive in order for me to become more in touch with my audiances demands and expectations. If i was working in the music industry then this feedback would help me by outdoing my competitors and becoming more relatable and popular with my target audience.

Evaluation post question 2 (prezi)

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Final Individual Ancillaries

Final Individual Ancillaries

Evaluation post question 1

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?

For my media production, I created a music video for an already existing song and created my own artist. We were asked to create a 3-5 minute music video for a genre of our choice and from a song and artist of our choice and where we would then create our own artist image for the song, choose the narrative and concept direction of the music video and try and build a target audience that we could have an impact on to overall create a successful and realistic music video. A music video is a short visual representation and narrative of a song that is used in order to create a better representation of the song and its artist for a bigger impact on the audience in order to give the video a better and deeper meaning. They are also used as a way of marketing and promoting the artist and portraying different genres of music as each music genre has a number of different codes and conventions it follows and what audiences stereotype them with. 

For my own music video, myself and my group chose to follow the 'indie genre' with Indie chart topper 'Panic Cord' by Gabrielle Aplin being the platform and inspiration for our video. We decided to choose the indie genre because it covers a wide range of artists and different styles of indie music including indie rock, indie art and indie music on the whole, giving us lots of conventions we used use and challenge in the visuals for the video. For the production of my music video, I planned the micro elements that will go into the video such as cinematography, editing techniques, mis en scene and genre conventions before putting them together for the visuals of my song panic cord. Part of my production task was also to create a digipak and magazine advert. For my artist that correlates with my artist representation and music video. Music videos have many different purposes in the music industry and are designed to give fans more content and a visual for the song. This allows me to explore my artists to give more back to their audiences and allows them to create a better understanding of their character as music videos allow artists to portray a certain concept and a lot of emotion. Another purpose of a music video is that it allows the artist to tell a particular story or narrative that they can not express with just the song. popular and successful amongst artists as audiences can create the bigger picture and a better understanding of the artist through the effect of emotions portrayed in the video and artist representation. Some of the conventions I identified in indie music videos when doing my research were the variety of performance based shots that I took on board to include within my own music video as it engages with the audience and shows off my conventional settings and my artists character.

Music videos come in a number of different genres, all of which have genre conventions that artists tend to develop in their videos or sometimes challenge. for my own music video I chose to follow the indie genre by taking inspiration from other indie artists such as Ed Sheeran and Birdy and the artist I chose to base my song on Gabrielle Aplin. Some of the inspirations I took and genre conventions these real life media products used were the idea of a narrative and performance based music video. I developed this convention in my own music video by including a variety of performance based shots in my video. I chose to follow the convention of using performance based shots in my video as I wanted to get the lyrics of the song across well to my audience as they worked well to demonstrate my artists emotions and the concept of the song and also by including performance shots of the artist looking into the camera meant that my artist is engaging with the audience and they audience are able to relate to my video more and feel a emotional connection with her. My performance scenes included a number conventional settings such as when I filmed them in a forest with an isolated and natural background, on a haystack and in an open field. These settings are conventional as Indie music videos often use settings which are isolated to help capture and focus the artists emotions as the audience aren't focused on the settings. I also showed the performance shots through a number of close ups and mid shots for the same emotional effect and to show how the artist is engaged with the song and how the lyrics are meaningful to her. This is also conventional to the indie genre and real life media products as many more artists tend to use simplistic settings and show a lot of performance based shots to show of their talents and star quality as well as the fact they don't tend to use extravagant and high end settings like pop artists.

 Another convention I developed was I used a number of close ups within the video. I chose to follow and develop this convention as close ups are good ways of demonstrating my mis en scene. For example, the audience are able to clearly identify the artists facial expressions and see clearly how she is feeling in order to be more in touch with my artists character and my narrative and concept. Close ups are also conventional camera techniques as it shows my artist as pure and natural and someone who is isn't afraid to open up and show a personal side to her. I felt this worked better for my music video rather then challenging the convention of using a close up as without a close up, my audience won't be able to identify how the artist is feeling during important scenes in my narrative. The use of a close up developed the idea that music videos are used to portray the artists facial expressions and emotions and is also conventional to the indie genre as indie artists tend to show a lot of emotion and don't like to hold a lot back so audiences can relate with them more and see their true artist representation. One convention that I challenged was that I used a number of filler and fast paced memories that did not correlate with the lyrics of the song which is often a purpose of real life media products (music videos). I chose to challenge this convention as it allowed me to demonstrate my narrative better as the filler memories and fast paced editing techniques I used was to recap the artists relationship and how it started well but began to broke down. I also felt it worked well during the timing of the song as although the lyrics did not match it, the fast paced tempo of this part of the song did and make it more engaging for my audience. I used a series of montage shots towards the end of the video which showed the couple in previous happier times and also added drainy filters on them to show how they were in the past and added fast paced memory shots in to represent the modern date with shots of drugs, alcohol and other relationship breakers for the couple which showed the video in two different representations. I used this convention as It worked well with expressing my narrative and the representation of my artist with her boyfriend. This was conventional to the indie genre however as indie music videos often tell a deep and meaningful narrative to engage audiences.

Overall, my three different products in the digipak, magazine advert and music video all correlated well together and proved successful as I followed the criteria and conventions of the indie genre for each one and gave them all similar features. For example, I used the same images in both my digipak and magazine advert that were seen in my performance scenes from my music video so the audience were able to draw comparisons and links from my video to my advertising, as well as the scenes I used in my performance shots such as the countryside swing and on top of the haystack were conventional to the indie genre as they show signs of nature and innocence in the settings and help to portray how my artist is down to earth and relatable to her audience. Another example of how all three of my media products correlated well and were successful was that I my magazine advert and digipak included features of my music video narrative through the artists facial expressions in the images and the use of the memory box. The photos of my artist in both my digipak and magazine advert show my artist as looking relived to be out of a relationship and portray her as strong willed and independent, two characteristics she shows in the narrative of my video. The memory box is also an important piece of iconography seen throughout the narrative of my video to start a new scene so therefore by interpreting this into my magazine advert and digipak, this is successful as the audience can engage further with my advertising techniques and her more drawn into my artist. 
I feel my ability to develop and challenge conventions and purposes of music videos were successful I created a conventional, realistic and professional looking final video that had a clear narrative and concept behind it that indie artists tend to adapt into their music.

Rough Cut

Rough Cut

Having audience feedback on our music video is important to our production as it allows us to make the necessary changes and improvements we can make. Whether the feedback on the music video is positive or negative, they are both just as important as each other in knowing what needs to be changed or kept the same and how I van go about making the changes to improve my music video and make it look more professional. Feedback is given from the audiences POV and the music video is created in order to appeal to the audience and for there entertainment so therefore, receiving feedback from the audience on their reactions to the video allows us to make it more relatable and conventional to them or if the feedback was positive then what to keep and we then know what we have done well with so we can use it for future reference or for when we make final changes. This will then allow us to adapt our changes to our audiences needs and have a clear idea of what our target audience wants to see. Creating a rough cut before finalising the complete music video is also essential to carry out as if we have made any mistakes or included anything that isn't relevant or our audience doesn't like then we can go and change them at a later date and start planning what we can now include, in what order so it still looks conventional and professional. Audience feedback comments and a rough cut therefore correlate with each other as we can make our video better from this. Creating a rough cut and having these audience feedback comments also gives us a better understanding into the elements that go into the music video such as the camera and editing techniques, mis en scene etc and the comments will show us what particular elements are relevant to the indie genre and how we can change them on final cut and camera work. 

We received audience feedback on a number of different platforms and in a number of different ways both pre production and post production, to give us both an indication as to what our audiences want to see and expect so we could go out and film it and include it and also the feedback of our rough cut and the necessary changes we need to make based on their opinions. We firstly created a questionnaire for our audience with a series of questions that related to what techniques they will expect to see in terms of camera, editing, mis en scene etc and also what styles of musk do they like and want to see and how we can interpret their views and ideas on the indie genre into our video. The purpose of this questionnaire feedback is that when a media product is being planned or created, one of the most important questions the creators have to consider is 'who are our target audience' and 'dos this have an target audience we can make the product best suited for. If not their is no target market or audience that will buy the songs or listen to the artist and the artist will not be a success with no real direction therefore their will be no point in making our music video and we won't know what conventions and content to include. These questionnaires also included creating vox pops and forming a focus group in order to ask these questions we have planned out to create our music video and have the answers in different formats so that we have lots of different feedback we can work with and not just plain and biased answers. The purpose of the vox pops are to record what the audience say and then to be able to analyse what they say at any time because I can watch it back and understand different parts of their answer. Also It gives me a more detailed answer to my questions because they are speaking instead of having to write down an answer so it is on the spot and what their initial ideas are, therefore making it easier for me to include their feedback into the music video. Focus groups are also helpful and useful for benefiting my production as i would have a number of different opinions and answers from an audience who we are targeting at who know what they are talking about in terms of creating a successful music video and interpreting this into my own video. Vox pops and focus groups also benefit major record label companies and are used frequently within the music industry as ways of keeping up with modern trends and and expectations of the public so those creating the music video have a good understanding and platform of what can be included into the video. Another way we took audience feedback, post production was youtube comments. We uploaded our rough cut of the music video on to YouTube and had an audience comment on the video with a positive comment and negative comment so we knew what we had done well and what we could improve. This helped us and also benefited our production as we knew what changes to make when creating the final product and allowed us to go and film anything we needed to include and add specific editing techniques and transitions in order to make it more professional and look conventional to the indie genre and the concept we were hoping to achieve. YouTube is not only a platform for fans to comment on their favourite videos and watch their favourite artists music videos but it is a way of expressing their opinions and allowing them to interact with the artist and music industry so it is used as a good form of feedback for them and a way to keep fans happy and interact with them and allow them to voice their opinion. As well as all of these forms of audience feedback, we also had a screening of our music video rough cut to two professional artists who come to watch the video and give their opinion and feedback on it. This was very beneficial to our music video as by having a professionals opinion, no matter what genre they belong to, we know it will benefit the video and make it look more successful and they have a good knowledge and understanding on what needs to be included in a music video to make it look realistic and know a lot about the elements included such as cinematography and editing techniques. We also took on board any criticism they had and they showed us specifically what we could change so having them present and having a screening showed us how to make the changes if we didn't already know how to or if we didn't know how to improve it. 

YouTube Comments

Three positive comments I had on my rough cut were from YouTube and they gave me an idea on what I done well, what they specifically liked about it. One thing we have to remember however when reading the comments and applying them to our video is if they come from our target audience, if they are relevant and they do not give the opinion of the majority and just that specific person. The fist positive comment I received was how the person 'loved the narrative that is clearly evident', 'the editing is effective matching the emotions of the artist'. Reflecting on the comment, this allowed me to go back and look at my rough cut and highlight how the editing myself and my group done on the video was effective and successful and changes to the narrative in terms of editing won't be necessary to make as it had a clear positive impact on my target audience. It also shows that we have shown a clear and good understanding of our artist and achieved the representation we wanted and had an relatable impact on the audience as this aspect of the video appeals to them. Another positive comment I had on the was that there was a 'good use of effects'. This shows that the effects we applied to the video on final cut when editing the video were successful and we used a good series of relevant and conventional transitions, filters etc that we had planned to create and that our planning had paid off. This therefore means we no longer have to make any changes too the effects or add anymore as it already has had an impact on our audience. The other positive comment I had on my music video was that it has a 'good use on cinematography and a good use of fast paced editing to add to the suspense of the narrative'. This shows how not only our my editing techniques successful and conventional but so are my camera techniques and that what we planned and wanted to achieve in terms of this effect paid off. 


The three constructive comments I received on my rough cut music video from YouTube were all primarily based on the editing of the video that could be changed easily on final cut. The first constructive comment I received was to include the name of the artist and song in my video at one point to make the video have the familiarisation between the song and the artist. Having received this comment, I included a text title of the artists name and name of the song 'panic cord' at the beginning of the video during the transition of the clouds and made the typography and font conventional to the indie genre whilst making sure it looked professional with the background. The other two constructive comments I received was to add a transition at the end of the video after the filler memories and to fade out the final shot and also to include more performance based shots. I was able to input these comments into my work as we already had a number of different performance based shots filmed already and I found parts of the video they could go into and I faded out the song and final shot as a effective transition to end the video. Other ways I received constructive criticism was by receiving audience feedback from my class in a focus group. Some of the comments I received from them was that my video lacked professionalism at times and the camera shots and techniques were blurry or shaky. To improve this I added stabilisation to some shots when editing the video and also added features such more transitions and editing techniques to give it that professional and realistic look. This improved my video as by making it look more realistic, it made it more conventional to the indie genre and something that would be expected of a high standard and level and something indie artists could create. My audience would also be able to appeal to my video more if it looks more realistic as then it will become more relatable and have more conventions to that audiences want to see and demand in order for it to receive more views and give my artist a bigger profile. Record labels and the big names in the music Industry apply audience feedback and constructive comments in the same ways and improve their videos by doing this as they give the audience what they want and what they expect to see.

I took on constructive feedback in a number of ways depending on the importance and nature of the comment. For example, if my comment was on my editing techniques or how i could improve my editing then I went away on final cut pro X and added more editing techniques and styles to make it more conventional to the indie genre and appealing to my target audience. For example I received a comment mentioning how I should include more transitions so I added more flash transitions on the end of the montage scene and fade transitions on the end of the slower and more relaxed scenes that showed the couple in happier times. This will improve my production specifically as it makes it have more complex and detailed editing techniques that improves the flow of my video and how realistic it is. Despite the comments we received being from some of our classmates making similar music videos and having the same production, we also had a classroom feedback session were we all watched each others music videos and gave our reviews and opinions on them. From this feedback lesson I received both positive and negative feedback, one of the comments I received being that I used a good variety of camera techniques. From this i then learnt that I had a suitable variety of shots and did not need to film anymore or edit any more in. I also learnt from this classroom feedback that my music video did not have enough content and that it needed to look more professional and realistic so I done more research and planning of other indie music videos to take more inspirations such as the slow and transitions of birdys music video for 'wings' and filmed more scenes for our narrative such as the bonfire scene and London filler memories. These changes I made based on my classroom feedback helped to make my video more successful as it allowed me to include more conventions of the indie genre and have people with a good media and indie knowledge have an impact and say on my production so It is now more appealing to them and the people in my class belong to my target audience. The music industry and professional record label companies and artists use audience feedback to also improve their music videos and music from similar platforms such as youtube and feedback sessions and ultimately make changes based on the most popular opinions and demands from the millions who watch and listen to their productions. This allows them to keep up with modern trends and demands from their audiences and stay in touch with the public and ever-changing music industry. 

In conclusion, the overall benefit of receiving audience feedback is that allows me and people making music video productions to constantly stay in demand and popular to keep in tack with their target audience and constantly create conventional and successful videos and music. It allows me to brand and publicise my artist more and better as I know what the general public and my target audience are looking for, keep up to date with the conventions of my genre and stay one step ahead on my competitors.