Question 3: What have you learned about your audience feedback?

In order to understand whether our music video was successful, it was essential that I carried out an audience feedback survey. To begin with, I gathered 5 people who belong to my target audience, who would for example:

• Be a student, of around 15 - 25 years of age
• Listens to 'indie' music often
• Has an interest in music video and film
• Be an 'aspirer' or a 'radical'
• Have the cultural capital of contemporary French cinema/narrative form
• A - C1 demographic

I thought carefully about which questions I would ask my focus group, so as to effectively glean what aspects of the video would have to be changed to create a more successful media product.

• Do you understand the narrative?
  This was a particularly important question, as we were concerned as to whether the plot of our music video was clear. This was because the story wasn't told in chronological order, and parts of the story were conveyed through flashbacks, therefore it may not have been necessarily clear to our audience what was happening.
• Does it comply to the indie genre?
  This was also important because the video needed to 'fit in' with the song, otherwise the target audience for the song might not aspire to watch the video. I purposely selected an audience of 'indie' music listeners so they were more likely to take a preferred reading to the music video.
• Are the edits smooth?
  This was just a general question, because in my opinion the video would have been unsuccessful if the transitions between clips were jumpy and uneven.
• Is it easy to understand that parts of the video are flashbacks?
  This question is to do with the narrative; if the flashbacks were successful than so is the narrative.
• What is your opinion on the French subtitles?
  This was the most entropic feature of our music video, and we were unsure as to whether our target audience would find them effective, or whether they would find them annoying as they are in a foreign language. The intention of these flashbacks was to add to the stereotypically 'French' mise-en-scene.
• Is the mise-en-scene effective?
  This was a key part of our music video, as we thought carefully about aspects such as the background, the bikes used, the costumes, the café location, etcetera. The narrative also rely's a lot on the mise-en-scene, so this was an incredibly important factor.
• What would you improve?
  This was the most important question, as it would allow me to discover what my target audience didn't like about the music video, and whether they took an oppositional reading to it. Upon editing a second time around, these comments would allow us to create a more successful music video.

Conclusion of initial audience feedback:

• My target audience did understand the general plot and narrative of our music video, which was a crucial aspect in ensuring that our music video was successful.
• The answers I received for the genre question were quite varied, however they all said that the video did comply to the 'indie' genre. An answer I found particularly interesting was "Yes, i think that it's a bit different from other stuff, and that's what 'indie' is about." From this, it can be gathered that the entropic aspects of our music video were successful. We were concerned that audience members would take an oppositional reading to our music video, due to misunderstanding of the narrative or the video being unsuitable for the genre, however my focus group understood the narrative and thought the video was suitable for the genre.
• The cuts between shots are smooth, and cut in time with the beat.
• 80% of my focus group understood that parts of the video are flashbacks, however one person in my focus group didn't understand that until watching it a second time round. One of the members of my focus group gleaned that the flashback clips were represented through the use of a vignette around the clips, which I found surprising as I thought it was quite a subtle aspect of the music video. In order to improve the understanding of the flashbacks for all of my focus group, a more obvious way of representing the flashbacks would have to be used, for example: gray scaling the flashback clips or applying a film grain effect.
• There was a very mixed response to the French subtitles. Part of this could be due to the fact that my audience members lacked the cultural capital, however we could not expect the target audience to understand the French subtitles as it was an English music video. On the other hand, the members of my focus group who disliked the subtitles due to misunderstanding of the language lacked the cultural capital to know that the subtitles are a common feature of French film, particularly pre 1950's French film. The intention of these subtitles was to add to the stereotypically French mise-en-scene, however I think that in some cases this didn't come across, and perhaps in order to improve the music video from the point of view of my target audience, the French subtitles should be removed. Some audience members did say that it added to the French ambiance of the video, however due to the mixed response I feel that they weren't as successful as we hoped they would be.
• The mise-en-scene was an effective part of the music video, and everyone in my focus group found that the costumes/locations/make-up worked effectively together and helped create a general French feel to the video.
• 2 out of 5 people in my focus group mentioned the long reverse zoom at the end of the music video, and said that perhaps the shot was too long and needed something adding to stop it dragging. I agree with what they have said, and think that to improve the music video we would have to interweave flashbacks between the clip so that the last 20 seconds aren't boring for the audience.

I was pleased that nobody in my focus group said that they wanted a more conclusive end to the story, as we wanted to leave that open to the audiences interpretation. We wanted to leave the video on a cliff-hanger, otherwise the narrative in our video would have complied to the hypodermic needle theory, leaving nothing to the imagination and interpretation of the audience.

Although my focus group gave useful answers, I felt as though this group as slightly biased as they were all aged 17 - 18 and didn't cover the whole age range of my target audience. To gain a more varied and unbiased response, I posted our video on the social networking websites Facebook and Youtube, and asked people to give their opinions as a whole, and whether they understood the narrative. Some of the responses I received were:

• "This is really goood :D The video and the song match perfectly and I like the effects at the start. Wish I knew how to do that haha"
• "So at first I felt like I was watching a Panic at the disco video... but no I really like it. Colours are good (iunno if you've put some kinda filter on there but the greyish overlay looks cool and goes with the whole indieish feel of it). The one thing i would say is that I think the stop motion should be a bigger part of it. Like that works so well, should be more."
• "I really like this, I think it's really well done. The story is good and clear, nicely put together"

• "Really like the song and the whole Parisian clown/mime theme, works really well and its really entropic. The filters with the colours is really effective and the edits of the shots, like the spinning around and sitting is great movement, making it more interesting. The narrative is clear, and lipsyncing is good but could be a bit better.

  Overall, its awesome! :D"

• "Understandable narrative - particularly like the first shot sequence - leaves you questioning why they are both so standoffish - this is later answered in the video - very creative"

These responses to my music video are a lot more unbiased, because the people responding to it cover an age range from 16 - 22, and are mixed gender. I was particularly pleased that everyone who answered took a preferred reading to our video and understood the themes and narrative in our music video. Quite a few responses claimed that they liked the video, which meant they were entertained by our music video, thus fulfilling it's purpose. This also means that my intended audience had the cultural capital to understand the video, which means that we successfully addressed our target audience of 'indie' music listeners. I agree with the response about the stop motion; we intended to incorporate more stop motion into our music video, however we discovered that the video would have looked disjointed due to the difference in quality and lighting between photographs taken on a DSLR camera and video clips shot on a HDV camera. As a result of this, we had to delete all of the stop motion photographs taken on a DSLR and take a new selection with the photograph mode on the HDV camera. To do this more successfully, we should've have anticipated a potential image quality difference and tested them before shooting the final video.

I was curious to see how people outside my target audience group responded to my audience, and whether they responded well to the media text or whether they took an oppositional reading to the text due to factors such as age, cultural background, etcetera. I asked an unbiased middle-aged 'middle class' female to watch the music video, and to give her opinions on the video as a whole and the narrative. Here is her response:

"The story of the video is clear. I was concerned about the clown part but realize it is relevant to the plot. I thought the video put more meaning to the lyrics of the song. I found the video entertaining and wanted to see more!"

I was quite surprised by her response, as I didn't expect her to enjoy the video. She took a negotiated reading to one part of the video; she found the scene inappropriate, however understood that it was relevant with it's contribution to the narrative.

I also asked a 13 year old boy from the same background the same question, and this was his response:

"It looks very professional and it's well directed, the plot was clear. But I did think the video became a little repetitive"

Again, he understood the themes and narrative of the music video, which was pleasing because people belonging to my target audience and people outside my target audience understood the plot. Before making the video, we were concerned that due to the fact that the story was told in non-chronological order, people would fail to understand the values expressed in the text.

After receiving this audience feedback, I have concluded that the video was understandable, however in order to improve upon editing, these factors could be altered:

• Remove some/all of the French subtitles
• Alter the lip sync slightly
• Add in more stop motion so the video is more coherent within itself.