EVALUATION QUESTION

THREE

WHO IS OUR AUDIENCE?An audience is an individual or collective group of people who rad or consume any media text. Whilst genre are widely recognised

principles for selecting and organising material that provide practitioners with a patterned approach to content which many

parties working in a mass media industry agree contain the elements of success. Though separate definitions, these two

concepts link together in order to produce great products in an industry. Stated by theorist Turow, a genre allows products with a

good chance of success in the market place to be easily produced, whilst providing creators with comfortable moulds in which narrative can be explored while character, setting, even action remain the same. Having conducted research into the

Rhythm & Blues genre, we were able to gather information that told us that our target audience would be predominately young

females aged between the age 15 to 30. Being that the message of the song depicts a strong independent woman, we felt that our

product would be best suited to continue targeting the female audience as the lyrical content within is more relatable to those in

that age group allowing them to connect to both the artist and her music; an aim that would we hope to acquire in order to make

the artists debut album a success.

When it came to the construction of our audience feedback questionnaire, there were key elements that we had to take into

consideration in order to get the best response that could actually help our product improve in fitting the mould of a successive R&B product.

One of these elements was the audiences perception of the song itself, in terms of lyrical content and its overall meaning and message. This

was an essential element as we aimed to challenge the typical conventions of the R&B genre by choosing a song that provided us

with a fast tempo but the lyrical content usually associated with slow tempo song. Wanting to have a message that goes against the

stereotype of a weak female character singing about heart break, we wanted to make sure audiences could see the message of the product whilst challenging some R&B conventions and maintaining others in order to create a character that audiences can feel inspired by whilst

not diminishing the creative mould that allows for a successful product to be developed.

Another element that we considered to be a key, was simply finding out what people thought of our idea which we were driven to create after countless research into the genre and its icons similar to Tyler.

Being a form of exposure for Tyler, we wanted to see what others thought of our idea including the artist herself as it was her chance at

exposure and we wished to create a product that looked legitimate and to Tyler's liking.

QUESTIONNAIRE CONSTRUCTION

BEST WAY TO MARKET OUR PRODUCT

Living in an era where technology has a foothold within everyone's lives, I feel that the best way to market our product would be through the use of social media such as twitter and Facebook. With nearly every individual having access to the internet through broadband at home or 4G on the go, promotion through these sites would be the best option to make especially since Tyler has both a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page where fans post comments daily. With each member of our group owning both a twitter page and facebook, our product has a total of eight different promotion locations meaning a higher rate of exposure to work with especially since we as well as our friends all fall in the R&B genre age range meaning we directly target our audience.

Aside from social media websites, we also have the resources we use to present our work through out our work. Using Slideshare, all content in the form of presentations are made available to the public meaning that any slides related to the R&B genre and Tyler would cause one of our groups many presentations to appear in the recommended section on the left. This means that we can continue to see exposure to audiences interested in the R&B section community of slides in Slideshare.

Being teenager that still go to school, we also have access to word of mouth as friends and fellow students look at products to see people they know on the internet. Usually an attempt to poke fun, since all of our cast were friends from school social groups associated with each member of our group were inclined to check it out.

THE EFFECT OF AUDIENCE FEEDBACK“We hardly get to see the male antagonist in the music video” – This was something that took large amounts of consideration and had a massive impact on our product. Due to lyrical content, as a group we struggled to implement the antagonist, as a lack of characterisation made him difficult to portray as a ‘bad guy’. To counter this rather than simply adding multiple shots of antisocial behaviour, instead we would pick and add shots that showed him disrespecting the protagonist. This would allow us to show his antagonistic ways whilst not hitting the audiences with too many flashback shots that would decrease the narrative and turn our product into a montage of antisocial behaviour rather than its intended female independence aim.“Lip syncing out of place in a few places”- This is something we had to sort out as a group. With the rendering issues speed and issue completely different with that of Final Cut Pro, our product had sections where lip sync was against the lyrics leading to a reduction in quality and flow in the music video. From this, we had to go back to Final Cut Pro and ensure that editing was precise to meet the rendering issues. “Change the colour of the video to a darker colour, to give it a more emotional look”- Being a product of the R&B genre, a lot of people asked why and advised that we use the use of dark colours particularly the combo of black and white used by the typical conventions. Taking this on board, we used these dark colours only a small fraction more than before, this is due to the fact that we aim to juxtapose the usual conventions of the genre rather than completely harbour it. Meaning that we used it for shots where we wanted to add realism and show the negatives of the relationship but continue to use bright colours to connote her joy in revelation.

THE EFFECT OF AUDIENCE FEEDBACK“Does he leave? LOL” – The question of questions asked by many and almost all who viewed the lyric and main pitch of our product. Not knowing our selves due to the song explicit title being a question itself, we felt that this is something that we should leave for audiences to decide and interpret the end themselves. Whether audience want to follow the independent route and come to the conclusion that she leaves him because she is sick and tired of all the disrespect or follow the undying love route where she forgives him and stays because of the years they have been together however she will maintain this new attitude and perception on the relationship because she is ‘way too grown’. Though we hoped with the implementation of scenes that show disrespectful actions by the antagonist, perhaps audiences would be slightly swayed to follow the independent route that we hoped.“I think you should get rid of the little dance. It doesn’t fit with the music video”- During our first draft of the music piece we had a scene where the protagonist did a little dance in front of the mirror as she reflects on the relationship and her maturity. When we showed this to our classmates many were against the scene as they felt it took away from the R&B feel and more of a Pop product. Seeing this we removed the scene in order to maintain the R&B appearance we aimed for and appeal to the audience we were targeting.DIGIPAK FEEDBACK- When it came to the development of a digipak; being a group of three, we each had our own opinion on what we think would be the perfect cover. This lead to the development of three separate digipak cover drafts each by one of us. Once completed, we asked people within our target audience age range as well as Tyler herself to choose a cover they felt was better to fit our product. With a large majority choosing the still image with the protagonist back against the antagonist we asked why and were met with something we did not consider which would be that “The second digipak cover would be better suited to the single as it gives us a clearer concept of the song's content. Especially since Tyler Noel is an unsigned artist, most people don’t know who she is” After hearing this we chose to go with the audience favourite as we realised clouded by our own creations we forgot that this is a promo album for Tyler not us and if the audience lack the knowledge to know who she is we must make sure to promote an image that she deemed fit.

Theorist Maltby stated that formats and formulas help to guide audiences in their viewing of products, though this is mostly revolved

around the film industry it has application to the music industry as well as the codes and conventions of a music type genre help guide an

audience in the viewing of a product. With the juxtaposition of some conventions and the maintenance of others within the R&B genre, we strived to guide our predominately female audiences to see that this

isn't your usual R&B product but one with a twist centred around female independence and power. In a whole, I think that our music

video is successful in achieving what we aimed for it to achieve. However, there could be some room for improvement if we want our

product to be a complete success. For example, the use of a continuous storyline narrative that showed the male antagonist being more antisocial in order to clearly distinct the distance between the two characters within the music video. Things like this could have made the video increase in quality and look more like a successful

product. However, the audience feedback did help increase the videos overall positive aspects that would be liked by our target audience.

OVERALL REFLECTION