Ryan BaxterWhat have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to collect some audience feedback on my first draft of the product, we conducted a focus group, which consisted in total of around 20 people. We did this by creating a group on the social network Facebook to communicate over the Internet and also spoke directly to some others too. The range of ages was 13-40. We felt this represented a wider audience and allowed us to see the opinions on the video of different aged people. All audience feedback was gained off people who regularly watch music videos and have a general interest in media.

Considering the genre of indie rock, do you think the setting and location worked well?

Lewis - “Manchester is a busy city so it ties in well with the video as there is lots going on”

Sam – “I didn’t think it would turn out well because it was filmed in college. The shots of the band on stage look real though so I was surprised”

Tom – “Shots in the car and backstage highlight the immaturity of the band relating to the stereotypes associated with indie music”

All the feedback on the locations and settings used within the video was positive especially because we were limited to filming in Manchester. Do you feel the video has a clear concept behind it; if so, what do you think that concept is?

Tara – “Feeling lonely”

Lewis – “Confusion. There are a lot of shots during parts of the video”

We tried to encode the ideology that ‘everyone gets lonely sometimes’ into our video and lots of the people who gave us feedback could identify this after watching it.

Do you think the video was a good representation of the lyrical meaning of the song?

Leighton – “The close up shots of the singer help you understand that he could ‘use somebody’ so yes”

The lyrical meaning of the song is ambiguous in the sense we don’t know what ‘use somebody’ means. When generating ideas and planning we decided that we would try to put across that the lead singer is lonely, and looking for either a relationship or a new friendship. We’ve left this for the audience to decide and feel like the video allows them to do this.

What part of the video is your favourite and why?

Tara – “0.00-0.14 because the scenery looks good. It establishes the setting well”

Leighton – “I liked the use of black and white during 1.29-1.55. The lighting on the characters made it more convincing, like they were actually performing to an audience”

Hannah – “2.50-3.10. The face paced editing builds the song up for the guitar solo”

The points of the video mentioned above are the ones were the most time consuming in terms of filming and

Ryan Baxterediting and the comments given show that it was time well spent as they have turned out to be the strongest parts of our video.

Do you think the camera work and editing are effective, if so, why?

Adam – “The fast paced editing of the opening scene matches with the pace of the music and makes it look like a real music video”

Leighton – “I thought the general camerawork was good. It was a little shaky at times but that’s understandable due to the convention of handheld cam. There is a wide use of editing, parts could be smoother”

Tom – “Yes theres a wide range of camera shots and editing techniques which make it look more professional”

Here I have learnt to be more careful and steady when using a handheld camera as it can sometimes look a little unprofessional and shaky. If we had longer to film during the scenes on stage then some of our camera work would have had a better outcome. The editing is the best standard we can get it to with the technology we had to work with.

What audience (gender and ages) do you feel it will appeal to most?

Tara – “I feel it would appeal to most ages but particularly our age group (teenagers)”

Tom – “Male teenagers”

Wes – “Everyone”

We decided to target the widest audience possible but was aware that due to the genre and conventions used it may slightly appeal to males more than females and those of a younger generation therefore we are happy with this feedback.

Can you identify any clear conventions of the rock and indie genres within the video?

Adam – “It is clear that the genre is indie and rock due to the live performances and dark tones which are regularly used in the video and other videos of that genre”

Helena – “Close up shots of the instruments being played”

Hannah – “The video is male dominated like audiences for the genre rock”

Lewis – “Face paced editing and slow motion. There is also lots of shadow used on the lead singers face”

Inspired by the actual ‘Use Somebody’ video, we tried to incorporate some similar conventions into our video which that one uses and these were successfully identified in our focus group.

Performance, narrative and conceptual is three styles of video. Which one can you associate with our video the most?

Tara – “Good performance”

Leonie – “Mainly performance but I can see the concept”

Louise – “I cant see a narrative but I can definitely see performance and conceptual styles in the video”

Unfortunately we were unable to have a narrative style in our video like we planned. This was due to lack of time and people to star in the video. We did however go to a club, which was one of our locations for the narrative to be shot, and this wasn’t allowed therefore ended up discarding our narrative ideas to focus more on the other two styles in our video. This audience feedback reflects that.

Ryan Baxter

Are there a suitable number of characters in the video?

Olivia – “I’ve seen music videos with less characters in”

Lewis – “Having girls in the video would have attracted a wider audience”

Wes – “The video is based on the bands life therefore having only the band in it was suitable”

We were unable to find any females to be in our video. If we had to create the video again we would definitely consider having more characters in it but for now, I feel the number we had was reasonable.

What improvements could be made?

Adam – “To finish the video and make minor adjustments to the overall quality”

Leonie – “There are points where the camera or editing jumps, other than this I can’t think of anything else”

Hazel – “I don’t think you need to make improvements to it, it’s really good”

Ryan – “Female characters”

Generally the feedback was very positive with many people not being able to find faults in our video. The improvements that were suggested are shown above and we completely agree with them.