Evaluation Question Three Written

What did you learn from your audience feedback?

The feedback I got from my video was mainly positive, and varied at different points in the production process. Near the beginning in response to my pitch and treatment, comments were mainly positive, however some issues did come up that reflected the nature of the storyline. One thing in particular was whether the plot line was too crowded, throwing attention over the relationship between the main character and her boyfriend seemed to be a bit much, and so when I revised my ideas onto a storyboard, I lessened the emphasis on him as character and instead focused more strongly on the effects of her disorder and how she is dealing with the situation she is in rather than the narrative that leads up to this. It is a music video after all and not a film text.

Later on in the process, the feedback I received cemented my own feelings about a few things, mainly the initial opening. There is a minute long introduction to the song which builds up very gradually, and so I cut it down as much as possible, however I was still left with some difficult time to fill. To begin with, my opening was somewhat arduous, as I had one single shot for the entirety of it, where the only movement was it slowly zooming in on the couple in bed from a birds eye angle. Feedback confirmed that it was not an effective technique, and suggestions were made in order to improve it. The feedback that I received caused me to split various shots into sections and to work them into the beat, switching between cuts to black and snappy frames of my character switching between her emotions. 

In order to improve further, I posted a rough cut version of my video on YouTube and requested more comments. Suggestions were made to slightly alter the timing of the shots at the beginning, as they were not quite in time. I also evened out the desaturation on the laughing shots and made the effect more obvious in contrast to the duller, sad frames.

I also produced a version of the video wherein I included a camcorder effect on a few shots of the performer, however, it never made it into my final cut due to reflection and feedback. The idea was that in the three shots where the performer isn't looking into the camera, the add-on could make it look as though she's being seen through the eyes of the producer. This was just an idea that I thought could make a link between the audience and the star, as it removes her from the artificial scenario and puts her back in the same world as the audience. It was intended to make her feel more real. “There aren’t many shots of that nature so it just looked a bit cliche” - verbal feedback.

Some final changes that I made were to switch out the opening shot of the actress lying on the bed for two of her laughing with reduced speed. I much preferred these to the original because it lead the audience to expect a happy theme through the video, whilst the colour balance could be interpreted to suggest something darker. The effect I chose to use in differentiation of the two emotions was very high-key and partially desaturated. I kept my colour correction consistent, and made sure to ask the viewers of the video whether it came across as effective to them, which thankfully, it did.

The main issues that were brought up by viewers of the video were luckily all easy fixes, simple things such as balancing the colour correction and changing the timing on shots. Similarly, in my ancillary products, the feedback showed that it was just small tweaks needing to be made, such as text sizing, placement and font consistency. Here are some of the things said to me about my first drafted tour poster;

- "Some text is difficult to read where it blends into the shadowed side of her face." - lighten the ends of words?

- The text may look better were it lined up and justified

- "Use the negative space" - keep blank the area above her, where she is looking to imply space

- "Keep the text in two chunks so that it doesn't come across scrapbook-y"

- "The font is all the same, and all the same size, some variation would make it more interesting to look at" 

Although the general consensus about my tour poster was positive, there were some concerns raised that it wasn't particularly eye catching, and so when it came to my digipack and album release poster, I was careful not to fall into the same trap.