3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback
We asked several members of another group to give feedback on our music video, judging it on overall impression, three positive points about the video, one area to improve on and to analyse one technical area. This is the feedback we received.

Overall Impression
The overall impression of the video was that it was very creative in terms of performance and lighting. It is a cheerful video that reflects the mood of the song well. There is also a good use of locations, and effects to create a summery feel to the beach scenes especially.

Positive points about the music video

• "The lip-syncing is accurate and on time"
• "I like the soft focus effect used as it creates a softness to suit the tone of the song"
• "In terms of mise en scene, the location was successfully chosen in order to fit well with the theme of the song"
• "The costume was well chosen and thought through"
• "Good ideas such as writing in the sand and on the converse"
• "Use of stop motion with writing in the sand to make it look as if it just appeared"
• "The filters used work well with the camera and mise en scene"
• "Camera work has been well thought as it cuts to play well in combination of the music"
• "The pace of the music and video is a very good combination that work well together between scenes"

Area to improve

Could use more point of view shots to show what the focus of the characters is. Another point was that the stop motion with the sand, the shots move to much which draws away attention from the writing. 

Analyse a technical area

In terms of camera work, there is lots of handheld to make it personal and allow the audience to empathise and see things through the eyes of the performer; this was good. As well as this, the different camera angles used helped to emphasise this. Also, the camera work in the video was of very good quality. There were creative ways of following the action like when they fall to the floor. This gives a very professional feel to the video. The editing is very good, in particular the work with filters. It certainly adds to the video.

Evaluation of Audience Feedback
The members of the group who gave this feedback saw our finished version of the music video with our finished effects added. However, before we added the effects to the music video such as soft focus filters we got feedback and constructive criticism from some of our teachers. One of our teachers suggested we think about some effects to enhance to the romantic nature of the narrative and that it was a good song with good locations but we definitely needed to enhance to romantic quality by adding effects. Other teachers agreed that there was something missing and that it should be more `music video like`. We therefore, took advantage of the possible effects we could add to our video such as soft focus which created a more etherial look. We also brightened the scenes on the beach to give more of a `California beach` feel to it, even though we were filming in October! This brightened the atmosphere and emphasized the summer theme of the music video. After we added these effects, one of our tutors then told us that "The addition of the effects have greatly added and enhanced the music video".

We then asked for audience feedback from members of our class. In their overall impression of the video, they clearly picked up on our added effects of brightness of the beach and and thought this created a more summery feel, which is what we were aiming to create. The added brightness just emphasized this, which is noticeable in our video. Other good points of our music video commented on; were things such as the soft focus creating a softness, which suited the song and the filters worked well with the mise en scene. This was shown particularly in the park scenes as the autumn style filter fitted in nicely with the leaves on the ground and bare trees creating an overall autumn style memory.If we hadn't have changed our music video before hand, these comments would not have been made. Another comment was that there is a good use of locations. One of our best locations was filming around Southport and on Southport beach, which took a lot of organization an advance preparation. This comment proves that our precise planning and going out of our way to travel to Southport payed off. In one area to improve, it was suggested that the stop motion of im yours in the sand went too fast; therefore taking the focus of the words. In response to this we slowed the stop motion down slightly to make it more visible, as we appreciate that those who have never watched the video don't know whats about to happen and therefore may not have enough time to take in what the words in the sand say. When asked to analyze a technical aspect of the video someone made a comment about the parts of the video when we used handheld camera, saying that it was like they were seeing what was happening through the eyes of the performers. We were happy with this comment as we intentionally filmed it like this as we wanted to create a personal feel to our video allowing the audience to gain a closer insight into their relationship. Someone also mentioned that the way we showed action in the video was very creative which shows that our filming and editing was very precise when trying to create and highlight a certain action.

Overall, our music video received extremely positive comments. The comments confirmed to us that if we hadn't had added the effects to our video we would have received perhaps slightly less praise in terms of the technical aspect of it and the overall mood of the song. However, putting the effects aside, the comments were still very promising in aspects such as creativeness in terms of mise en scene - location, costume and camera work and our use of stop motion. We also learned that it helps to have an outsiders view on our music video to help with the creative process, as they can discover something that people working inside the group can not. An example of this would be when we were told that the stop motion in the sand went to fast, therefore taking the emphasis off the writing. Because of this comment we slowed the stop motion down, but we would not have addressed this issue if it had not have been raised to us from some one who is not part of our group.