Evaluation Task 3 - 'What have you learned from your audience feedback?'

Music Video - Rough Cut Feedback


My first target was to finish the whole video so that I could get feedback for the whole video and not just the first half. Apart from that i got many responses from the class, the people who helped me make the video and other people that i had shown that some cuts in the video were too long. The first chorus which began at 1:09 had a shot which was far too long. It had the same shot going for half of the verse and there were other shots earlier and later in the video which were also too long. Considering the pace of the music the video needed quicker cuts between the shots. Our response to this was that we went out and filmed more shots so that i had more i could cut in the video.

Another problem was that there were not many close up shots of the artist. Most of the video consisted of medium shots and some long shots with only a couple of close ups. I needed to add more. Once again this problem was solved by filming more shots and also a close up shot of the lead singer singing the whole song. This way i would have something to fall back on if i wanted to add a cut in the video as well as a close up of the lead artist.

There was also some problem with lighting in a few shots where the light was too dim in some parts of the video whilst too bright in others. I had explained that the darker tone in lights was mainly during the middle of the song and was intentionally darkened to fit the lyrics a bit more. Other shots were brightened by use of effects or replaced with other, brighter shots.

Strengths of Final Music video?


People said that the overall idea of the video was good as it had continuity and a narrative that made sense. They said that there were a few shots that were really good and creative eg; 0:20, 1:05, 1:59.
They enjoyed the running gag about the hat where it switched hands a number of times as it added a comical effect to the narrative and went well with the video as it showed the silliness of two drunk people.
Some people really like the shot of where the bottle was thrown and shown landing (1:46) and how the saxophone shot was shot through the bottle (2:52).

The audience stated that I had done better job in editing the shots and with the quick cuts which fit well with the beat of the music. They also enjoyed the little parts of the video where there was no lyrics due to the short sections of video that i added in them.

Weaknesses


Lighting on some of the shots was the biggest problem as there were a number of shots which was very harsh on the face of the lead singer and the change of lighting between one shot and another can sometimes be seen immediately and does not look pleasant. This is a big problem that i couldn't try and find a way around except for reshooting most of the shots again and unfortunately i did not have the time to do that.

It could also be argued that there was not a lot of camera movement, the camera was kept stationary for most shots and the shots where the camera was moving was rather jagged.

Digipak Rough Feedback

Initial feedback for the rough copy of my front cover was good, the colour scheme fit well and so did the font ant picture used. Although it was said that the white background of the front cover was too plain. I was told to try and add more colour to the background. There was also some black noise from the original picture on the top right of the front cover and only the top right. People said that it would look better if i got rid of it completely or spread it out evenly on the background.

There was one problem with the picture. One of the band members seemed to be fading away from his legs whilst the other two were not. I was told to either add that fading effect on all three members in the photo or add none at all. I chose to add no fade effect.
Lastly the image size was pointed out to me as not one which would fit a digipak. I was told to fix the size of the image to one that looks like a front cover. People said the the original picture looked really good and that it fit well with the video and front cover and so it inspired me to use it for my magazine advert also.

People said the the first design of my back cover fit well with the front in terms of the colour scheme and that it was good that the same font was used as it worked well. Although the image used was too plain and boring.  The original image was that of a hat. The audience said that it was too plain and that i should add something to the image itself or change it.

I made a second design to the back cover and changed the picture. The colour scheme was similar to the front cover apart from adding shades of grey and red.
People said that the colour scheme went well and that the picture used was better than the previous picture of only the hat. They liked the idea that the band members made the letter 'A' to show the band name 'Asylum.' Although the text size of the track list was too big and the dark red colour didn't suit the cover. I was told to make the text size smaller and to move it more to the middle of the picture so that it would not cover the face of the person in the picture. So i made the text smaller and put it completely in front of the white section of the picture and changed the colour of the text to black.

The audience also did not like the idea of the barcode and legal writing on the top corners of the cover. They also said that the text size of the legal writing and websites were too big and that they would look better smaller and in a different location.
I then made the text smaller in accordance to the feedback and moved the image used more towards the top of the cover so that there would be enough space at the bottom to put the legal writing, the record label logo, websites of the band and record label and the barcode.