Evaluation Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback was a crucial part throughout the process of producing my media products. Although it was frustrating to be told that something didn’t look as good as it could after I’d spent so long on it, I was grateful for feedback. I found that as I spent a lot of time looking at and editing my products it was always a good idea to get a fresh perspective on something in order to keep me on track. At times, feedback also made me feel better about my work; if I felt something wasn’t that good but got positive feedback, it made me feel more motivated to bring all of my tasks up to a high standard.

My Blog Views

The first feedback I got was provided by a focus group in class. After listening to each other’s tracks, we took it in turns to ‘pitch’ our thoughts and ideas for our own videos. Members of the group then offered ideas on what they agreed or didn’t agree with, or how we could make our videos more exciting or authentic. Some comments I received during our focus group a shown below in a short cartoon.

The feedback I received lead me to consider other ideas for my video, as my original idea, although sticking to the conventions, was also pretty clichéd for a music video. I wanted my idea to be more original and have meaning to it.

I also asked my class to help me decide on names for the band, album and song. I chose a shortlist of my favourite and simply asked each person in the class which was their favourite. However, I had to make sure that I explained the genre of my band, so people didn't simply chose a random name because it sounded nice - it had to 'fit the job description'.

Feedback was also invaluable when it came to creating my ancillary tasks. After creating a mock-up magazine advert in black, white and red I was told by more than one person that it looked to much like a 'Twilight' themed poster. 

"Too Twilight"

 I began creating a new advert from scratch, looking closely at adverts from the same genre. Once I'd finished a few versions I asked for feedback on them. People were genuinely impressed with all versions but I just couldn't decide which looked the best. This was where the feedback got complicated. Everyone had different opinions on which poster was most effective, no one could decide on the same one.

I posted my first choice of advert onto Facebook, asking for feedback from family and friends. This ultimately lead to a change for my final advert. Although some people did not like the white background, the poster looked much too dark if I used a black background and appeared to be more heavy rock than alternative. 

After Feedback

Before Feeback

Generally people said that they thought the band name should be at the top so that you see it almost straight away, which lead me to changing it from the bottom of the poster to the top.

After showing friends my band website and chatting to them about what they thought they pointed out that I didn't actually introduce the band members individually. I decided to add images of each band member and their name to the BIO page of the website.

I also asked people what they thought would be a good prize for my website competition. Most people said a meet and greet with the band, so I added this to my competition page too.

I also asked for feedback throughout the process of editing my footage for the final music video. I am really glad that I did this - rather than waiting until I'd finished - as it was important for my narrative to make sense to the audience. After a draught screening it became apparent that my first edit was much too choppy with regards to the narrative; it just didn't flow. I shuffled a lot of my narrative footage around, putting in alternative footage and cutting other bits out. Although this was quite disheartening, as I'd spent a lot of tim on the first edit, I realised that I had the narrative in my head anyway and my audience were looking at it with fresh eyes and a different point of view. After completing my second edit I asked the same group of people to re-watch it. They agreed that this time the narrative made a lot more sense.

Once I had completely finished editing my video, it was uploaded to YouTube. I could then add a link to a status update on my Facebook and ask family and friends to give me feedback. It was really positive to see that people enjoyed watching my video and that they understood the concept of it.


Feedback from my audience really shaped the way that I thought about my products and ultimately how they ended up looking! I learned to go against my judgement at times and listen to what other people had to say.