Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience Profile

             My primary target audience are white British females aged between 17-23, in the C1-2 socio-economic background.
  

      Due to the British locations based in Norwich and ethnicity of the characters featured in my production, the primary audience would be British as these aspects would appeal to them as they could further relate to the characters and setting. This could also be because the artist that the music video is promoting also falls into this category, so may be more likely to appeal to this group. 

        The primary audience would be females aged 17-23 years old as the production is centred around a teenage/young adult character, thus the audience would be able to identify with the character as they are of a similar age and therefore would be more invested in the music video.They may also be more likely to be in the C1-2 socio-economic group as this age range primarily consists of students ans thus may not be working or generating a large amount of income. This is also because statistically more females are diagnosed with a mental illness than men -although this could be due to women being more likely to seek help and thus receive a diagnosis, not that they are more likely to have a mental illness- and thus a female audience may be able to identify with the character further, and thus the video be more likely to appeal to a female audience. Furthermore, the video was inspired by as well as follows conventions of Drama, Suspense and Horror films, of which -according to research by the UK Film Council- appeal more to a female audience below the age of 35, of which my primary target audience would fall into.

       My target audience may be interested in films such as Donnie Darko as it deals with the issue of mental illness in a teen/young adult character, and Sucker Punch as it narrative focuses on a young female character who dominates the narrative and thus may appeal to a female audience by challenging Mulvey's claim that the female actor is never meant to represent a character that directly effects the outcome of a plot or keep the story line going. My audience may also be interested in fills of the Gothic or Horror genre, and so audiences familiar with the conventions of Gothic film will feel familiar with the mise-en-scene which resembles the trackless forest of the characters imagination; thus will find the setting and editing familiar - as suggested by Kress' definition of genre as 'a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a frequently repeated social occasion, with  its characteristic participants and their purposes'. 

       They may also be interested in programmes such as Criminal Minds as many episodes revolve around mental illness, including ones specifically focusing on Dissociative identity disorder and looks into the thinking of the perpetrators; as well as and American Horror Story as my music video was inspired by texts in the horror genre, and this is a modern text that is already popular with people in my target audience age range. 

         My target audience may be interested in music in which explores real issues that the youths of today have to deal with, such as gender identity, sexuality, mental illness, abuse and prejudices such as sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. This is because individuals who may be experiencing issues such as this can identify with such texts and then feel as if they aren't the only people going through that particular thing in their life, and therefore may be using texts for certain uses and gratifications such as Personal identity or possibly Personal Relationships as suggested by Blulmer and Katz. Artists whom explore such issues are La Dispute, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Bring Me The Horizon; as well as more niché artists that gain exposure through YouTube such as Benny and Melanie Martinez. 

      As my target audience may have an interest in psychology, a text that may appeal to them is Psycho Pass, of which is set in an authoritarian future dystopia, where omnipresent public sensors continuously scan the Psycho-Pass of every citizen in range. The sensors measure mental state, personality, and the probability that the citizen will commit crimes, alerting authorities when someone exceeds accepted norms. This may appeal to my target audience as not only does it explore the human psychological state, but also others perception and ethics of the authorities. 

Music Video

    To gather audience feedback for my music video I had a number of people -most of which where A level media students- fill out a questionnaire after watching my production, consisting of questions such as 'How much did you enjoy the music video?', How do you rate the camera work and editing?' and 'Was there any part you found confusing or hard to understand?'. I received mostly positive feedback, and having received response from 4 females aged 17-20 and 3 males aged 17-18, the few negative responses came from the male audience and thus supports the presumption that my target audience would predominantly be females aged 12-13. Most responses gave the highest score for aspects of camera work and editing, as well as for their enjoyment of the music video.

      Whereas the main issue that arose from this was that with an abstract and heavily metaphorical production some viewers had difficulty following the narrative or understanding the characters, as both were played by a single actor. Because of this I received an aberrant reading from one of my respondents, according to Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding model in which my intentions of what I wished to portray to the audience was not received in the way I intended by this individual. Cases of this can be seen in real music videos, most recently Sia's 'Elastic Hearts' was the centre of controversy as the abstract video of which intended to present two different self-states was quite widely perceived to have paedophilic undertones, despite the fact that this was not in fact true.

        In response to this feedback I decided to alter my music video as to make it clearer to the audience that, much like with the above video mentioned, my production was exploring the idea of Dissociative Identity Disorder and thus to make it more clear that the two characters within my narrative are two parts of an individual's personality. I did this by adding quick cuts of the dissociative identity over shots of the main personality as to make it clear that they are one of the same person. 

     

Print Productions

              I also used a questionnaire to gain audience feedback for my print production from 8 A2 media students - 4 females and 4 males, all aged 17-18. Similarly to the feedback received from my music video, a number of the more positive feedback came from female respondents, once again reinforcing that British females in the 17-23 age group are my primary target audience as it is individuals within this group whom are responding most positively to both my main and ancillary texts.

          The responses showed that the thing most people liked about both my digipak and magazine advert was the theme of dissociative identity of which was represented through my use of images as well as the layout of my digipak; as well as positive comments on the editing and use of colouration on said images. The aspect highlighted by feedback as the main issue is whether or not the print productions successfully reflect the genre of music. This may have been an issue as with my digipak and advert focusing on the theme of Dissociative Identity Disorder seen in my music video, it may not have any explicit references to the genre of the band that it has been created to promote, and therefore at the surface level of the products it may be difficult to deduct what genre of music the artist falls into.