Evaluation question 3: What did you learn from your audience feedback?

After completing the final edit of our video we chose to interview a group of people in order to achieve their personal feedback on our piece. We chose viewers of varying ages and backgrounds in order to achieve a wide range of feedback, and this has shone through with the views stated. Below is a transcript of the interviewees, and what they said about our piece:

Joe Heath (18): I really enjoyed the music video, it had some really cool shots and had a great sense of emotion. I really felt that kaleidoscope effects helped to give it a heightened intensity, adding to the emotion. The sequence with his girlfriend coupled with the anger gave a clear impression toward the intended emotional ideas of grief and depression. Over all I feel like that narrative suited the emotion of the song perfectly, even with its lack of lyrics. 

Jacob Muckle: After watching the music video, it was not what I was expecting. Not having heard much of Pink Floyd's music, I was not expecting to find such emotional power. My expectancies were to find meaningless references to drug culture, something which is synonymous with the psychedelic genre, however, the underlying tones of grief and depression really shone through, as it played on my preconceptions. 

Linda (52): Having grown up in the 70s, I'm well associated with Pink Floyd's music. I felt that the way the video understands the emotion of the song is extremely successful  and does not simply utilize the stereotypes of 70s drug and hippy culture. This really shows an in-depth understanding  of what this decade was really about and what Pink Floyd really meant with the song, rather than what modern culture simply expects.

Ginny (45): I enjoyed the music video, however, I believe that it could've utilized the video effects - such as the hallucinatory  visuals more. It may have been successful to even include the character within these visuals. However, despite this, I suppose it is understanding considering that there is no drug taking within the piece. 

James (48): I thought the video was really entertaining, one scene which really stuck out to me was the anger sequence, where the fast pace and the impressive  performance really shone through. I especially liked the cuts of his girlfriend within the sequence which added emotional depth and helped to explain a motive prior to the final explanation. 

Karen (22): One thing that really stuck out to me about the video was the great use of location. I really felt that this emphasised the isolation and depression that the character portrayed. The dilapidated house really matched the song's emotion, and this coupled with the roughly dressed character, and the surroundings of filth were excellent combinations and helped to contribute to the overall narrative.


Steve (16): I really felt that the combination of your video and your CD artwork worked extremely well. They make great reference to each other, and both the poster and the CD are aesthetically pleasing, so I would definitely pick this off a shelf. Despite not having a huge knowledge of Pink Floyd, I instantly recognised the prism logo, and believed this worked extremely well coupled with the dilapidated house. This gave me a great interest of what was likely to appear within the video. 
Mary (25): I thought the cd cover and poster looked really good! Definitely could have passed as genuine commercial work, and knowing Pink Floyd's work quite well, reflected their style. I can see how they link to an extent, however, they could have used a bit more visual reference, as the image of the house does not appear much within the video.

What I have learned from this audience feedback is that it was extremely useful to do sufficient audience research before producing the video, as this helped us gain a good idea of what our target audience expected to see before actually making the piece. Therefore, considering the mostly positive feedback that we received for our final production it is clear that we followed these requests successfully, therefore making our piece appealing to large variety of people, whether they be Pink Floyd fans or not. Our research suggests that there are always endless possibilities for improving or altering our piece, however, these are not always possible or necessary, considering that everybody has varying views for what should be included.

Therefore, what I have gained from this feedback is the reassurance that we successfully fitted the psychedelic genre as we wished to. This is obviously shown by the use of hallucinationary imagery within our video. Our alteration of colour within the piece also helps link the video with the emotion portrayed within the song. It is also clear that the audiences believed our ancillary tasks worked successfully with our music video as a product. The focus group also believed that our use of original Floyd imagery such as the prism and also the logo lifted from The Wall worked extremely well with the piece, in combining them. It was also suggested by the focus group that this would attract a large audience just interested purely in products released by Pink Floyd, therefore using their logos and imaging would purely enlarge this audience. The belief that the final ancillaries looked professional was extremely satisfying, as looking unprofessional was a fear that we had, considering the lack of equipment and technology we had in order to create them. 


It is also key that we have matched the emotion that the song entails with the pace of our piece, particularly in the anger sequences where the climax of the song is shown by the use of quick paced cuts. This is something that was needed to be achieved in order to reflect the emotion, as a lack of pace and anger shown by the protagonist would look poor when combined with the climatic times of the song. Therefore, the bulk of our group acknowledged that we had achieve this successfully, at times leaving the audience speechless whilst viewing the video.


There are always possibilities to make changes after the piece is completed, and for our piece there is no exceptions. Taken from feedback across creating the piece (not just this focus group) it is clear that if we were to undergo the task of creating this music video again we would undoubtedly focus more heavily on the anger sequence as a whole. This is because, despite the sequence still portraying the emotion of the character, I still believed this could be worked upon more, further emphasising to the audience the emotion felt. Despite aiming to do so, I do not believe that the anger sequence successfully achieved the emotional climax of the song, and this is something that has been commented on within our audience feedback. However, this is something that is extremely hard to achieve given the actor we had, as it is extremely hard to suggest pure emotion without a professional actor, therefore, I remain content that we achieved the greatest outcome we could with our actor.


Another subject I believe could be altered if we were to complete the task again is still the subject of visual emphasis towards the psychedelic genre. This is something that was originally commented on from our audience feedback - of which we took into great consideration and underwent more filming in order to fulfil the genre more successfully. However,  despite this addition is was still clear that more references to hallucinations were required, therefore, once again we began to edit our video; adding in more visual effects, such as the displacement effect that can be seen when our protagonist falls to the floor. After completing this, it was clear that our video now fulfilled the psychedelic genre, but despite this, our most recent audience feedback suggested that the video still required more visual techniques, despite our efforts. Therefore, if we were to complete this video again it would be necessary to make possibly the main focus on the piece surround the visual techniques such as the kaleidoscope and displacement effect, rather than having these as a background for the action taking place. I believe that if this was done successfully our music video will undoubtedly be of the psychedelic genre, therefore satisfying our audience expectations fully. Despite this, I still believe our video remains faithful to the psychedelic genre, and the feedback is purely picking up on any negative aspect.