Audience Feedback was always going to be one of the most important aspects of the final stages of our production. We had been looking at each of the pieces for hours on end so it was always going to be difficult to see the problems. It was also difficult to criticise our own work, so getting others involved was always going to be helpful. Once we had finished drafts of each piece, we asked people to look at them and provide any constructive criticism, or note any strong points. For the video we got the people to write down their thoughts so we had a physical record of their ideas.
It's important to note that we used people who weren't studying media as well as people that were. We felt that this would give us a wider range of points of view. It proved to be fairly successful since after this we knew which sections of the video were the weak points. One of the most common criticisms was that we used the low angle shot, underneath the guitar, too many times. We were advised to change this, which we did for the final piece.
Another criticism was that perhaps we had used too many close up shots and this made
the whole thing feel TOO personal. After looking again, I had to agree and I made sure we changed this. Also, throughout the filming process we had filmed with the camera handheld from start to finish. This helped in the energy of our shots. However, it gave way to another of the criticisms, that there was too much movement in the shots, and it gave the video an uncomfortable feel to it. Again, we made sure that the problem was adressed.
It wasn't just the video that we used audience feedback with. Both of the Ancillary tasks required some guidance from others. The best example was in the magazine advert. This specific feedback made us change a rather large part of our project. The first time I finished the draft of the advert, someone commented that the font didn't look right considering the style of the song. I dismissed the comment as an insignificance; we had used the font on the album cover and it looked fine. However, as time went on, a number of other people suggested this. I brought it to the group's attention and mentioned that it might be best to change it. We agreed to see if we could find a more suitable font, and eventually Tom found the same font used by Foo Fighters in some of their promotional material. We went on to use this font on all of our pieces, and this happened purely because we got other people to look at the work.
In conclusion, we learned many things from our audience feedback. These things ranged from specific parts like fonts and colours, all the way up to shots used in the video, and the overall feel of it. We learned that it was a bad thing to have the video feeling too personal, and that a elaborate-looking font doesn't fit with Foo Fighters. Personally, I have learned that no matter how much time you spend on a project, you can always gain helpful advice from others. It means you can get another's point of view and you can even learn what your target audience wants from the work. Overall, you can gain more by showing your work to one or two others than you can can ever gain from going over your work in meticulous detail.
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