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

In order to get different viewpoints from our audiences, we looked at feedback from our youtube account, our blog, a focus group and audience’s responses in a selective screening. This enabled us recognise the strengths of the music video and also what could have been made better in the video and also to portray whether our audiences followed and understood the different readings in our video, or whether they grasped something new from viewing it, as to what we intended by it.

What primarily our audiences have stated is that while some believe that just the concept of the performance element, dancers and the wires were enough to remain focus and interest, others believed that this was a weakness and with a lack of narrative element, it needed a narrative to “keep it moving, it came across as being slightly too samey.” (Youtube- caz2435). To an extent I agree with this statement, but believe that the video is strong enough and a narrative would have just diluted it. However, our original concept was based around a narrative element, but after shooting it, we believed that our music video would be stronger if it just focused on the performance elements. My opinion is also shared with some of the audiences, believing that what holds audience’s attention is the editing and the use of the quick shots and the reversed shots that makes the video interesting. The selective screening audience believed that another weakness was that the camera needed more variety and more movement in the shots, and in this they believed that the video could have been made stronger.

Through the encoding and decoding model, a theoretical model created by Stuart Hall, this presents that audiences do not act as a ‘mass’, but they defined by their social and ideological elements. Therefore, through our selective screening, we were able to understand the different groups and the different ways that they were likely to ‘read’ our video, which were often different to how we as the producers ‘encoded’ them to be. Successfully, our media product received numerous preferred readings, this means that the audience decoded the video in the way that we intended, but more interestingly we received negotiated readings, in which the audience decoded some of the meanings and adapted them in their own ways. But some audiences took oppositional readings in which the audience read against our intentions.

Throughout all of our audience feedback, both in the youtube feedback and in the selective screenings, evaluated preferred readings to what we intended to present. Severally we intended to present the lead singer and DJ’s attractiveness and sexual magnetism, in which is shown through several shots of the lead singer surrounded by the dancers, presenting that they are worshipping him. This is also emphasised through numerous tracking low angle shots of our lead singer, in which the audience responded that this presents a sense of hierarchy, the lead singer presenting a god-like figure. The audiences also responded to the ‘club like’ diogesus and the hedonistic values of the lead singer and DJ. Their responses were framed primarily around the ‘DVNO’ sign and the dancers, use of the DJ decks and the room to evoke that this was in nighttime, in a club environment. The audience also responded to the individuality of our lead singer and DJ, to the readings that we had intended, understanding the freedom to express their individuality through the different fashions, however in the selective screening, the audience picked up on different readings that we as producers had not primarily intended.

The audience’s readings of the costumes, primarily the lead singer’s red military jacket, were picked up upon by the selective screening audience, believing it presented a blending of different time periods. This jacket in combination with the silver paint, believing to present a futuristic approach in connection to the electronic music, some of the selective screening audiences believed to reflect superheroes and fantasy element. This to an extent is what we tried to reflect upon, again presenting a hierarchical element of the lead singer in which he ‘stands out’ from the dancers, who present the sense of a unity, which the lead singer breaks away from. Our selective screening audience also picked up upon this in the fact that the dancers are all moving in a chronological dance, moving together, whereas the lead singer has the freedom to move and we see him in different shot types in different parts of the set. This to an extent is an oppositional reading, because it was not something that we primarily intended to happen. The different audiences deduced that the wire element that connected the dancer element and the performance of the lead singer reflected the wires of the electricity that could run underneath the stage of the performance and others believed it was to be symbolic of the electronic music. These negotiated readings provided a positive understanding of the music video, that audiences were reflecting and foreseeing it differently as to how we had intended it to be. Some people of the audience also believed that the wire element was also connected with the reversed clips, in that it was as if the clips were being ‘rewound’ on the television.

However, some people of the audiences, provided oppositional readings to the music video, regarding some concepts and ideas that we as producers had not touched upon or thought of, and have neither intended. The lead singer and DJ, in the selective screening, it was believed that they were romantically connected towards each other. This was perceived through that although they were continuously surrounded by a group of female dancers, on several more occasions they were more interested in each other. This was too backed up through the view that they present ‘pretty boys’ and do not evoke over masculine roles, but are more feminine looking, especially in consideration of the use of makeup and their costumes. The audience too took an oppositional reading of the female dancers, which could present a negative viewpoint of how we are trying to present the female role. In this video, this oppositional reading believed that our presentation of women was just as ‘bodies’, for male desire, and that it is encourages women to sexualise themselves. I believe that this oppositional reading presents a negative viewpoint of how we are trying to present our dancers. However, in the video, to an extent we are presenting this, but we are just merely reflecting what girls in clubs wear.

The feedback that we received from our audiences, I was encouraged by and believed that what we tried to evoke in the music video was recognised by the audiences and was clearly understood. From the selective screening, the audiences brought new ideas forward that I had not first thought of, but now I can recognise where and how this could be understood. Primarily the audiences presented positive feedback, but brought constructive criticism forward that there was room for a narrative element and that some believed that it was necessary for this, so that there wasn’t too much repetition. However, despite being biased, I believe that there wasn’t any need for a narrative, because I believe this would have diluted the performance element of both the lead singer and the dancers, and I believe that both of these are strong enough to hold audiences attention for the 3 minutes of the song.