Audience Feedback Vlog

Here is our vlog where we discuss the feedback that we received at our media showcase:

The Last Shadow Puppets - Aviation

Despite having finished my music video, I was intrigued by The Last Shadow Puppets' 'Aviation' that was released today. It comes as a continuation of the video that they released last week, 'Everything  You've Come to Expect'. I previously wrote about how the first video was extremely ambiguous so I was interested when 'Aviation' appeared to be a continuation. Both videos feature the same location, a beach, and the same actress, who is wearing the same costume. This makes it clear to the audience that these videos are linked without explicitly stating so.

'Aviation' is set before the events of 'Everything You've Come to Expect'. Much of the mystery surrounding 'Everything You've Come to Expect' was due to the lack of a clear explanation as to why, or how, the artists were buried in the sand (below left). 'Aviation' shows the lead up. The artists are shown digging their own graves at gun point (below right), the 'why' is still not explained, however, it gives the audience some satisfaction in knowing that there is a partial backstory to the events of 'Everything You've Come to Expect'.

I thought that the idea of having linking music videos was very clever and is an idea that my group could have used if we were to create another music video. Videos with multiple parts are usually of the indie genre, like our music video, as these videos tend to be more narrative-based. Follow-up videos allow for, either, a more ambiguous video that can later be explained, or two videos that tell a more complex story that couldn't be told in the space of a single video.

   

Media Showcase

Today we held a media showcase in order to present our music video to our peers, teachers and family with the intent of receiving audience feedback. This allowed us the receive feedback from various demographics due to ranges in age and gender, this was helpful as we could see whether our product was versatile in appealing to different groups, other than our target audience of 16-24 year old females.

We distributed audience feedback sheets (example shown below) in order to gain answers to specific questions, such as what the 'intended demographic' for our music video was, whether the 'track fit the editing style, and whether the narrative was understood. We asked a wide range of questions so that we could gain feedback on all elements of our music video, from our editing to narrative to camera shots and angles. This range has helped us to see what elements worked well within our video and which needed improvement. This information will also be incredibly valuable during the evaluation stage.

We are hoping to film a vlog within the upcoming days, addressing the feedback that we received.

          

Here is some footage from the showcase, unfortunately, only the first three groups were recorded:

The Last Shadow Puppets - Everything You've Come to Expect

Today the new music video for The Last Shadow Puppets' 'Everything You've Come to Expect' was released. I found it particularly interesting as there are 9 different versions that were uploaded to YouTube, 1 listed and the remaining 8 only accessible by following the link in the description box. This led to a lot of confusion amongst fans when the music video seemed to change with each viewing, some videos being shot at different times of the day and others containing different costumes. The result of these slight changes is an eerie atmosphere created by the familiarity of each video but with hard-to-determine changes.

I think that having multiple videos is very fitting for the song as it is fairly repetitive with its melodies and lyrics, particularly the repetition of the lyric 'everything that you've come to expect'. This line fits perfectly with the effect of multiple videos as the viewer 'comes to expect' certain elements in the video only for them to change, for example, two videos contain a woman playing a violin in the background and one video even cutting to black halfway through, shocking the audience.

Below is a video showing all versions simultaneously:



The music video conforms to Andrew Goodwin's music video theory. There is a clear link between the lyrics and the visuals, the lyric 'coastal air gets a girl to reflect' is shown through the beach setting and the lyric 'dirtbag ballet' is shown through the ballet-like dance of the woman in the video. The lyric 'I just can't get the thought of you and him out of my head' is also shown as the woman flitters between the two men (the artists) that are buried back-to-back in the sand. There is also a link between the music and the visuals due to the calm, slow-motion movements matching the slow paced song, this calming element is enforced by the beach location and the single, smooth take.

'Everything You've Come to Expect' conforms to the conventions of a performance video, with lip-synching and close-ups of the artists being included. However, unlike many performance videos, the artists play a secondary role here, with the woman being the main focus, many sections of the video not even showing the artists' faces clearly, if at all.

Overall, I think that the concept of these videos is extremely interesting as they have challenged the format of the music video whilst also generating publicity and 'hype' for the band's upcoming release of their album, also titled 'Everything You've Come to Expect', due to fan speculation on the 'meaning' of the videos. This shows how creative decisions and challenging conventions can have an impact on audiences and therefore publicity and future sales.

Final Music Video

Here is our final music video:

Music Video Titles

After receiving feedback on our final draft, we have corrected any lip-synching mistakes and are now happy with the finished result. This meant that that last thing to add before exporting the video was to add the song title and artist's name. We chose to use the same font that we used to write the artist's name on the front of our Digipak. This creates a link between the products and reinforces the artist's brand.

We chose to add the title in the bottom left-hand corner over the first shot. We chose to place it in the corner so as to not obscure the artist's face, again, emphasising the 'star image'. We also felt that the titles are not as important as the content of the music video, we didn't want to distract the audience from our shots, we therefore placed the title subtly.

The images below show our font, titled 'Birth of a Hero', appearing at the start of our music video (left) and on the front of our Digipak (right).

    

Audience Feedback

Today we received audience feedback on the final draft of our music video. We wanted feedback on what we could improve, such as lip-synching, however, it appeared that the class enjoyed the music video and they didn't offer any recommendations for improvement. As a group we are still noticing small details with the lip-synching that others don't seem to see or hear, this has lead to us spending more time perfecting the lip-synching but it has also become a form of procrastinating uploading our video. Receiving such positive feedback has finally given us the push to add the finishing details, such as the music video title, and then upload the video to YouTube.

Here is our feedback vlog:

Finished Editing

Today we finally finished editing our music video. We are planning on getting some audience feedback before we upload our video as we need objective opinions so that we can see what we may need to improve. We mostly need to see whether the lip-synching of our video is correct. Once we have received feedback and made small changes we will need to add the music video title and artist name at the start.

Here is our vlog from today: