Evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Once we finished our piece, we underwent some audience research to discover how they felt towards the piece, how they feel the ancillary tasks and main piece work together and what they think could be improved. We tried to ask a range of ages and a range of ages through personal interviews which we recorded with a transcription, these are the results:

Joe (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 (18): 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. 

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.

Judging from these two responses we can see that the matching of the emotion in the song with the visual pace and intensity worked effectively. We can also see that the audience did not have trouble understanding the narrative of the piece either, showing that it came across effectively. Steve’s response is interesting as he judged the ancillary tasks primarily. Taking his age into account and his lack of familiarity with Pink Floyd, it shows how the prism has such an intense level of iconicity that it is largely recognizable across most age groups. His comments also show how the ancillary tasks would motivate a consumer to purchase our product, something which is very important when considering the institutional desires.

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. 

This age group would be expected to be well associated with Pink Floyd’s music and therefore would have a richer contextual knowledge. From their responses, we can tell that our understanding of Pink Floyd’s stylistic choices are reflected well within our piece. One element we could have improved upon would have been further hallucinatory effects, something which they would expect if we were attempting to mimic the stereotypical 70’s music video. On the other hand, we were not trying to mimic the style completely and it is a fairly modern interpretation in terms of the video.

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.

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.

This age group is relatively similar to the eighteen year olds, in the sense that they will not have much of a contextual understanding of Pink Floyd and what the band stood for, therefore their opinions will vary from those that have this. From their feedback it is clear that we should have potentially made more of an obvious link between the images on the digipak and poster and the video, as the dilapidated house only appears briefly and is not an images which is particularly prominent, however, this did not come between the intended purpose they surved.

Over all, if we were to undertake a similar project or change this one, we would ensure that context knowledge surrounding our chosen topic is well understood and that we take into account separate meanings that we may not fully understand due to lack of said contextual knowledge. We also would make sure that we understand the target audience’s desires, in terms of visual presentation, in particular the digipak and ensuring that it is visually pleasing.