(M3)Justify the Editing Effects used in our Audio-Visual Promotion

In order to get feedback from a new audience, I decided to create a Microsoft forms questionnaire. The questionnaire only had 8 questions as they are simple and quick, so that we do not ask too much information from the viewers but we still gain enough information from them. The questions range from choice answers to writing answers, so that I can gain more opinionated responses.

This means that we can work closely based on our audiences feedback. This is a good way of improving our promotion as it is taking insight straight from the audiences that will be viewing our advertisements. This makes tailoring our advertisement to an audience much easier

This is what the Microsoft Form I created for our promotion looks like:

I received 5 responses for my questionnaire from people, which is good as it means that we have 5 sets of information and opinions. This means that we have more information to act upon, and have received feedback which gives us a chance to make our advertisement better from an audiences point of view, rather than a producer's.

The first question of my questionnaire is about the shot types of the advertisement. This was just a simple question with a choice answer. The answers of the question were all 'very suitable' which shoes to our group that the people who we have sent the questionnaire out to believe that our advertisement is shot precisely to how it should have been shot. This is most likely because we stuck to the popular codes and conventions of guitar advertisements, and especially Fender.

This question is about the feeling of the advertisement. We aspired a classy, fast paced style that embodies Fender's brand, and is attractive to their target audience. This was supported by the answers we got from it, ranging from fast paced to professional. The word 'authentic' used here is also exactly what we wanted for the Fender brand, as their brand approach

I then used the next question 'what was your favourite shot in the promotion?'. This question is much less professional and more opinionated than the rest, as it is asking of a specific example from the promotion. This means I am using this to gauge whether or not the promotion is attractive to the viewer's eye, and what the 'fan favourite' shot of the promotion is.

This question was based on the music used in our advertisement. For the main advertisement, we used 'Paint it Black' by the Rolling Stones. This song is copyrighted, so we used it with the idea in mind that within an actual brief for an audio-visual promotion we would have a defined budget. This means that we would use this budget to pay for licensing for the song.

WE receieved very positive feedback for the music choice in the advertisement, as it has the perfect sound and tempo for the video. The Rolling Stones also use Fender Stratocasters prominently, which makes our music choice even more authentic to the Fender brand image. This also means that with any research, people would find out that the Rolling Stones use these guitars and this would probably give an audience an even better outlook of the guitar.

This question was about the editing style of our advertisement. We wanted to make sure that an audience thought that it was correctly continuous, and was suitable for the style of the product and brand that we wanted to achieve. Our audience feedback for this question was also overwhelmingly positive, which shows to us that the editing was completely reasonable, and conveyed the style and theme of Fender advertisements and also guitar advertisements as a collective.

This means that we will not have the change the editing, but if we have tweaks to make to the edit we know that the selected editing style that we used was positively received by an audience. This means that we will not have to worry about improving any of the post production as of right now.

This question was asking for direct feedback from the audience. This could be anything that they think could be better about the advertisement, from editing to shot types. This question had mixed responses with some people saying that they thought there was no feedback, however one of our answers suggested that we add in the Foley effects for the guitar tone knobs and the pickup selector (bass toggle). This was something that we had already spoken about and were yet to record, so we need to add in the recordings that I get from the guitar.

This is a simple fix as we can just import the audio files into adobe after effects, and then trim them to make them suitable for the advertisement. This is good feedback as it means that our advertisement will feel more realistic, as a lack of realism could not fully immerse a viewer in the advertisement, so we need to maintain the realistic sounds throughout the video.

Improvements/ What to do next time?

Questionnaire participants - 

From this information, we can take away that the style and shots of our promotion worked very well amongst an audience. This means that we can keep the same style running through the video, as we know that the audience has a positive reaction to this. 

However, as much as this information may be useful to us, we have not chosen a specific audience with specific psychometrics. This means that the people who have replied to this questionnaire are not Fender's target audience. This is a significant factor as not only is it the buyer of their products, but they also have very different opinions on advertisements such as these as they are in their interest. This group of people would most likely give mixed responses and feedback 

Foley Sound Effects - 

For one of the questions at the end asking for feedback, we received from one of the participants that we should include foley sound effects for certain parts of the guitar in order to maintain realism. This includes the tonal knobs and the pickup selector. As we did not record audio with these clips, these are silent in the advertisement which does not work with the rest of the audio and music on the video.

This is a simple fix, as I have already recorded some of these sounds straight to my phone, and they need to be enhanced. After this we can insert them straight into the promotion and then the problem will be fixed. This will mean that the viewers are more immersed in the advertisement as the sound matches what is happening on screen.

Music Key - 

This is a problem that was not on the questionnaire but I noticed it has relevance to one of my questions, During the advertisement I have noticed that then we switch from my recorded guitar to the actual song, the music gets around half a step higher in pitch. This would not be picked up by a normal audience member, however seen as though this advertisement would be pushed to musicians, this may be a problem we have to solve.

This will be an easy fix, as the music can be pitched up and down in adobe audition. As this is an easy fix, we have not worried about changing this as of right now, as we need to improve the rest of the feedback we have received so far. However, after we have improved this, we can change the pitch of the music so that it matches all of the way through.