What have you learned from your audience feedback?

1. QUESTION 3
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT
FROM YOUR AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK?

2. My target audience
 Before production began on my film I had to get an idea of who I would be aiming my
product to. Most student drama short films are aimed at a teenage target audience
because they are far more relatable than trying to adhere to an audience that is
wither older or younger; the portrayal of short films in the media makes for popular
online videos. Short films are popular with all age groups, and although this is a
generalised statement, I wanted to make my film to appeal to a specific target
audience so for the purpose of my research I decided to aim it at a general audience
of males and females between the ages of , 17 and 22 but perhaps more male
orientated.

3. Introduction
 Audience feedback has been an important part of the research and planning
stages of my blog as well as my post production work. Feedback has helped
me to identify where a piece of work has been effective or has needed
further development in order to achieve toe best overall product. For me
the most important part of feedback was from my target audience. It has
been important to accept negative criticism from my audience as well as
positive because it has helped me to develop and improve my work.

4. My target audience Cont.
 This is a good audience to aim for with my product. Teenage Audiences make up a large
percentage of film goers, and are more likely to watch films on newer digital technological
formats like YouTube and Vimeo. Students and are also more likely to be on social
networks such as Facebook and twitter than older audiences. In recent polls it has shown
that 93% of teenagers go online regularly, increasing the chances of them seeing my film on
these technologies. They are a mass audience and so are more financially viable.
 With my product I am targeting at a secondary audience. Due to my product not using any
specialist jargon for my chosen age group and its themes being universally accessible, I
decided to also target my short film at an older audience because of the films interesting
values. However I do believe my secondary audience will want to watch the film for different
reasons to my primary audience; my Teenage Audience will generally be more interested in
the protagonists character as he is more relatable whereas an older audience will be
interested in the intertextuality of the piece itself including its clichés. In having more than
one target audience it helps the product have a larger reach and gets the film more well
known which is why I found it so important to conduct research at every stage through the
production and filming process.

5. Audience Feedback
 Throughout production I have learnt a lot from Audience Feedback Another important
lesson I have learnt from undertaking my target audiences that not all feedback is
relevant or helpful. One of the main tools I have been using for audience feedback is the
social network ‘Facebook’ as this has given me the opportunity to receive feedback from
all over the world. Contrastingly this method could be seen as a limited way of displaying
my work because it is so restricted in the anonymous side of feedback being received. .
As I was developing my Ancillary Film Poster for example, I put an unfinished version
onto the social networking site Facebook for feedback. The advice I got from there really
helped develop my product from its basic beginnings into the piece I have now. As
everything that we are creating in this unit is for a specific audience it is always useful to
get their opinions and criticisms as it stops it becoming a product that you like and it
becomes something your audience will enjoy. Without these other perspectives I doubt I
would have made my products to the quality that I would have liked

6. Audience Feedback cont.
 During the final parts of my project I decided to get feedback from
my audience in different ways. I decided to send my short film out
(from YouTube) on a Facebook message to a small focal group. I
have also designed a small written questionnaire from which I
have passed around another group to fill out. All the people who
took part in this feedback were aged from 17-22 and part of my
target audience. My Results come over the next few slides;

7. Facebook feedback - Ident
My final ident is finished and received some good criticism towards my final work . Overall people liked the
horror style of it and thought it didn't detract to much away from the final film. They thought the text at the start
was a little distracting but overall liked the idea of the text revealing from an unknown piece of symbolic text to
the final 'Indivisual' title. Another criticism was that the eye video played as a backdrop was too blurry and
instead needed to be reshot. Although I agree with the idea that the footage is grainy, I feel it adds to the feel of
the video itself so will be leaving the ident as it stands. Below is the feedback I received for this ident after
asking 15 people within the target audience of my final film.
1."I feel the ident was very effective but gave me a sense of a horror film. Could change!"
2."Great ident! but the eye in the background is creepy and could be changed"
3."I don't like the moving text at the start, It doesn't make a lot of sense"
4."I like the branding for the film and the name of the company"
5."the film ident was effective"
6.I feel as if the music isn't very fitting alongside the bright and happy atmosphere present in the final films
soundtrack."
7."Change the ident to fit a different genre"
8."I would not change anything about this ident. It is very effective"
9."I like the fact the ident ends abruptly alongside the music"
10."The ident is slightly too long"
11."It was a really good ident"
12.I like the changing letters at the beginning. It makes the piece stand out as its own prduction company"
13."the short film ident went well with the final film"
14."really good name! indivisual!"
15."I don't like the indivisual name. it feels like you're trying to be clever for the sake of being clever"

8. Facebook feedback Close analysis
 From my Facebook group I only had one criticism, the rest being complimentary
of the way the film was constructed, particular praise coming from the use of
music and the way the narrator was presented as an ever present force. Here
the criticism of the work is due to the final scene, saying perhaps I could have
had the car in the film slowed down as the films end cliché was too predictable.
When filming I did try this effect, but I found it looked messy and unstructured,
destroying the building of a tense atmosphere. I find the ending I used, in which
he suddenly appears fits in with the tension I built. This scene was used similarly
in the film ‘stranger than fiction’, upon the death of the main male protagonist.

9. Questionnaire feedback
 Along with feedback from my Facebook focal group, I also handed out a
short, 8 question long questionnaire to people in my target audience age
range (around 15-19). From this I have learnt what was good in my piece
and how I could potentially improve it if I was to do it again.

10. Questionnaire feedback cont.
 From my questionnaire I found that most of my group understood
the genre of the piece from the usage of colour and conventions,
and almost all put that they believe the audience of the product
would be mid to late teenagers. Most of the feedback of the piece
was positive, the few complaints being about my ancillary
magazine review. Of course out of the three this is the least
visually interesting, so it makes sense that this would be the least
popular. If I had made this piece really flashy and colourful it
wouldn’t have stuck to the generic conventions of a Magazine
Review.
 Other things said about my product included my group agreeing
that the products stuck to the conventions, and that they combine
to make one professional product. Those who took the
questionnaire who like short films said they would be interested in
watching it.

11. Feedback for Rough cut
 As I showed my rough cut to a target audience of 22 people aged 15 to 20
and a second target audience of people aged 21 +, I got detailed feedback on
the thoughts behind my final rough cut. Below is a typed list of a selection of
the comments I received and the changes I will be making as a result.
 feedback from 12, 15 - 20 year olds.
 I enjoyed the rough cut but felt like there needed to be a title sequence at the
start or finish
 the ending to your rough cut was terrible as the car sped up to fast! Other
than the the story values were really good
 really enjoyed the story
 improve some of the continuity errors such as the car leaving the traffic lights
about half way through

12. Feedback for Rough cut
 re-film some of the key area such as the pan across the ipad, but otherwise i
really enjoyed it
 great cliff-hanger ending
 really good soundtrack that fits well
 really didnt like the silence that was left behind during the latter half of the
video. the rest of it was really good
 the only part that needed significant changes to be made was the car
speeding off at the end of the video. this was too fast!
 really liked the film overall. not sure what was going on at the start and the
narration could be finessed ever so slightly
 feedback from 10, 21+ year olds.
 the film was good but lacked some artistic subtlety. I think you have left too
many questions unanswered.
 i really liked the ending but the car needs to be slowed down

13. Feedback for Rough cut
 the film was effective but there are a few continuity errors. Firstly is where a
car accelerates off the traffic lights and then mysteriously dissapears in the
next shot (maybe add a jump cut) also make the transition between going into
the library and coming back out more defined
 improve some of the continuity errors such as the car leaving the traffic lights
about half way through
 re-film some of the key area such as the pan across the ipad, but otherwise i
really enjoyed it
 great cliffhanger ending
 really good sountrack that fits well
 really didnt like the silence that was left behind during the latter half of the
video. the rest of it was really good
 change some of the continuity errors but otherwise the film was reasonably
effective

14. Feedback for Rough cut
 I dont think the soundtrack was effective enough with the final film, also your
sound effects are all over the place and you really need to quiet down the
sounds of background rain noise
 (no comments given)
 fix the ending as a lot of others said but otherwise was a really gripping and
interesting story. very unique!
 The final thing I asked was if they would watch the film again after i made
these improvements and over
 %80 agreed.

15. Ancillary product feedback
 As part of my research into the effectiveness of my final products
before submitting them to gauge their effectiveness with my target
audience, I decided to ask some of my target audience about what
they thought about the posters and movie review. Firstly was my
Movie poster. The purpose of a film poster is to advertise a film, and
create a 'buzz' (or interest) surrounding the films premise. It is often
a good idea to show off elements of the plot storyline using your
movie poster to initially get people interested in your film concept,
which worked effectively in my final ancillary products.

16. Ancillary product feedback
cont.
 As a poster describing my films firm position in the drama genre, my
posters need to show they are effective in portraying the boring life of
John Spencer which is something I tried to achieve in my horizontal
poster with a blurred background that separates John in the foreground
from the background. I told several people about my initial poster to
gauge an understanding of how effective they were.
this included random selection of 18 to 24 year olds and a group of the
same size that fit the criteria of my target audience. As a must, in my
ancillary products, I tried to incorporate sections of typography that fit
the conventions of my final video, and this is an element of my film that
my target audience thought was effective. Below are a list of
the feedback comments I received. As an added measure all people that
were interviewed had not heard of my project until after they gave me
their feedback on my ancillary product, and were told they were
professional examples. Participants were also asked to keep their
comments brief.:

17. Ancillary product feedback
cont.

randomly selected audience feedback (all anonymous)
 I like the overall layout and the contrast between the
horizontal and vertical designs, it is very effective.
 the blurred background of the horizontal poster works
very well and really reflects the isolation of the
protagonist. the custom font is designed well, But could
have been kept even more consistent with the font from
the magazine cover.
 the typography is consistent and works well, It looks like
an interesting short film.
 The poster seems to be missing something as their is a
large void of blurred space with no object to fill it.
 I prefer the horizontal poster for artistic style as the
portrait one looks more aimed towards, um, the horror
genre, sorry.

18. Ancillary product feedback
cont.
 audience feedback- target audience.
 the poster is really good ant fits the conventions of a normal video poster
 your steel tongs font needs to be a little bit more spaced out but the way the posters
are split in terms of the filled space is good.
 include the name of the production company, but the style of typography is good
 the structure of the posters are both very effective
 I like how well the magazine cover and posters seem to go together. They both work
very well.

19. Ancillary product feedback
cont.

I am personally very happy with the feedback as it shows the products I have
produced for my final film are effective. If i could have changed anything from the final
poster, It would be the page curl affect in the upper left hand corner of the portrait
poster itself. My final magazine review also received both great feedback and minor
criticisms, but nothing that couldn't just be down to personal perception. Below are
both my final ancillary products together to show off how effective they were together.


20. Overall what has my
Research shown me
 Sticks to Conventions well
 Can pass, visually, as a professional short film
 Narrative was interesting but could have done with a
different voice actor, shots not varied enough especially
at the scene with the traffic lights
 Can’t follow plot
What I have learnt from this:
During planning stages, check with target audience the script
in order to not fall into the issue of a stale plot by the end of
production
Make sure that I vary the shots more, don’t always use mid-
shots, try to us the multi-camera set up to change from mid-
shot, to close-up, to long-shot

21. Conclusion on Audience feedback
From my audience feedback I have found out things I could potentially change if I did it
again but I am confident that my product is effective, due to it sticking to conventions and
including elements my target audience would enjoy. If I was to do it again I would like to
make my film longer and more extensive, and perhaps use more effects. But due to my
Focal group feedback, I am confident that it is an effective and professional product.
I gathered the audience feedback through two different ways. This was so my audience
could decide whether or not they wanted to remain anonymous. If they wanted anonymity,
they could view the short and then provide back some written feedback They, as a group,
viewed the piece while recording their reaction and finishing with a final comments or
questions section afterwards.
Given my target audience, I mainly sourced from there. However, I did you the feedback
from one or two who acted in it, so their opinions might have been biased. Also, I didn’t
source any feedback from anyone older than 22. Additionally I decided not to ask for
feedback from any of my friends as they to would give a biased response.
In the end, I did get some varied feedback, but I could have done more to source it from
outside my peers and present it in a different way.

22. Different ways of presenting
my work to receive feedback