Question 3: What Have You Learnt From Audience Feedback

I had to split the videos in half for this question as it was to long to upload it to youtube, so they are in separate parts, but it's all meant to be on the same one.



Audience Feedback is a crucial part of the evaluation to our products, that's because it's great to find out what people think about your products, but also to hear some criticism from them. We found tat it was very useful to get regular feedback from either students or teachers because then you can then go on to improve your products to make them look more professional and stand out from others, or at least compete with them. It;s good to find out what people think is working with your products and what isn't, so then you can learn from the points and go onto improve the adjustments. The audience which Annabel and I decided to create our products was between 15-30 year old, that is because that's what we thought would work best as an audience, as if we had it any younger it wouldn't be seen as scary, that's if it was rated as a 12 or a PG, we would then have to bring down the target audience.

We gathered all our feedback over stages, some feedback was written down either by the teacher, or by some students who we showed our trailer to, to see what they thought about it and if they liked it and what bits they thought we should improve or change. We also had video feedback, on web cams in class, from different students, to see what they thought about the products we had created, I found this the best kind of feedback as they really set it out straight what was working and what wasn't working with our products, and seeing them talk about it you could tell they were really trying hard to say the truth about what they thought about the products, so personally I thought this was the best kind of feedback we got, as we then went onto make them improvements, to our products.

Our first feedback was not actually from our products that we had started to make, you can see this in the first part of the video above. We decided to go out and get some initial feedback, on what people thought about horror films and what they expected to see and then take that into consideration and create our own idea up. We set out to interview as many students as possible in the time scale we had, we got great responses from five different people, which really helped when deciding what decisions we should make with our products. We showed them a professional magazine front cover from 'Total film' Magazine, considering we thought this was a great magazine front cover, it was very intriguing with the black and white image and the model staring down into the camera lens, we thought it would be a great idea to see what other people thought about, to see if they thought it was intriguing as we did. We asked them questions such as what there most memorable Horror film was, and about four out of five, said Paranormal Activity, which was great for us, as it gave us a good starting point at looking into trailers and what is shown on them, to see which bits catch the audiences attention, so knowing that many people thought this was the most scariest horror film they had seen, as they seemed to say this was because it seemed so realistic and that could maybes happen in real life, especially when it says at the beginning of the film that this is a true story. It was a great starting point for us to then go and look at the trailer and see what type of shots they had and what camera angles they were using, so we could try and take inspiration and create our own story board up, of different scenes. One of the key points in this initial feedback was when we asked them what type of locations do they expect to see in horror films, now most of them came up with dark places, creepy houses or mental hospitals, so we had to take into consideration what they had all said and then work together and think of a great location where we could film our trailer, we needed to take into context good lighting, even though we wanted dark shots we needed to take into consideration how dark they could be, without it getting to the point where you couldn't see anything on a camera screen. We decided that the best story board idea, would be to film in a old town house, as this would be a perfect setting for a horror film, instead of a brand new house, which doesn't look very scary or have any character to it. You can see all the students answering the questions above in the video at the very beginning.

The first proper feedback we got from our horror trailer was from our first draft, which we showed to a three of our friends to see what they thought about it so far, we knew at the time that we needed to put a lot of work into it, but having other people watch it and tell us what they thought was very beneficial as they might have picked up on something you hadn't, which needed to be improved. You can see the hand written responses in the video straight after the initial feedback. We thought asking people our age as it is aimed from the ages of 15-30, what they thought about it, really did help, as they would probably know best what they would want to see in a horror movie, and how to make it seem more professional and scary, to make people feel like they're on the edge of their seats. They told us points which they really enjoyed, such as the stabbing of the fork and then they told us different points which we need to improve on, which was making the sound better, but also making the emphasis of the scariness build up at the right times and then brought down again.

The next bit of feedback we got, was for our second draft of our film trailer at this point we had improved it by a lot, with the music, being key at certain points, but not only that we went out and re-filmed some shots which were too dark in the first draft, so we tried and worked with the brightness and contrast buttons, but it just seemed to make them look all fuzzy and bad quality, so re-filming these in better lighting was a big help to us as it really did improve that second draft we had of the trailer. We got this feedback given to us by our teacher she sat between Annabel and I, with a pen and paper and watched the trailer through fully, then re-playing it, but this time pausing it at points which she thought we could improve it by, so we ended up having quite a good size list of improvements to make to our trailer, which was great as we were then going to make the trailer look better and more professional in itself. Most of the improvements, seemed to do with the sound and what we could interpret into our trailer, such as heightening the door slam at the beginning to make it sound more dramatic, but also having sound when our production logo comes on. The best kind of feedback we could have got was from our teachers, as they knew best what looked good at the said out straight if something didn't look right in the work, so this really was beneficial to our work and what decisions we then decided to move on with.

The next bit of feedback we got, was for our first draft of our magazine front cover, now we as a group were also having doubts about this product as we just didn't know if it really was working and looking as professional as it could do, so by asking other students what they thought about the product itself, really was a big eye opener for us as a group, because we then went onto re-starting it completely, as we thought by starting from the very beginning was a great decision for us, as nothing on that page really stood out to as saying that's a good magazine cover, so we decided to scrap it all together. This was probably the most beneficial feedback we got, as it was very eye opening, with what people really thought about the magazine. They both first came out with saying how we should change the main image on the front, and since that's the most crucial part and eye catching bit on the magazine, it was good to hear that other people thought the same to, as it wasn't very good quality. The other main point which they both talked about was the title of the magazine and how they thought it looked cartoonish and didn't look like a professional magazine, so by taking all that into consideration, I'm glad that we decided to start a fresh, with a clear mind about what we wanted our magazine cover to look like, and what expectations we had for it.

The next bit of feedback we got was about our updated magazine front cover, I'm so please that we decided to just start a fresh, as the feedback we got back from students about it was great, compared to the feedback which we got for our first draft of our magazine front cover. They both seem to compliment the colour scheme which we interpreted into our work, which was red, white and black, they thought that they were bold choices and they stood out to the eye. They both seem to comment on the sizing and proportion of the items on the page, such as the magazines name been bold and large so it's eye catching and people can read it clearly and know what the magazine is called. They both find the main image very presentable and how the model is staring into the camera lens its seems very mysterious, as what she is looking at. I'm pleased that we got positive feedback on the magazine, especially since the first draft we put together, the feedback on that one wasn't as good, there was more negative points, then there was positive.

The next bit of feedback we got was about our film trailer, now this was the most exciting feedback we had got as a group, because as Annabel knew someone who filmed for channel 4, we decided to send them our trailer to see what they thought about it, see if they thought it looked professional and scary. It was possibly the best feedback we got thought out the whole time, we were so pleased that he liked it and that he thought we got the editing to a T, and he even said how he felt nervous watching it, which was really pleasing, since we were making a horror trailer, that's how we wanted people to feel when watching it. It was just great to hear a professional cameraman, say that our work was really good. We also got a text from one of our friends, to see what they thought of the final trailer and their response also was so pleasing especially when they said they didn't know whether they were going to be able to sleep at all that night!

The next bit of feedback which we got was for our film poster. From the very beginning we knew how we wanted our film poster to look, so we didn't have to make loads and loads of changes to it, like we did with our magazine which was starting from scratch. I think the film poster is very eye catching especially with how the models are positioned and you can only see half they're faces. We got a video response for this, as we thought this would be the best way to display how we wanted the student to talk about our product, it was great how he gave positive, but also a bit of criticism, on how we could improve it, which is great, as something is never perfect. He also seemed to really like the concept of the two models stood with half they're faces showing, he thought it really represented the horror theme and tied in well, as it looked very mysterious. A key point that he made was that we could have maybes made our font size a bit bigger on the poster, but a part from that he said it looked really good, which was very pleasing.

The last bit of feedback we got was about all our products as a group and what people thought about them, whether they all worked together and linked and if they knew what genre of film we were going for. We got our teacher to analyse all our products as we thought since he has seen us from the very beginning working on them and seen them being created and improved it would be a good idea to see what he thought about our products as a whole, now that they are all completed. We then decided to get a students point of view about all our work, since our target audience was between the ages of 15-30, we thought it would be a good idea to get there prospective on our work as a whole and to see if they think they all work together.

So that is all the feedback which we made throughout the time of our production of our three products, we found a lot of the feedback very beneficial and eye opening, seeing what other people have picked out, on what we should improve was great, it really did help us along the way with making our complete and end products.

I have learnt an awful lot, with have being given back general feedback from students and teachers about our products, it has been very beneficial, especially since we gave feedback last year I know now a year later how important it really is, in improving your products to make them better as a whole and stand out more, so I'm so pleased that we got many different varieties of feedback from, emails, to photo booths, to texts, it really has helped us along the way, with creating our three products. If I did have to do anything different, if I had the choice, I think I would have spent a longer time working on our magazine cover, truthfully sometimes I felt we were neglecting it at times and working solely on the other two products, but I am very pleased that we brought it back round and created a very eye catching magazine cover, so yes if I could do anything different it would be maybes spend a bit more time on the magazine cover, maybes playing around more with sizing and arrangement on the page. I think areas that we need to improve on as a group would be definitely communicating more with problems that were occurring with our products such as the magazine cover and taking the time to sit back really look at the product and then decide what really needs to be changed, but really that all could come down to time management with the different products. Things that I would do the same if we had to do it all over again, would definitely be going out as one of the first groups to get footage for our trailer as this was very beneficial to us as we could see early on what we needed to change and then we still had time to go out and re-film shots that we hadn't got right first time around either because of the lighting or because of the shakiness of the camera, so I'm very pleased that we went out early and started filming as we knew in good time what bits we needed to change and then we could think of some different shots which we could interpret into our trailer. Instead of leaving it last minute and having to just stick with what we had. Considering we found it very stressful with the filming and then all the time it took for us to edit the trailer, I don't think we would of had a good enough trailer if we hadn't of had all that time to re-look at shots and then realise what was working and what was working, so that definitely would be something I would do next time, as it worked out very well for us.