Evaluation: Question three - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Following the completion of my media products, the short film 'Bruises', the Postcard for the marketing strategy and the Film Review written in the style of empire I then set about figuring out how to receive audience feedback - I first established how I was going to present the feedback. I chose the present the feedback in video format due to the fact that I then cannot manipulate the comments made and the feedback will be 100% genuine. The next step I made was the establish who to ask - I chose to ask the adult generation due to the fact that our target audience is parents, thirdly I established what equipment I would use to gather the information. 


SHORT FILM FEEDBACK:

The first set of feedback I decided to gather was from teachers - feedback video #2 is one of our media studies teachers, ten years of teaching media studies thus giving her a professional edge and opinion on the short film, as well as this my teacher has been involved within the Bafta voting process for many years - this leading to her knowing what audiences want and what elements are needed to make a film successful. 

The second being a pastoral leader from my school whom is closely involved with all of the students within sixth form and is therefore trusted to give a truthful opinion. In order to get a grip of how to gather the feedback we spent a lesson working within our groups, watching each other's films and commenting on both the positives, negatives, message within each other's films, areas we didn't understand and areas we generally had suggestions on how to improve. This task having given us an understanding of what type of commentaries we wanted on our short films and what type of questions we would need to ask we then went to film the selected people's opinions on our short films.

When filming the individuals opinions we asked all of them an identical set of questions from which their answers provided our feedback - within the evaluation stage of the task it was highly important that we received critical and honest opinions so that any improvements could plausibly be changed. The feedback we received was extremely helpful as we found that the teachers commented on the same problems - these problems were previously highlighted and are mentioned within my post-production post. The negative issues were mainly revolving around the editing of the short film and some confusion created within the audience about the ending of the film. Along with the critical opinions there was a lot of positive feedback - people in particular highlighted the contrast in atmosphere between 'Grace's' home and school life, thus meaning the extra time spent setting up the use of blue gels and the 85 filter were worth it as the atmospheres we wanted to convey were read by the audience. Another area that was intentional and worked as a positive was the identity of 'Grace's father', with the use of framing as well as dramatic lighting we kept the identity of 'Grace's father' mainly hidden from the audience, this was noticed and commented on it a positive manner.

If I were to participate in this project for a second time I would do several things differently -
1) I would attempt to make sure all parts within the film are clear e.g. the ending of my short film: although there is meant to be some confusion surrounding the circumstances of 'Grace's' death I would make all possible reasons for her death more clear.
2) I would also attempt to develop the central protagonists character so the audience hold a larger understanding of the character, their motives as well as their emotions.
3) I would have a larger range of camera angles: Although there are a reasonable amount of different shots within my short film I would have liked to have attempted more difficult and abstract shots.
4) I would have worked more on the audio: I would have liked to have looked into more detail into the atmosphere within the film and the effects certain genres of music and certain audio clips could have on the film.

Miss Wright - feedback #1


Mrs Rolfe - feedback #2

POSTCARD FEEDBACK:
When in the process of gathering feedback on my postcard I decided to gather my feedback in a similar way to the way in which I gathered feedback for my finished short film - with the use of a flip video and the individuals I planned on getting my feedback from I set about gathering my feedback. Also similarly to before when filming my feedback I asked both individuals identical question - the questions were carefully thought out and were not leading questions in any way, this was important due to the fact that we wanted honest and critical feedback - The feedback I received in terms of my postcard was extremely helpful as it allowed me to realise where I had made mistakes and although too late to change them this feedback will be critical during my next creation.

If I were to participate in this project for a second time I would do several things differently -
1) I would attempt to carry out more audience feedback at several different stages of production in order to create a postcard that fits best to what a viewer wants to see.
2) I would also attempt to take into consideration other people's preferences as well as my own - regardless of whether I enjoy the creation I have made or not if the audience doesn't like it it will not fill it's requirements.
3) I would create more options for my postcard designs therefore giving myself more options for my final design.

The first person I collected feedback from was a member of my family, having been a part of the film industry for many years working as make-up artist I believe that her experiences and knowledge make her the perfect candidate to gather feedback from.

DUE TO A PROBLEM WITH THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE FLIP VIDEOS AND YOUTUBE I WAS NOT ABLE TO UPLOAD THIS VIDEO.

 

FILM REVIEW FEEDBACK:

When For gathering feedback from my second ancillary task - my film review I yet again set about using the same process, within my other posts I have attempted to vary the way in which I present my work however, in terms of audience feedback I believe that this was the simplest and most effective way of gathering feedback, alas I stuck to this method - I found the feedback given on the film review was the hardest to interpret, however once analysed I once again found the feedback extremely useful as it enabled my to notice faults in my work that I had not before seen as well as receiving suggestions as to how I could have improved the quality of it.

If I were to participate in this project for a second time I would do several things differently -

1) Carry our more research into more magazines and other ways of publishing film reviews as to have a wider understanding of the different conventions used.
2) I would similarly to the postcard attempt to carry out more audience feedback at several different stages of production in order to create a film review that best fits the readers wants.
3) I would have carried out audience feedback from people I didn't know who read that magazine that my film review is based upon in order to get a real perception of how accurate my film review is in terms of convention use.

The first person I collected feedback from was a member of my family, having been a part of the film industry for many years working as make-up artist I believe that her experiences and knowledge make her the perfect candidate to gather feedback from. From this feedback I have gathered several things - the first being that my film review was effective in both it's layout and language in fitting into Empire magazine. However, the main thing that let my film review down was the lack of a crease down the middle of the double spread page, I did consider this during the creation however, due to the fact that I could not create an effective crease I chose not to put one in at all.