What have you learnt from your audience feedback? Audience feedback is an important factor when producing an ad campaign as this effectively targets a wider audience which will have a successful impact on the box office. Audience feedback gives you various information including; what the target audience are looking for in a product, criticism and positive feedback allowing appropriate improvements to be made. It is critical that a film does a lot research in order to set up the appropriate campaign for the target audience which is why test screenings are useful as producers receive feedback from an audience prior to the original release so they are able to change and alter their products conventions using the feedback they receive both positive and negative. I have found that the film ‘The Woman in Black’ done a huge amount of research and campaigning. The purpose of research allows the distributors to identify which film promotions are suitable for the film and how it will reach and entice the target audience. ‘The Woman in Black’ had a huge campaign for the film spread across various media platforms as well as marketing by David Radcliffe. The purpose for ‘The Woman in Black’ campaign and marketing was important for the success of the film. The extra marketing from Daniel Radcliffe was significant as this was the first film he starred in after the ‘Harry Potter’ films. Therefore, not only did his marketing target Harry Potter fans but this also allowed Daniel to market his new role which was different to his previous role as Harry Potter allowing the fans to adjust to his new acting and entice them to watch his new film. I gathered feedback before we began filming through a questionnaire answered by multiple people in ages that got access to the questionnaire through social media. This initial feedback allowed us to see what age range and what audience would be interested in our synopsis as well as other factors which entice them to see a film. Once we began filming and produced our first initial draft for our trailer we had setup screenings in class where we all gave feedback to each other’s trailers which were effective as our primary target audience is teenagers and allowed us to gain feedback through a test screening which helped us to develop our thoughts further. I gathered audience feedback for my magazine and poster from my peers in college and outside of college who were older in age to see what they thought about the products I had produced. This feedback was extremely helpful as they all gave a positive and critic feedback which helped me to balance the good features on my products and work on the negatives in order to improve and make a professional magazine cover and poster which united with our trailer so the audience would easily pick up they are advertising the same film. Our initial feedback from our questionnaire prior to filming
our trailer was answered by an audience which ranged in age from 15 to 62. This age range gives a main demographic of E which are students and pensioners amongst two other categories. The demographic for our questionnaire is E due to the mode age of 17 year olds who responded to our questionnaire all of which will be students as teenagers have to be in some form of education until the age of 18. Although some there were responses from older ages such as; 20, 21, 28, 46 and 62 all of which are in the employment age we do not know their job role or if they are retired therefore they can’t be included in the demographic of our audience. Whereas, 17 year olds are inevitably students due to the law stating everyone has to be in some form of education until 18 years of age. The psychographics are not clear from our questionnaire feedback as the questions didn’t reveal or ask for their social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics. However, from looking at the psychographics categories the explorers are typically students which are the majority of our audience feedback. My personal feedback for my magazine cover and poster represents similar results. However, my personal feedback asked the audience to state their age, gender and occupation. Therefore, the demographics and psychographics were slightly different due to this added information of their occupation. From looking at my magazine cover and poster feedback the ages of the audience are 17, 18 and 23 which gives a demographic of C2, E and a psychographic of explorer and aspirers due to the occupations of students and a dancer.
Trailer Feedback: Constructive: We have gained both constructive and positive feedback to our group trailer which was set up as a class screening. I have received feedback for my ancillary texts which will have a positive impact on my magazine and horror poster in terms of improvements. I have conducted audience feedback both before and after filming for our trailer which has had an impact on our final product due to this extra knowledge of audience research which is critical. From looking at the feedback for our trailer we received from the class there are occurring critics which shows that a majority of the audience picked up on the same weaknesses of our trailer. For starters a mention of the audio occurred in a couple of the feedback sheets, quotes from the feedback such as; “maybe vary music”, “some sounds tweaked”, “might have to change the music there is too much going on” and finally “make music quieter”. These are only a couple of quotes from the feedback we received regarding constructive feedback from our sheets. However, from reading back these quotes it is clear the music is too heavy in our trailer in terms of the loudness and tension it brings. Therefore as a group we sat down and went through the trailer making the soundtrack quieter and made sure it wasn’t overlaid in as many places.
Another key term which has kept appearing in our audience feedback is the use of repeated scenes in the woods. “Re-think repeated shots”, “a few shots were a bit repetitive” and “repeated shots from woods”. These quotes are from our audience feedback and have allowed us to realise that we have used the same shot twice in our trailer which is a scene from the woods with the protagonist running. We didn’t notice these repetitive scenes until we had the set screening and changed this immediately when we began to improve our trailer accordingly using our constructive feedback. Finally, the other reoccurring constructive feedback is a mention of the ending scene which came across as a jump scare but didn’t have the effect of making the audience jump or catch them off guard. “The jump scare at the end - wasn’t enough tension, didn’t scare me like I think it’s meant to”, “scream at the end felt a little bit detached”, “jump scare at the end wasn’t very ‘jumpy’” and finally “remove the scare”. These quotes from our audience feedback show that a couple members of the audience didn’t feel the scream at the end was well placed and didn’t make a very good jump scare. Therefore, we decided to remove this end scream as we thought the same and used this constructive feedback to improve our trailer. Overall, the feedback I have quoted and the mention of the repeated scenes, jump scare and soundtrack are the most occurring factors we received in our feedback. Although I have only mentioned these three factors we looked at all of our constructive feedback and made changes accordingly to improve our trailer to produce and make a polished product.
Positive: During our set screening in class we have gathered a variety of positive feedback, one of the most mentioned was the voice overs. “Voice over was really good – it gave the audience an idea of narrative. “Voice over helped add context”, “the voice over worked well”, “voice overs – idea of what’s going on, “voice over”. These quotes are from various different feedback sheets as the majority have mentioned our voice overs as a positive in our trailer which we were all happy about as we worked hard to record and come up with what to say. Another occurring mention was the narrative which as a result allows the audience to understand and gain an insight to the character types and storyline. “Good sense of story”, “good sense of narrative” and “the narration”. Again these quotes are from our audience feedback and are positives to what the audience thought worked well in our trailer. Knowing that the audience have picked up on our narrative is extremely good as a narrative is such an important convention is every trailer. Finally, the last reoccurring factor throughout our audience feedback is the music and how it creates suspense and tension well throughout our trailer. “Built tension well, music suited it”, “the music – genre/pace”, “intense music”, “music fit well”, music – suspense – builds tension”, “music fitted well”, “music – tension worked well with the running scenes and scream”, “music contrast and continuity when it changed scene”, “well-chosen music”. All of
these quotes are from the audience feedback who watched the set screening as a class. However, this feedback is positive as we have received constructive feedback on our music which shows that the audience have mixed feelings towards our soundtrack. Although, we have received more positive feedback than constructive therefore our music as a positive impact on our trailer but we have still considered the constructive feedback and made changes to our sound accordingly.
Magazine Feedback: Constructive: I received and asked six people to fill out my feedback sheet for my magazine once I finished my draft ancillary text. From receiving this information I have since changed and made alterations to improve my horror magazine to create a polished professional product using my constructive feedback. In my feedback received for my horror magazine an occurring factor mentioned by a couple of people was some of the red text I have used on my magazine. “Could make the blood and the red text the same colour?”, “red writing on black background could be brighter”, “website should be a brighter colour or tone” and “make the red text stand out more”. These quotes are what have been written on my feedback sheet in the constructive feedback for areas for improvement. This feedback has helped me to realise that I need to change the colour of this red text in order for the words to be clear and stand out to the audience to hook them to my magazine. Another constructive feedback consisted of my main image which has a huge impact on my magazine as you need a strong image in order to produce a professional polished product. The quotes from my feedback sheet say, “image could be shifted up slightly to fill some blank space between that and the masthead” and “the girl could look more scared/in danger”. This feedback is critical as I need a strong image in order to not only hook the audience but have the conventions for a horror magazine and the emotions of the characters are extremely important. Finally, the last quotes of constructive feedback I received where mentioned about the spelling and background colours of my magazine. “Dull out some of the background colours” and “double check spelling”. This constructive feedback has helped me to understand what the audience think of my ancillary text which is helpful for both research and improving my product as the people who gave feedback are target audience. Overall, all of this constructive feedback is extremely useful and helpful for me to refer to when making alterations for the better.
Positive: I have received multiple positive feedback from all six of the participants who looked at my ancillary texts. For my magazine cover there has been a reoccurring mention of my colour scheme used. “Very good colour scheme – white really stands out”, “I like the colour
scheme”, “effective colour scheme” and finally “the layout and colour scheme works really well together”. This feedback is important as more than one participant commented on the colour scheme which I have used connoting that the colours work well together and stands out to catch the audience’s eye as well as representing the horror genre as I have used red to connote blood and gore which is anchored by the blood splatter I have used and the quote from my feedback “I like the use of the blood effect”. I have received some positive feedback about the layout of my magazine, “good magazine layout, doesn’t cover too much of the image”. This quote connotes the positive feedback I received involving the layout of my magazine. I am pleased I received positive feedback about my layout as this is an important convention to produce a professional product. More fined details have been mentioned such as my cover lines, main image, and the strip at the top of my magazine. “Good bold cover line headlines”, “good use of contrast in the image allowing a darker background with lighter characters to stand out” and finally “ the black strip at the top is also very effective”. These little details which have been mentioned shows that the audience have noticed these small details when looking at my magazine. Overall, I am happy with the positive feedback I have received as it shows the audience have looked at my magazine and detail and noticed the fine elements and picked up on the conventions.