What have you learnt from your audience feedback? Audience feedback is very important when you create an ad campaign as it allows the distribution company to gather as much information about the target audience as it can before the final product is released. This gives the company a good understanding of what the chosen target audience likes, dislikes and how they feel the products can be improved. An example of a film that did a lot of audience research is The Women in Black, they produced a lot of different advertising products and got both their primary and secondary audiences involved with the shaping of the final products. To gather audience feedback and information about our target audience our group used the following; Class screenings We had several class screenings to gather as much feedback as we could during the process of making our trailers. We decided this would be a good idea as we could gather feedback during the process of making the trailer making the improvements as we went. YouTube We have uploaded our trailer to YouTube not only to allow the upload to our blogs to be as straightforward as possible but this also allows anyone to view and comment on our trailer so we are able to gather vast amounts of feedback. Family and friends Our group decided to show our trailer in different stages of the process to our family and friends, this was a good idea as it allowed us while making the trailer to gather some feedback from “outsiders� those who were not making a horror trailer like those in our media class. We decided our target audience should be mainly males although our questionnaire was almost 50/50 in relation to gender and to be in the age gap of around 15-20 which is why we decided to place the age rating of our trailer at certificate 15. It was a good idea to show the class screening as down to our audience research we found out that almost everyone that took part was a student so improving our trailer by the class feedback puts us right with the target audience. For my magazine cover and my poster promoting the trailer I used two different sources to gather feedback. First of all, I checked with my tutor that my poster and magazine cover had included everything that a professional magazine and poster would include. My tutor also added little things which could be improved so this was a good place to start my improvements once I felt my products were completed. Secondly I showed my products to peers in my media class, I gathered a lot of feedback from this in relation to the colour schemes and layout used, however at this stage I was getting mostly positive feedback as I had already made major changes to my final products. From our class viewing we were able to gather a lot of helpful feedback in relation to both what works well in our trailer and what they think we could change. From our first viewing which was while our trailer was still in the making we were able to gather feedback from everyone in our media class. The main issue people had with the trailer and thought needed improving was the amount of jump scares, many people suggested having a jump scare at the end of the trailer. Another place for improvement was we needed to make the climax in our trailer much more fast in pace. Alongside the improvements we also got a lot of positive feedback. The feedback told us that the score linked in well with the feel of our trailer, that we used a wide range of different shots which made our
trailer look more professional and the voice over worked very well with the feel to our trailer and linked in well with the scores chosen. After receiving the improvements, we decided to change the trailer, adding a jump scare at the end of the trailer and quickening the pace of our climax shots. The feedback we were able to gather from the class viewings helped us to improve our trailer’s impact on the target audience. The final class viewing was filled with mostly positive reviews saying the jump scare at the end worked really well and we had positive comments on how the score flows well with the rest of the trailer. The main negative feedback we got on the final showing where our trailer was completed was some people thought we should have maybe had more shots of the second location however this wasn't possible as by the time we got this feedback it was too late. Overall many people who gave feedback said they would go and watch the film and that we did good with the plot and the use of unusual props. With the feedback we were able to improve and change our products. With the trailer like I mentioned before we did change some elements such as the jump scare at the end, the timing and pace of the climax shots and we even added some more shots we didn't use before into our trailer. With the jump scare at the end we decided to place this after the title of the movie as the impact would stay with the viewer, we also here added a static effect as it linked well with the beginning of the trailer. I think the trailer altogether turned out really well, I mostly like the ending and the voice over used. In relation to my magazine I did do several changes to my original, I added blood splatter to the masthead of the magazine to link to the fat it was a horror edition, I added more cover lines, a texture from Photoshop and added a shadow on my image. With my poster I didn't really have to change a lot in relation to my feedback however I did add the tagline from the trailer and a billing block. Overall I am very happy with my final products and I now understand the importance of audience feedback.