Q 3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback is key in the media, especially when producing an advertising campaign for a film as the audience bring in the revenue and make a person’s work credible, it is also what makes a film popular or not, the more people that enjoy a film the more the message of it gets spread. Bringing in a real example, The Woman in Black is a film that tired it’s hardest to reach their audience and was successful in doing so by having such a widespread audience of both Harry Potter and Daniel Radcliffe fans to spiritual mystery horror film fans. Daniel Radcliffe also participated in a vast amount of publicity schemes to the films upcoming release, such as YouTube videos including competitions that were targeted to attract a younger audience, the reward resulting in meeting Daniel himself. He also proceeded to attend interviews worldwide, which promoted the campaign more so by reaching his fan base and widening the interest in the film. Each of his vlogs carried thousands of responses and comments which were taken into account to aid the overall finished performance of the film.
Questionnaires - Questionnaires and surveys produced as both physical and digital copies have been my preferred use of getting audience feedback as it does not put much pressure on to the audience with no required personal details; therefore results are more likely to be both accurate and true. A questionnaire can be designed using either closed questions; which implement simple yes or no answers, or open questions that allow the audience to comment on what their opinion is. Within my questionnaires I included both types of questions to ensure the option of responding with honest quantitative data and potentially helpful criticism or praise, which is taken into account to improve and develop from. Due to the lack of budget given through the college, in comparison to a film like The Woman in Black, the opportunities to reach and widely publicize the campaign was limited, hindering the amount of feedback returned.
From all of my audience feedback I received, I have taken into account their views and developed my film poster with their critical aid
Original
Improved I HAVE: - centred and correctly format the billing block - rearranged the production company logos, changing their luminocity and added a dolby one to the bottom of the billing block - used a texture in the 'Prey' lettering - made the image a bit lighter / brighter to make it stand out a little more
From all of my audience feedback I received, I have taken into account their views and developed my film magazine with their critical aid
Original
Improved I HAVE: - made the cover image brighter - aligned the photos in bottom banner - aligned the cover lines to create an arch around the photo puff - moved the Hannah Mai Miller to the left and the 'Prey' to the right - made all of the narrow text bolder
Screenings - Other audience feedback schemes include test screenings; this is where an audience is asked to watch the film before it is released and they must comment on both good and bad points, these points are taken into account and the film may be re-edited. Our trailer’s first draft was screened in front of our peers, an entire class of A2 college students with an age range of 17-19 not including our teacher along with watching their screenings, allowing an audience within our film’s targeted audience to give qualitative feedback which has been considered and evaluated, allowing further improvements leading up to the finished product. I found the screening to be successful at allowing myself to clearly observe the trailer and its faults along with watching other people’s trailers; it was a change from watching the same footage over and over again on the same iMac screen to have it projected widely across a whiteboard.
From experiencing both being a witness to and being involved in an audience screening feedback session I have learnt that people have many different opinions towards each other’s thoughts, whereas some follow what their peers have said, which can clearly be seen on both the video and the feedback sheets. All criticism which was said was taken into account and lead to the improvements made to the trailer. Sound was negatively commented on a lot, that it was repetitive or annoying , too loud or not level. We knew that the sound needed adjustments and they have been made to level the volume to equally, however we did not wish to alter the main soundtrack music was not altered, only added to release some of false repetition people were hearing because we believed that it highly complimented some of the footage and transitions and therefore didn’t want to remove or replace it. Location and costume use was highly praised upon by the audience’s feedback and it was something we really wanted to make impact with, achieving this expressed a proud accomplishment throughout out group.