Marcus Pelham A2 Media Evaluation: Question Three

3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

WHO IS OUR AUDIENCE?:

Firstly, it is important to outline and justify our target demographic. As discussed in the link, we have determined our audience as 'a working class/lower middle class demographic, between the ages of 16-25', with a focus on males (although not excluding a female audience).

TECHNIQUES FOR OBTIANING FEEDBACK:

With a strong sense of our target audience in mind, the techniques which we employed to gather audience feedback were vital to the quality of feedback we received. Our main source of feedback was on social networking sites, such as Facebook. This was a great platform for feedback, as it had advantages for both the audience and our group. For example, our audience would be familiar with the layout of the site and thus, it would be easy for them to a) view the film, poster and review and b) comment directly onto the site with feedback. This ease would mean we would get more feedback, as our audience would be more prepared to spend a small amount of time communicating the thoughts and feelings.

In addition, from a film-maker's perspective, this ability to maintain direct communication between yourself and your target audience throughout the entire process of making the film (ie. research and planning, construction, evaluation) is a great tool for creating a product that will entertain that demographic. We found this whilst constructing our piece; we had created two different openings and decided that the best way of choosing was to let our target audience decide which one they preferred. So, we uploaded the link to our Facebook and made the decision according to the feedback we received. This manner of feedback reported that, out of the 21 people we asked (all being within the parameters of our target audience), 17 chose Version One, arguing that it seemed 'more modern and clean cut' and allowed the audience to 'focus on the title' and thus, theme of the piece. As a result of such resounding support for Version One, this is the version of the opening (with the added logo for branding) that is seen in our final product, as it is better suited to the demand of our audience.

FEEDBACK FOR FILM:

We have also used Facebook to obtain audience feedback in the evaluative stages of our portfolio. We uploaded our film onto YouTube, linked it to our Facebook and let people comment on the post. Below is an annotated screenshot from Facebook that contains a segment of the feedback for our film (comments in red are negative, green highlights positive comments and gold is a comment regarding intertextuality).

Screenshot of Facebook feedback for our film

The main criticism that we interpreted from this method of feedback is a continuity error in our piece; as one of the comments explains that in one of the scenes, the character's 'Dad rings but he goes 'hey Mum'. In total, three people from our target audience picked up on this continuity error, meaning that it was too apparent. Continuity errors are damaging to a film's effectiveness as they draw focus away from the narrative and distract the audience. From an audience's point of view, this makes the film less entertaining, as they can miss key points or begin to question the realism of the piece and thus, are unable to identify with the narrative. If we were to return to the piece and re-film certain scenes, we would ensure that the continuity of the piece was correct, increasing the effectiveness of our film

Close up of continuity error

However, we also recieved positive feedback about our film. One of the comments declared that she 'loved the story line' and that it was 'very clear'. This is an especially positive comment as one of the main criticisms of our AS piece was that the narrative was too unclear for an audience to enjoy or comprehend. In order to counteract that, we were keen to incorporate simpler narratives in our transitionary task, Hero of War, and our final A2 piece. Comments like this demonstrate a development in our ability to communicate a clear narrative to our audience and this affects the engagement of an audience with our film.

The comment in gold is a fantastic piece of feedback as it identifies one of our key influences, Lovefield. This implies two successful aspects of our film; firstly, it shows that our intense research [ENTER LINK TO LOVEFIELD RESEARCH HERE] of Lovefield and the techniques employed to establish an effective narrative twist was successful, as the person that commented could identify the aim of our film and draw similarities between Lovefield and Killer Hangover [ie. the raven, narrative twist and use of soundtrack].

However, it also shows the power of intertextuality in the marketing of a film. For example, the professional standing of our piece was increased for that member of our audience because they were able to create a link between an existing media product and our film. If we could retrospectively apply this technique into our poster [ie. by referencing Lovefield on our poster, or selecting awards that Lovefield had been nominated for to include on our poster], the marketing aspect of the piece would have been improved and a film literate segment of our target audience would be more inclined to watch the film.

FEEDBACK FOR POSTER:

Final version of our poster for Killer Hangover

In a similar way to the film, we used audience feedback throughout the process of researching, designing and evaluating our poster. For example, whilst in the draft stage of the posters, we decided to pick two of the three (Adam's and Stephen's in addition to mine) to develop further. Instead of using Facebook as our main source of feedback, we decided to present groups of students at our college with tangible copies of each poster and ask them to a) guess the genre of our film, b) guess the narrative and c) choose the one that would make them most likely to watch the film. This feedback educated us concerning our audience's understanding of the concept behind the posters and the entertaining value of each. The most successful in each catergory was my draft, although several changes (such as removal of the kitchen setting and use of logo) were suggested by our audience. The benefits of this tangible feedback is that we can ask questions more effectively and physically see the response our audience had.

The same technique was used to obtain feedback during the construction of the piece; we would print off drafts of our final poster and ask members of our college to make suggestions of what could be improved. Through this feedback, we included two [previously, we had only one] review comments on the poster as our audience felt that further support was needed to improve the appeal of our poster and corresponding film.

During the evaluation stage, we returned to using Facebook as our main source of obtaining feedback for our poster. Below are two screenshots showing our feedback; again, red shows negative feedback and green shows positive.

A consistent criticism was that Jordan needed to be blended into the image more, as some members of our target audience felt it looked like two seperate images. If we were to improve the poster, we would ensure this was done to a professional level as it distracts the audience from more important details of the poster, such as the blood and cuts on Jordan's shirt that communicate the theme of violence or the release date.

Another comment was that the two review comments seemed to contradict one another, with one claiming 'a note-worthy experiment in the genre of horror' and the other an 'enjoyable lighthearted short film'! These oxymoronic statements are an oversight on our group's part and undermine the professional nature we were hoping to achieve with the poster. In a similar way to the former comment, it also distracts the audience from the details we'd like them to focus on.

Screenshots of feedback from Facebook for our poster

However, there was also many positive comments made by our target audience, including the colour scheme [we spent a substantial amount of time on deciding the colours we would use for the background, deciding on red for it's connotations with blood, anger, wine and passion] so, in future, we would hope to continue this as one of our strengths. The use of logo was also praised, another aspect of marketing we were keen to incorporate into our poster.

CONCLUSION:

Overall, audience feedback has been a key aspect in the entire process of our portfolio. Through constant vigilance to the needs and demands of our target audience - whether a desire to entertain them or to give them a character they can personally identify with - I believe we have created a successful product that fulfills the brief we were given. Of course, our feedback also demonstrates certain aspects of our portfolio that we should be aware of for future work but I feel that we would be able to use that feedback and improve our entire product by applying the improvements I have suggested