What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Tomas Mann McLeod

Introduction

In order to gain audience feedback for both my short film and ancillary tasks I used a website (surveymonkey.com) to provide a media in which I could hear my audiences opinions on how successful my media product is. Additionally to Survey Monkey, I had a sit-in show in which I showed my short film to my target audience to look at their facial expressions when watching my short film. I also carried out a vox pops for each of my 3 tasks.

The Project

The stage at which audience feedback was used…

Audience feedback was used as one of the first pieces of research carried out following finding out about short films in general, it was from this early stage that I knew a science fiction film short film would be suitable for my target audience upon a majority vote.

Why audience feedback was important for my short film…

During the process of editing my Science Fictions short film, I decided to show it to my target audience and a few outside of my target audience (to see whether it could connect to audiences outside of my target demographic) to ensure that they could emotively connect to the plot, mise-en-scene and characters. The final edit of my short film had changed dramatically from the first draft through recommendations and feedback, illustrating to me the importance of audience review. An example of one of these was a shot in which I attempted to illustrate my protagonist had fallen asleep outside, to attempt to illustrate this to the audience, I faded the shot to black in After Effects and then bring the image back to light, along with adding sounds foxes howls and general night time associated sounds. This however did not come across the way I wanted to, as the audience did not get what had happened, this scene was later cut for that reason.

The effect of audience feedback on my production…

Additionally to changing one of my scenes there was also a dramatic change in my protagonist’s character. I envisaged my main character being male. However upon analysing my survey results, it became clear to me that although it was going against the typical conventions of a sci-fi it would interest and bring in my target audience, so therefore I decided to change the main character. This surprised me so I decided to investigate this further in my vox pops. One of the reasons I decided to carry out vox pops was to find out and get my target audience to expand on the reasons why they said the things that they did. The reasons why the audience wanted a female protagonist included ‘mentally stronger’, ‘more independent’, ‘emotional tendencies can be exaggerated’, ‘smart strong minded’, ‘witty’, ‘sarcastic’ and ‘to can give the character a bit of flare’.

Making my short film more emotive

What was disappointing however from my audience feedback was the lack of emotion displayed in upon watching my short film, I was hoping for gasps, ‘oohs and aahs’ but I expected that to be a bit farfetched, its only something really seen in child’s theatre. However I did decided to edit it once they had viewed that draft, editing from here included the cutting of the sleeping scene and most significantly the inclusion of the plot twist. These inclusions provoked a stronger response from my audience.

Sharing through social media

I also asked for feedback from a few friends that would be classified under my target audience, the reviews were mostly positive, however I had one review that didn’t enjoy the short film – saying it wasn’t a science fiction film. The genre my short film comes under is post-apocalyptic, a science fiction sub-genre, because of this review I should’ve possibly specified in my research that this was a not a typical sci-fi. Therefore in conclusion this feedback that I have received has been very beneficial to improve my short film and make it much more suitable for my target audience’s tastes

My poster

Poster feedback

Upon completing my poster using Adobe Photoshop I showed it to my target audience to get some feedback. I received a mix of both positive and negative feedback.

I received the following positive feedback:

Upon completing my poster using Adobe Photoshop I showed it to my target audience to get some feedback.

I received the following positive feedback:

They enjoyed the “overall style and felt in fitting” with my short film.

“It didn’t however give too much information about the film within the poster” - it intrigued the audience to find out more.

To those people who saw the poster before the film, I filled them in with the narrative and said it “that fitted well.”

They liked the “font of the title and felt it fitting with the plot.”

“The credits looked professional.”

“The Polaroid pictures were a cool effect.”

“It looked like an official document.”

“The awards was a nice effect.”

However I also received the following negative feedback:

“The title was not big enough.”

“Dull colour scheme.”

“One paper clip was larger than the other.”

“It was land scape not portrait.”

“The binary opposition wasn’t clear from the pictures.”

Acting upon feedback

I received this feedback and adjusted what I could, I changed the colour scheme by adding in the steel back ground and removing a paper clip. I decided however to keep the poster portrait as I originally decided it would be a cinema style poster, that are landscape.

Overall I was happy with my feedback that I received from my poster as my demographic found it appealing and interesting, so I made few changes to it compared to the number of changes needed for the short film.

Radio Advertisement

Upon completing my poster using Adobe Premier Pro I showed it to my target demographic seeking feedback points. I received a mix of both negative and positive feedback – all constructive.

I received the following positive feedback:

“I like how you break convention, it feels like I was actually there.”

“Similar to the original ‘War of the World’s’ film”

“That would make me want to go and watch it.”

“Could feel emotion in the actor’s voices.”

“The BBC bleeps was clever as was the news intro.”

“Set the scene really well for the film.”

This is the negative feedback I received:

“Didn’t hear actors names or Production Company”

“You couldn’t necessarily tell it was a radio ad”

I almost expected that as negative feedback as it was my intention to create a non-stereotypical radio advertisement to entice my audience – however it is evident some people took the opposed reading.

Conclusion

Overall I attempted to add in changes to my short film, poster and radio advert, upon recommendation and audience feedback, whilst attempting to stay as close to the original idea as possible.