Evaluation

Audience Feedback

Planning/Research - Audience feedback played a huge part in various stages of the production. The planning process was heavily influenced by people's reaction to the original concept of the film - we received a positive response from teachers and students about the name of the film and the decision to structure the film as a documentary. After analysing the the financial successes of my focus films 'Borat' and 'Religulous', my group have recognised the profitability of the mockumentary film genre and have aided my group in identifying what we would need to do in order to create a mockumentary that will garner audience interest. We identified that the most efficient and generally profitable route is to first cultivate the audience that has high levels of interest in the topic the film addresses. We decided to focus on the subject of new media by studying online urban media enterprises including 'Grime Daily' and 'SBTV'.

These particular video channels interested us as it is serves to facilitate a wide range of unknown and mainstream MCs who are filmed performing for the camera in a hyperbolic, exaggerated and often ridiculous manner (reflected by our main protagonists). It was SBTVs online advertisement that interested us the most in relation to audience research: "The UK's Leading Online Broadcaster". We realised that the popularity of these websites and resulting effect on contemporary popular culture and zeitgeist was an interesting topic and we would want our film to explore the issues surrounding this in a way that was easily identifiable to the audience, while at the same time, allowing them to question the relationship between producers and consumer. After extensive audience research and general consensus, we identified that everyone in the class was aware of the nature of these channels and found out that a staggering 1.5 million people visit SBTV page on YouTube every month.

Audience and character identification - General audiences also seek, consciously or unconsciously, some level of what might be called “literary quality”. That means that the protagonist goes through some significant personal change, as in a good dramatic film or in a novel. Audiences who might not care about the topic, care intrinsically about people in such struggles. This is exemplified by films such as 'Supersize Me' and 'Borat' which follow their main characters on a journey. Our group will implement this plot device into our film with the documentation of the protagonists 'Toothpick and Bluetooth' and their ups and downs which will hopefully help to build the audience's identification with the characters.

Planning/Research continued

Filming - During the first day of filming, our initial decision to capture serious and dramatic shots proved very difficult and was a huge strain on the actors who lacked any real direction from the directors as far as a narrative was concerned. After consulting with the actors and other onlookers, we decided that structuring the film as a funny mockumentary would be the best way to convey our films meaning and would also be the most aesthetically pleasing for the audience. This displayed our groups adherence and reliance on audience feedback in relation to producing a better film.

Editing - The editing process provided a huge opportunity for our group to receive audience feedback and allowed us to analyse spectator response and how this could be developed. The two most important pieces of audience feedback came from our teachers and fellow students as they identified that an antagonist or some sort of binary opposition was required to create meaning and establish some sort of conflict, otherwise the film would be boring and have no real thematic substance. Secondly, we were advised to speed up the pace of the narrative through quick cut editing and faster intertitles which helped us in pertaining to the codes and conventions of a teaser trailer. Also, we were told that a few more punch line jokes were needed in comparison to the slightly offbeat and idiosyncratic humour that we filmed on the first day, which would provide our group with the ability to exhibit a wide range of comedic and dramatic techniques in our trailer. This resulted in the group filming shots of newly established antagonists “B-Dubz” and their interactions with our protagonists.

Ancillary Texts - The group's decision to maintain an aesthetic consistency across our ancillary products was heavily influenced by audience research and feedback. We were advised to use the same intertitle from the trailer across all of our other products e.g. magazine, film poster. We were also informed our original main title looked very amateur and did not suit the professional documentary feel of our trailer. We subsequently changed the cartoonish style of the intertitles to a more refined font which significantly improved the quality of our film campaign. This displayed our groups further reliance and debt owed to the audience feedback as we were able to establish meaning throughout our whole film campaign and not just the main product itself.

Distribution/Exhibition - A main focal point of our marketing campaign was the Facebook page we created which was not only used to advertise and exhibit 'I Shot Biggie Smalls', but also to gather audience research and learn how we could improve the quality of the film during post production. This was helpful as a wide range of people identified the need to improve the incorrect pacing of intertitles and quality of two or three transitions. We also gathered audience feedback in the form of talking heads interview style which allowed us to discuss the good and bad points of our trailer with a wide range of people.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK VIDEOS BELOW