EVALUATION QUESTION 3: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?Audience feedback has been very crucial in the process of making my movie poster, magazine and trailer as it has helped ensure that my media products are successful by attracting a large target audience.

To begin researching into my films audience I first did some research into existing social realist films audiences through the use of the BFI Statistics. This allowed me to view the age group that my film should be aimed towards, and also allowed me to see who I should be interviewing when looking for audience feedback for my film. We created a questionnaire during the research and planning stage in order to find out what my target demographic would be interested in seeing within a social realist film, especially as it is more modern than other social realist films that I have looked at previously and therefore may have different key themes and ideas. Some of the questions which we asked within the questionnaire included how long the audience would likely to be interested in watching a trailer for, some of the key issues they would like to see discussed within a social realist film and whether the trailer plays an important part in the audience wanting to view the film in a cinema or not. From the answers that we gained, we were able to determine how long our trailer would be, therefore being able to create a suitable amount of footage for the film, as well as how many social media links we needed to include to encourage the audience to find out more about the film. We also discovered that gang culture and violence was an important aspect of what younger people were interested in learning about within films, therefore this is what we decided to focus on.

We also interviewed a member of our films target audience to find out why he was interested in social realist films, and what he enjoyed watching within a social realist film to keep him interested. From this we learnt that our audience was interested in learning about real-life issues, including the ones which were discussed within our trailer, and seeing something which isn’t often seen in mainstream films.

We then interviewed a female audience member asking her the same questions, again to be able to gain insight into what younger people wanted to see within social realist films and specifically what a female audience member would want to see as stereotypically they are less interested in viewing violence. This interview allowed us to see that the realist element to our film was going to be the most important aspect, as once again viewing real-life issues was important to a younger audience member and allowed there to be an educational aspect to the film as well as just viewing it for pleasure.

Once we had created our first draft trailers, posters and magazine front covers we asked for feedback from our peers via social media platforms, specifically Facebook. By doing this, we were able to find out what they liked and disliked about the products from our audiences perspective, and also see what could be changed when creating our final product which would make it more successful. The majority of the audience members who commented on my poster and magazine front cover were happy with the image and the cover lines, however they did say that they would like the text to be easier to read and perhaps a lighter colour in order to stand out more from afar. This meant that when creating my final product I was able to cater more to my audience’s wants and needs, and help to make it a successful product and encourage a wider audience.

In response to this feedback that I gained from my audience I changed the font style and colour on both of my ancillary products, which I feel has made them much clearer and easier for my target audience to read, thus encouraging them to find out more information regarding my film and ensuring that it was successful. I also ensured that none of the font styles or colours were lost in the background colour, ensuring that they stood out to my audience and were easy and simple to read, portraying the information that was needed effectively and in a simplistic way which would be easier for my audience to view and understand.Here is an example of a change I made in regards to audience feedback:

Another form of feedback that I received, specifically on my draft film trailer, was from one of my peers in person. By allowing him to watch the trailer and give me feedback it meant that I could change it to make it more successful with my target audience, and also view it from an outsider’s perspective and make changes accordingly. His response was that he liked the majority of the trailer; however he felt that it needed to have more sound, preferably louder and more intense to build up the tension throughout and highlight the important themes which are being discussed. This is something which was rectified when making our final product, as we made sure that the music was loud and intense in relevant places, as well as making it build throughout to create sense of tension, representing the genre and themes.

Target audience feedback has been very important when creating my final media products as it has allowed me to find out what my target audience specifically wants to see and what will appeal to them most, thus helping to make my film trailer, poster and magazine front cover a success.