QUESTION 3What have you learned from

your audience feedback?

FORMS TO RECEIVE AUDIENCE FEEDBACK DURING RESEARCH, PLANNING & PRODUCTION STAGES;

Research Stage: Questionnaires and surveys – Survey Monkey Audience feedback open forum – Padlet Audience interviews

Planning Stage: Questionnaires and surveys – Survey monkey Focus group interview Audience feedback open forum – Padlet Online Survey

Production Stage: Audience feedback open forum – Padlet Questionnaires and surveys – Survey monkey Focus group questionnaires Audience interviews

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES THAT THE AUDIENCE FEEDBACK IDENTIFIED

Strengths Weaknesses

Trailer – feature added to make the clips look like real footage

Magazine cover image – poor quality and too dark

Trailer – soundtrack is “effective at building tension.”

Trailer – scenes are too long.

Trailer – costume and mise-en-scene is conventional and relatable to the target audience.

Trailer – lighting should be considered in some scenes to ensure that the quality of the shot is shown.

Poster – conventional image and colour scheme, shot type and layout.

Poster – font styles and colour could be more conventional and bold.

Poster/Magazine – film title font is very conventional and appropriate for audience & genre.

Magazine – blend the image in to the background more by removing blank spaces e.g. add more coverlines.

IMPROVEMENTS TO ACHIEVE A PROFESSIONAL & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCT

Magazine Cover: The main improvement for my magazine cover was to replace the cover image that was blurry and too dark with a completely new image that would meet the high quality outlook that is necessary for a professional product. The new image still needed to be a mid-shot of James’ character and to portray his character in a negative light as the antagonist in the storyline that brings harm to the other characters. As you can see on the blog when comparing the first draft to the last draft of the poster, I have taken a new photo that is more conventional and appropriate which is reciprocal of the audience feedback and therefore makes my product more successful in appealing to the target audience.

Other minor improvements that were created because of the changed cover image was the layout and structure of the magazine cover. After holding an audience focus group I was told that more coverlines were needed to be included to fill some of the blank spaces that now surrounded the new image. By adding more coverlines this would meet the suggested improvement from the audience feedback and would make the cover appear more conventional and relatable to other previous and currently successful horror magazine covers.

IMPROVEMENTS TO ACHIEVE A PROFESSIONAL & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCT Magazine cover:

Draft 1 Draft 2 Draft 3

IMPROVEMENTS TO ACHIEVE A PROFESSIONAL & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCT

Poster: The main improvements of my poster were the typography of the tagline and the editing of the photo. The tagline was commented as being too “repetitive” with the films title being used in the tagline. Variation was needed between the film title and tagline to offer more of the storyline and genre whilst still ensuring that the tagline was conventional and relevant to the films sub-genre. I changed the tagline from “Investigate the unknown,” to “Life will never be the same again” keeping the language choices vague and ambiguous which connotes that something bad will occur.

The second change for the poster was the amount of editing for the main image. From the outset I blurred the pale coloured background of the image making Lauren’s character stand out more and the fake blood become more of a feature on the image. However, it was suggested that I go further when editing the background and make the background of the image black so that it is more in line with other ancillary products. From this I have tested a darker background but have found that it does not suit the outlook that I had hoped to achieve for my poster, with the pit black background appearing too harsh against Lauren’s character image and the necessary information that is being displayed.

IMPROVEMENTS TO ACHIEVE A PROFESSIONAL & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCT

Poster:

Draft 1 Draft 2 Draft 3

IMPROVEMENTS TO ACHIEVE A PROFESSIONAL & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCT

Trailer: One main weakness and area for improvement that was highlighted by the audience was that the scenes in the film trailer were too long. To address this I have re-edited my trailer using adobe premier elements software, ensuring that the scenes towards the end are shorter and fast paced to build tension and a climax to the end. The set of scenes at the beginning that were also too long, have been cut removing a large amount of dialogue, preferring now to set the scene and outline the story with images and actions rather than dialogue between the characters – a feature favoured by other professional film trailers.

Another suggestion for considered improvement was the lighting in some of the shots. The audience noticed that in some of the scenes where the lighting was poor that the quality was also lost and the trailers professional outlook suffered because of it. To improve the quality and lighting in some of the scenes I re-filmed parts of the trailer, focusing more this time on the smaller elements of the scenes such as the lighting; making sure it was conventionally low-key but still enough to allow the audience to see the necessary features of the scene as structured by the shot composition that was also addressed when re-filming took place. This change ensured that my final product was more professional looking and clear for the audience to identify key features of the genre from.

IMPROVEMENTS TO ACHIEVE A PROFESSIONAL & CONVENTIONAL PRODUCT

Trailer:

Draft 1 Draft 2

REFLECTING ON THE RECEIVED FEEDBACK

After receiving feedback on all of my final products, I was able to ensure that my products were the most conventional, professional and stereotypical for the target audience and the genre. Conventions of form for the poster and magazine cover were important to uphold whilst still ensuring that the colour scheme, images and layout appealed to the audience and the improvements made were in line with the feedback I received.

Improvements such as changing the tagline on the poster and changing the magazine cover image from the audience allowed me to improve my final piece and guarantee that this made my ancillary pieces the most conventional and appealing to the target audience.

In reflection, consistently receiving feedback was very influential in the development of my final products and receiving specific areas of improvement meant that I was able to adapt other aspects such as the layout after I changed the cover image to uphold conventions and create brand identity between the final products that was also relative to the genre of horror and themes of danger, suffering and death.