WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Simisola Adeyemi

IN ORDER TO GAIN AN INSIGHT INTO HOW TO MAKE MY TRAILER SUCCESSFUL TO APPEAL TO THE MASSES, IT WAS NECESSARY FOR ME TO TAKE STEPS THAT WOULD ENABLE ME TO DO THIS. THE FOLLOWING STEPS I TOOK INCLUDED:

• Written Questionnaires• Film Screening

Simisola Adeyemi

ON THE 3RD OF MARCH 2015, A SCREENING TOOK PLACE AT MY COLLEGE THEATRE WHERE I AND FELLOW MEDIA STUDENTS WERE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOWCASE OUR MAIN MEDIA COURSEWORK TO PEOPLE WHO WERE IN ATTENDANCE SUCH AS PARENTS, TEACHERS, MEDIA LECTURERS AND OTHER NON-MEDIA STUDENTS. ALL OF THE COURSEWORK WERE SHOWN SYSTEMATICALLY.

THE LIVE AUDIENCE WERE GIVEN A MINUTE OR SO TO FILL OUT QUESTIONNAIRES PROVIDED BY THE PARTICIPATING MEDIA STUDENTS. THE AUDIENCE'S WRITTEN FEEDBACK WAS COLLATED IN ORDER TO GIVE US GUIDANCE ON HOW TO IMPROVE OUR COURSEWORK FURTHER . ADDITIONALLY, THE AUDIENCE WERE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE THEIR THOUGHTS ABOUT INDIVIDUAL TRAILERS/MUSIC VIDEOS ON CAMERA OR A VOICE RECORDER. ALL IN ALL IT WAS A SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE FORM OF GATHERING AUDIENCE FEEDBACK.

Simisola Adeyemi

USING THE RESEARCH METHOD OF QUESTIONNAIRES WAS A SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE FORM FOR GATHERING AUDIENCE’S FEEDBACK. IT ENABLED ME TO UNDERSTAND MY TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC. I USED THIS RESEARCH METHOD BECAUSE IT IS BOTH QUALITITATIVE AND OBJECTIVE ALLOWING A POLARITY IN PEOPLE’S ANSWERS BECAUSE I WAS ABLE TO COLLATE OPINONS AND CONVERT IT TO NUMERICAL DATA

MY INTENDED DEMOGRAPHIC WERE PEOPLE FROM THE AGES 17-21. BY ALLOWING PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT OCCUPATION, ETHNICITY AND GENDER TO FILL OUT THE QUESTIONNAIRES HELPED ME GET RID OF ANY POTENTIAL BIAS THAT MAY AFFECT THE RESULTS.

Simisola Adeyemi

QUESTIONNAIRE ANALYSIS BASED ON TRAILER SCREENING

Simisola Adeyemi

Simisola Adeyemi

Simisola Adeyemi

the scenes darker.

Simisola Adeyemi

Simisola Adeyemi

FOCUS GROUP ANALYSIS BASED ON MAGAZINE COVER AND FILM POSTER

Simisola Adeyemi

FOCUS GROUP

FOR MY FOCUS GROUP, I ENLISTED THE HELP OF MEDIA STUDENTS FROM A2 AS THEY WILL HAVE BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO TACKLE THE QUESTION AND GIVE GUIDANCE OF HOW TO IMPROVE MY PRODUCTS FURTHER. THEY WERE ASKED A TOTAL OF 5 QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO GIVE BRIEF AND STRAIGHTFOWARD ANSWERS.

Simisola Adeyemi

WAS THE MAGAZINE COVER SUCCESSFUL IN TERMS OF THE GENRE AND DOES THAT COVER REFLECT THE GENRE?

This questionnaire is more demanding for the audience; because in order for them to critically analyse and answer the question, they have to comprehend what is meant by “reflect the genre” is. I enlisted the help of fellow media students who analysed the magazine cover and gave me feedback on my print production. Since they are also fellow media students, I concluded that they are more likely to understand how to tackle the question and give me the best feedback possible. This question is imperative in this whole questionnaire as it will give me guidance on how to further improve where needed. In order to make the product (the magazine cover) as successful as possible, I needed information on whether the lighting, costume, props etc did their jobs of reflecting the genre as overtly as possible. By implementing two options as answers allowed me to collect data on just how successful in the whole packaging of my cover. Also, by giving people who ticked the answer “NO” the option to express their opinions on how I could improve my cover helped me in constructing my cover as professionally as possible.

Simisola Adeyemi

WAS THE FILM POSTER SUCCESFUL IN TERMS OF THE GENRE AND DOES THE POSTER REFLECT THE GENRE?

This question again aims for the audience to fully identify the genre of my film poster and give their honest feedback on whether the film poster was actually successful in reflecting the intended genre of my main coursework and ancillary texts. Once the audience can identify the generic codes and conventions that belong to a particular genre then the feedback is easier to give. Although some understanding of codes and conventions is needed to properly answer this question, it is not essential because understanding and associating elements to a genre can be done subliminally e.g. through products that are similar to ours for example ‘thriller film poster’. Most of the individuals in our focus group gave feedback that our film poster did infact reflect the genre which didn’t prove to be quite a surprise due to the fact that our poster was assembled from bits and pieces of professional posters that already existed. Others who didn’t find that our posters reflected the genre said that our poster text should be typed in colours such as black or red which is a minor thing we have since corrected.

Simisola Adeyemi

HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE GRAPHICS FOR BOTH THE MAGAZINE COVER AND FILM POSTER?

This question isn’t as demanding as the previous questions because one may or not may not have an understanding of technology, so it gives the focus group the opportunity to review both the ancillary texts effectively. By having a numerical response for this question enables me to notice trends in correspondence with the other questions and just how well received my ancillary texts were. The purpose of this question is to encourage all individuals there to give an opinion on how effective the ancillary texts are in terms of professional graphical appeal.

Simisola Adeyemi

WOULD THE MAGAZINE COVER AND FILM POSTER ENCOURAGE YOU TO SEE THE FILM IN THE CINEMAS.

This is focusing on the marketing and realistic aspect of film distributing and production. It coerces the target audience and demographic to be unsympathetically biased and condemnatory of both products. It is suggested that they should see both products as real media products and beyond a piece of mandatory coursework. The multiple choice is used purposely to give a straightforward answer that can be turned into quantitative data. The multiple choice answer are as thus: Yes, No and Maybe.

Simisola Adeyemi

Can you suggest anything that could improve the appeal of the productions?

This question is necessary in order to help our ancillary texts appeal to a wider demographic. It gives the focus group the opportunity to get involved and express their own opinions and views as opposed to the “hypodermic needle” theory, this theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. It suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data. By asking this question, I have enabled my focus group/audience to be actively involved in the process of our productions.

Simisola Adeyemi

TRAILER FEEDBACK [MALES]:The male feedback ranging from ages 17-30+, from the screening were positive; majority of the male audience were clearly impressed giving mainly positive feedbacks. This goes to prove that my trailer was successful in targeting the male demographic; it was nice to appeal to the male demographic because the movie was quite romanticised making me worried as to how well received the trailer will be by the male population. However, I am glad to find that there were aspects that kept them interested. A male teacher commented “I’ll happily go and watch that in the cinema. Well done. You related domestic abuse and the issue of sociopaths in a realistic way”. Another male individual said that “it looks like a proper trailer and I really enjoyed it. I wish it was a trailer to an actual upcoming movie” This shows that my trailer will be widely received if it was an actual trailer and not that of a coursework. My main worry was that the trailer might have used scenes that were in the same setting which might prove quite boring to the audience but the male demographic suggested no ways of improving this so I came to the conclusion that maybe it didn’t really matter to the males. The demographics also thought the genre of the trailer was reflected through the video, which again is essential considering I was trying to appeal to a wider audience, not a niche one.

Simisola Adeyemi

TRAILER FEEDBACK [FEMALES]:Similar to the male feedback, the female feedback ranging from the ages 17-30+, were mostly positive. However, a female teacher stated that it “derogatises the female as objects for the pleasure of male viewing” However we didn’t intend for the trailer to come across like that as I do not believe the trailer was shot from the conventional idea of a male gaze. We wanted to touch upon the importance of domestic abuse however the idea of this was misinterpreted. I agree there may be scenes where the female character is dressed scantily but this is to reflect her character’s stance and occupation in society. In addition, both the female and male characters are presented with a flaw that accounts to their downfall. However, in terms of improvement, I refuse to change the role of the female character as it is too late to change anything and also because the female character’s occupation is the reason why both characters met in the first place. However, other younger female demographics who viewed the trailer screening all gave positive feedbacks, this could be because they are unaware of the “male gaze theory” or they may have just simply enjoyed the trailer. One even said she “emotionally invested in Candice’s situation and felt empathetic towards her”

Simisola Adeyemi

MAGAZINE COVER AND FILM POSTER FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK [MALE]:

From my male demographic, I received positive feedback which I was glad about as it meant I was successful in fulfilling the codes and conventions for both the magazine cover and film poster unit. It goes to prove that once again my ancillary text reflected the genre. A male viewer, when asked what he thought of both products, said “both the poster and cover were extremely eye-catching and it definitely shows the genre that you were trying to sell to your audience”. Another said “I like the simple structure of both stylings because most magazine covers and film posters out there are sometimes overloaded with images and texts” I agree with this because I earlier mentioned in one of my evaluation that I wanted a minimal style and structure to my ancillary texts. However, someone claimed “it was quite generic” It is likely that the person in this case was not able to identify himself with both products; perhaps he wanted something more “gory and scary” however it also needs to be put into account that out trailer is based on a psychological romantic thriller genre.

Simisola Adeyemi

MAGAZINE COVER AND FILM POSTER FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK [FEMALE]:

The feedback from the female demographic was one I was happy with. A female viewer said that she like our poster and commented that she likes“the picture of the female character and the intensity of her stare” She then went on to explain that she thinks that the film poster represents the thriller genre effectively. Another suggested that we needed to make some changes to the colour of the font to a red colour, we tried this but we felt it looked tacky so we settled for another colour. The female demographic were hyper-critical in the feedback they gave, such as making the picture of Candice more obvious since her name is the title of the trailer. We have since made this correction. They generally liked the magazine cover, maybe due to the actor’s appearance on the cover as most female students are somewhat attracted to him so they may be focusing on the picture of him when stating this.

IN CONCLUSION……

I have come to the realisation that without audience feedback, the failure of an amateur trailer is imminent. From the audience feedback, I have learnt that different audience’s have different expectations and gratifications from each genre. The positive feedback enabled me to conclude that overall, my main coursework and ancillary texts proved to be quite successful and effective. Although, I received some negative feedback, the positive feedback out-shone the negative. However, it is imperative that I take all negative feedback into consideration so I have taken those suggestions and tried my best as possible to fix any problems that needed to be fixed. I found that I was right in making my target audience between the ages 18-21 because we found that it was someone from the older generation who criticised the trailer, possibly because she didn’t grasp the idea and issue we were trying to put across. The majority of feedback regarding improvements were based around the style of the font used on the ancillary texts and adding a scene at the beginning that explains why the male character descends into such a state which we have tackled since then. Overall, I have learnt about effective codes and conventions in order to create a successful unit of work and ways in which I could manipulate these codes and conventions to fit to my needs.

Simisola Adeyemi