WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

  Problem Action

Production No use of special effects Added special effects

Poor inclusion of titling Made titling better 

No soundtrack Included a soundtrack

Ancillary One  There were issues with my background I changed the background and added different effects to the images to make them more cohesive

Add additional legal text to the back of my game cover to make it more realistic

Done that 

Ancillary Two Changed background to make it more consistent with my other media

Done that

Not enough social media integration Done that

■ From the drafts of my production and my ancillaries I got lots of audience feedback on each of them, each time I identified one specific feedback point that I could use to better my work and then employed the change, I then took my work back to my test audience and aske for their opinions on the change and progressed in this manor until I felt I was happy with my product and that it fit their feedback.

■ I first worked on my production, my production was two trailers, one main trailer lasting around a minute, the other a shorter teaser trailer that was shorter. The first issue to my audience had on my rough draft was that there was poor use of titling, at this point there was no legal titling, no product titling and no release date or developer titling. To solve this I added a PEGI age rating with the conventional voice over, added the xbox one logo – I added these things to make my trailer fit with normal legal conventions of video game trailers that you would see in trailers for games such as Call Of Duty or Battlefield. It also helped to make my trailer seem more authentic and professional. I then added the titling to my actual trailer to add the narrative element, this was used to introduce the audience to the main narrative idea of the trailer and the game and also helped to add more of a theme and an aesthetic style to my trailer to help make my trailer stand out more and help to made it different to other trailers of my genre.

■ The second bit of feedback that I got around my production was the use of special effects. This feedback was given before I had actually added the laser blast special effects and sounds to my production. I added the laser blasts and key-framed them to the movement in the scene and the direction that I gave to my actors on the day. The laser blasts were quite hard to achieve and I had a lot of difficulty getting the effect to seem real and editing them to fit into the background in order to try and make them seem like they are a normal part of the universe. When adding the effects, I then also added separate sound effects to help this immersion into the universe. After I had added the special effects, I showed my production once more to audiences and they said that it greatly improved the feel of the production. Some said that the sound effects really helped the immersion of the effect.

■ The third bit of feedback that I got around my production was my soundtrack, I was originally using the song ‘Dangerous’ by ‘Big Data, many people said that the song didn't fit the visuals of the production and that in general the song didn't fit my genre as it was too upbeat and did little to great any atmosphere or mood for the production. I decided to change the song to 'So Good’ by ‘NAO’ - I chose this song because it was upbeat but had dark undertones, was electronic to help fit with my genre and had distinctive vocals that would help create a better branding effect - many said that this song worked better in the production and gave it a better overall tone and created a similar effect to how the Assassins Creed trailers utilise music, choosing something up and coming and making it popularise the song as well as the franchise. Many people said that initially my soundtrack was too overpowering when the PEGI age rating voiceover was playing and when the trailer was ending. To fix this I added a fade to the end of the trailer to signify an end to the trailer and make it more pleasing for the audience. When it came to fixing my soundtracks issues at the beginning of the trailer I key mapped the song to certain audio queues and levels in order to make it quiet at the beginning so you could hear the initial voiceover. I then went on to improve my soundtrack more my key mapping the song to audio queues so that it fit in more with the production and seemed more like it was an intentional choice and chosen for a reason. I received other feedback that I should also try and produce my own soundtrack to avoid copyright issues and also make sure that it was perfectly synced to my production. This made me begin working with Garage Band to try and produce my own music, an update Garage Band came around this time which allowed me to use ‘loops’ to create mixes in order to produce a soundtrack.

■ For my ancillary one I submitted it for feedback to the same group. The first bit of feedback that I got around the game cover was that the background was really boring and stood out against Fran, they suggest that I should add some effects to the background in order to make it look more cohesive with my other trailer which had the colour scheme of red. Many also said that the lighting in the background looks wrong. To fix this I added multiple adjustment layers onto the background, I added some red tints to it and then also added different lighting effects to more immerse Fran and the environment around the explosion that I had placed on the cover. Overall I think that I did manage to improve the background image, I think that now the background, Fran and my effects all work really well and look as though they are one cohesive image, I also think that the image looks like it would be consistent with my other media now especially my trailer as it now employs the same colour scheme and effects that my trailer does.

■ My second set of feedback that I got around my Ancillary One was that it needed to fit with more conventions of a typical game cover and feature more legal elements that a typical game cover would feature and to make it look like a more profession and legitimate video game cover and something that you would see on a shelf in a video game store. What I interpreted this to mean what that I needed to do more in order to make it look like a real game cover and game back cover, this meant adding legal logos, age certifications, barcodes and things of that nature, I also needed to do more research into the conventions of video game covers and how they are organised and arranged. I took to doing more research into how game covers were already laid out and what system they used to set game covers up, I then applied this formula to my game cover to make it look more conventional. I also added more of the comic book effects to my ancillaries to make it more consistent with my production.