WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

First of all I had to find ways of collecting my audience research. I chose to send out questionnaires, and do some Vox Pops.

Advantages of a Questionnaire • Lots of responses in a relatively short space of time.• Easy to produce.• Very easy to analyse the quantitative data gained.

Disadvantages of a Questionnaire • Closed questions mean people cant expand on answers meaning people cant give such meaningful responses.• People may not understand a question, and there is no one there to clarify, meaning people might not think

about there response, giving a less valid answer

Advantages of Vox Pops• Open question mean people can expand on answers • Having interviewer means people can ask for clarity on questions • If interviewer doesn’t understand the answer they can ask for clarification.

Disadvantages of Vox Pops• It was hard for me to reach my target audience • People didn’t like being filmed• Harder to analyse results • More time consuming for me

To create and distribute my questionnaire I used a website called survey monkey, this enabled me to send my survey to a wide audience.

Gaining audience feedback is very important as it means I can tailor my film to what people want to see, meaning that ultimately my product will be more successful, and will be watched by more people.

The first research I carried out was a survey asking people of my target audience questions on their consumption of films, and why they liked certain genres of film. This was curtail for me to gain an understanding into what people wanted to see in a comedy film.

I found out that the favourite genre of film for 43% of people was comedy, which was one of the most influencing factors in me choosing to create a comedy short film. Rather than one of my other initial ideas

From doing the Vox Pops, and the Questionnaire I found out lots of reasons people like watching comedy films:

• “its easy to watch”• “Mocks reality”• “Makes me laugh, therefore I feel more involved”• “I love the excepted ending, the idea of everything working out in the end”• “keeps me entertained for the whole film”

This has taught me a lot about why people like watching comedy films, therefore I knew I had to focus on ensuring I ticked some of these boxes, in order for the film to not only follow conventions of a comedy film, but to be watched by my target audience.

Once I had created my short film draft, I sent out another survey on survey monkey, to ask people what they did and didn’t like about the film. This was the most helpful bit of research I did throughout the process, as It allowed me to make my film even better.

Firstly I found out what people did like

From that research one of the stand out things that people liked about the film was the acting. This was a crutial part that we focused on getting right, as my initial audience research showed me that one of the things that attracts them to watching a film is the actor’s that are in it. This showed us that we had to get a good actor to play John.

Some other positive feedback that we got was the very physical main character, which again was down to our selection of actor to play John.

I also found out that people liked the storyline, and the genre was very clearly comedy. Hearing this positive feedback was good, as it suggested I wouldn’t need to make any major changes to the film, and perhaps just change parts of the editing.

What could be improved

Next I found out what could be improved about my short film, this was very important as I could add things, and refine parts, to ensure my film was just right, and would appeal to my target audience.

I found out that people wanted more soundtracks in the film, particularly on the Homeless scene at the end, I then added a soundtrack to this scene, which made a huge difference to the film, as it helps to enhance the audiences sympathy for john, and makes them feel sorry for him.

It was also pointed out to me that there were a few lighting issues, between different scenes in the same location, there were a few scenes where the lighting changed quite dramatically, I then went on to fix these

There were also some mistakes with sound, in the wrong places, which was pointed out to me in the audience research, which I went on to fix.

I also did some Audience research for my poster to inspire some more ideas, having created the first draft

My main feedback there was to fill up blank space, and to change some fonts, and fill up blank space. This feedback was also very helpful in improving my poster to ensure it would fit in with other film posters.

Overall audience feedback was one of the most important parts of the process, as it inspired so many ideas, which came directly from my audience, so I knew it would be what people want to see, without my audience research I don’t feel like my film would have been as good as it is, as I would be putting things in it that I want to see, and not what my target audience want to see.