Evaluation Question 3 - Melissa Thomas

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Our demographic target audience is people between the ages of 16 - 24. We hoped to appeal to them in a number of different ways. For example:

• Using  male and female actors within this age range
• Using a relatable storyline with settings our target audience may be able to identify with
• Using post-production to create text messages with emoticons which is a more modern way of communication
• Using bright colours and autumnal aesthetic to appeal to the people within our demographic target audience who like romance genre films

Example of using setting to represent
everyday life for our age range

Example of modern iPhone text
format with emoticons

Example of male and female actors
and bright colours for romance genre

  

However, we couldn't be sure that any of our ideas would actually appeal to this demographic. Our film also has to make sense to our audience so it was important to keep asking for their opinions throughout the process. For example, the key theme of the different types of love represented in our short film must be clear for the twist at the end to make sense.

Our experience with audience feedback taught us a lot about the value of having constructive criticism from our demographic audience. From it, we have been able to make appropriate changes to each of our tasks. Here is how we have documented each piece of feedback throughout the project and what we learnt from it:

Planning Stage

For the planning stage of our short film project we wanted to use different locations. We already knew we wanted to have the location of the park for the characters "meet." We also knew that the female lead character would begin in a bedroom setting first of all and then she would walk towards park. However we didn't know how to get the male character to the park.

In the end, we decided on the setting of a train station. Lots of people within our demographic use trains as a use of transport almost everyday. We decided this would be more relatable for our audience and allow them to identify with this character.

Here is what Hashmath (aged 18) and Lydia (aged 17) said about the use of locations.

From this we learnt that our use of locations was effective and would be able to keep the audience interested more than if we had used just one location. We also learnt that the audience did find that the use of setting made situations more relatable and, therefore, more realistic.

The feedback was also useful in offering advice which was to be careful of using somewhere with too many stops to help with the convenience of filming. We ended up using Balcome station, which is only one stop away from Haywards Heath and yet a long enough journey as to get the footage that we needed. (This information was found out due to Sam's experiment on the commute home one day)

Filming Process

Once we had filmed all of our initial footage, we wanted some opinions on some of the rushes we had. Getting this feedback determined whether or not we needed to re-shoot anything before we began our editing process.

Here are some examples of some of the shots we showed our audience:

Example 1

Example 3

Example 2

• The silhouette lipstick shot - shot in the bedroom setting 
• The train rushing past Matt - shot in the station setting
• The wringing of hands shot - shot in the park setting

And a couple more. 

Here is what Laura (aged 17) and Amy (aged 17) had to say about the rushes we showed them.

What we learnt from this audience feedback was that the use of lighting within a film is important for maintaining the audience's attention. Laura mentioned how she liked the use of natural lighting in the bedroom sequence whilst Amy suggested adding filters to some of the shots in post production to give them more colour. They also had positive comments on the different use of shot sizes which was especially effective for the shot where Megan is wringing her hands together on the bench at the park (see example 3 above). We learnt that this varied use of shot sizes convey different meanings and can emphasise body language (which is what we were aiming for in the shot). 

Editing Process

Getting audience feedback on editing proved to be valuable to us. After looking at different transitions, sound effects, messaging text and bubbles, it became difficult to tell whether the audience would be able to recognise the texts.

From our feedback here, it is shown how the relation between post production and representation of age affects the overall clarity and enjoyment of watching the film. Amy (aged 17) stated how she instantly recognised the style as similar to her own phone which meant that she was able to focus on the what was being communicated through the texts instead of being confused about what was going on.

Real media typical iPhone messaging format

Our film recreating the typical iPhone messaging format

Gaining audience feedback through the format of texting taught us that it is a quick and efficient way to get hold of potential viewers who live further away, therefore allowing more opportunities to gather feedback wherever and whenever.

Saving pictures of the images creates an easy way to be able to refer back to any feedback. This is because it is easier to carry around our phones than it is to carry around a computer. However, messages can get lost in conversation and saved screenshots can get buried within any photos already stored on the phone.

It is also quicker to ask a question in person than it is to type a message out. However, it is more likely that the person will spend longer on their answer to the question than if we were to ask them face to face.

Final Product

Here we were able to get audience feedback on the final version of our film. At first I was unsure what we would be able to do with the feedback that we got. However, it proved to be really helpful. Getting advice from other media students was also beneficial to us because they were more likely to spot any mistakes.

Audience feedback from other media students with the demographic age range

From this feedback, we were able to update our version of the film so that:

• The diegetic sound was more in sync
• There were two non-diegetic music soundtracks to avoid repitition and it cutting out at unnecessary times
• We made the texts on screen longer so that they could be read easier

The rest of the feedback, I have learnt, will be beneficial for any potential future projects. Making this short film has been an experiment of sorts. We have been allowed to apply what we have learnt over the period of the Media Studies A level course. However, that doesn't take away from the fact it is still the first time we have ever made a five minute long short film.

This feedback has allowed us to make mistakes and taught us how to fix them. It has shown us the good and the bad things about the decisions that we made (although, they are all just opinions after all. We can still value them)

Poster Drafts

We were able to get audience feedback on the drafts of our two final posters. This proved to be very helpful as both lots of feedback provided some interesting ideas for us to use. It taught us that the relationship between the short film and poster is important for clarity. It also taught us that the audience do notice details from posters and its look and aesthetics are just as important as the film's. 

Audience Feedback Poster 1

This is the draft of the poster we showed our target audience.


Emily (aged 19) and Alana (aged 17) suggested that the social media links may not stand out in the poster so in the final version we moved them to be in front of Megan where the feedback said their eyes were drawn to.

They also said that they liked the colours of the poster and we ended up enhancing them in the final version.

We learnt that the positioning of the different features of the poster is important for capturing the attention of audience.

Audience Feedback Poster 2

This is the draft of the poster we showed our target audience.

Their feedback was very valuable to us as we knew whether the use of effects and settings had been appropriate for the romance genre. However, we didn't change the colouring as suggested because the film is set during the day in autumn and having night-time colours may be misleading. Having the characters look at each other would have been effective but we wanted to have a subtle hint that these characters never know each other. 

From this feedback we learnt that we don't have to change something just because somebody has suggested it. Though we did adjust some things on the poster, we did not have to take their advice.

Final Poster

From this feedback on the final design for our poster we were able to find out whether it had the desired effect on our audience.

This information was valuable to us because we could see whether it compete against real media posters for films.

This is what Laura (aged 17) and Lydia (aged 17) said about our final design.

What we learnt from this feedback was that there are always going to be conflicting opinions from our target audience. Laura's feedback was much more positive, saying that the poster looked "more professional" and said that our use of fonts made "it look more appealing." Whereas Lydia said that "it wouldn't catch somebody's eye" if it was among a variety of different posters. She thought that it could be brighter whilst Laura like the use of yellow which "brightened the look."

On the other hand, both Laura and Lydia had positive things to say about the colouring of our poster. This was valuable to us as we had changed it from the original draft to emphasise the autumnal colours. Laura said that this shows more of our aim for the short film (the romance genre). Lydia said that she liked the autumn theme. 

This has taught us that whilst our audience may not always agree with our own or each others opinions, we can still take away positives and things to improve on. We knew from this piece of feedback that changing the colouring of the poster was a good choice. If it was still not as bright to stand out in a row of posters, we had still improved from the original draft.

Review

For our review, we created a survey so that we able to gather information and see it clearly displayed in easy to read charts. Although, we would have liked to get more participants so that we could get a wider range of results. We could get a rough idea of the general opinions on our review.

All the people who took part in the survey were aware of the typical conventions of a Little White Lies review. This meant that we could get feedback on our layout of the page as well as the style of the language to see if compared to other Little White Lies reviews.

Another issue with this feedback is that all of the people who answered were in our target audience of 16-24 year olds and were also mostly female. However, the demographic target audience for Little White Lies is more aimed at 25-35 year old males.

This is useful to see how many of our own demographic would be interested in the review, however it doesn't represent how the audience of Little White Lies might react to it.

Nevertheless, here are the results we received from this survey:

Audience opinions on the layout, the language, and the content of the review

The dark blue bar represents the amount of people who selected "perfect". The layout seems to be the strongest part of our review, with 75% of people rating it "perfect" and the other 25% rating it "good." However, the language and overall content had 75% of people rate it "good" and only 15% thinking it was perfect.


This meant that there was definitely room for improvement. The last question of our survey asked the audience for their constructive criticism. We were able to get their opinion on how we could improve our review.




Audience feedback on ways we could have improved our review

What we learnt from doing this is that we could gauge people's overall opinion of the review by comparing their reactions to the review and their suggestions for improvements. None of our target audience disliked the review (although some were indifferent so there is still room for improvement). However, there are ways we could have made it better. Overall, I think if we could change it, we might have had more content in less words so that we could use a larger font size.

From this feedback we learnt that just because there are improvements we could make, it doesn't mean that our target audience disliked the product.