Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

What have I learnt from my audience feedback?

When any form of media wants to gain a following from an audience in this case a movie, it is very important that the ad campaign provides good feedback in order to make sure what they are producing is something there target audience wants to see to make money. How the company goes about the campaign is also very important because this can effect what kind of feedback you get and its usefulness to your product. An example of a movie with a very strong and engaging campaign is The women in black. During this movies campaign a lot of work was put into social media and the reach between the main actor Daniel Radcliff and his fans because of his popularity in the past Harry potter franchise. This method of campaigning was very effective for the movie because it helped to get feedback from a younger audience that don’t usually get horror based films targeted at them getting feedback from where is audience is most active, social media. Lots of people will also see movies because of the main actors/cast which is why Daniel Radcliff was so heavily involved. The bottom line from making a movie is to make money. If your audience is unaware or not interested in your product you’re not going to make any money.

For our movie trailer we gathered audience feedback from screenings of the draft trailer in class as well as directly to chosen people of different audiences with different demographics and psycho-graphics to see how different audiences responded to our trailer. The class screening was recorded so we had visual feedback, however written feedback was also collected from everyone in the class after the trailer was watched so we could look as specific patterns of feedback to help change and improve our trailer. We also took feedback from people out of class like friends and family collecting written feedback from them to see if any feedback matched with the ones we collected in class, and to see if it changed depending on the demographic and psycho-graphic of the people. Feedback was also collected from different demographics on what they thought of the magazine front cover and movie magazine. This was again written feedback collected from different demographics to find patterns and ways to improve what I already had.

When looking at all of the feedback there were a lot of different things people thought about the trailer. The first biggest and most obvious pattern was that our trailer lacked sound and music to set the feeling and tone of the trailer. ‘Need something to make the sound more consistent, add background noise needs music’. Because we had not yet added sound into the trailer we assumed this feedback to come up, we are however happy it came from almost every person because it shows us how critical sound is in our trailer in order to grab someone’s attention and get them interested and engaged into what we are wanting them to go and watch. Another pattern we found in the feedback was that some of the story we were trying to tell in the trailer was a little unclear and jumpy or that something should be added to make it all more clearly to the audience. ‘Time is confusing, needs clear difference’ this was another bit of feedback that was very helpful for us during the development and improvement of our trailer. We also got some patterns of positive feedback like our lighting and good use of location witch is also helpful because it tells us what’s strong about our trailer a well as what works so nothing good in the trailer is changed or taken away. Moving onto the magazine cover and poster the feedback collected was mostly positive, there was however some big points from multiple people telling me what wasn’t working and needed fixing/changed to appeal more to my target audiences. Some patterns also formed depending on the different demographics of the people asked showing that my products were more/less appealing depending on variables such as age or gender. When asked what people didn’t like about my magazine cover surprisingly some people didn’t like the layout of colour scheme of the magazine because it was ‘too similar t what was already on shelves’ which seemed strange to me because of how magazines follow the same conventions to appeal to already existing audiences. A few people also though that the fonts used for the dates were too small and a little unclear because of the texts size and colour with the background image. The last clear bit of feedback pattern was that some of the layouts not very appealing and a little messy. ‘Puff should be moved up and text should me moved around a little’. This type of feedback is practically important because layout of a magazines cover is very important when trying to catch someone’s attention from sitting on a shelf. If the cover doesn’t standout at all or it’s unappealing to look at no one will give it a second glance. If it’s bold with clear titles it will grab someone’s attention. Positive feedback for the cover included points about the professional design and layout of the magazine ‘the cover fits in with industry standards’ I found this feedback practically helpful because at the time I wasn’t sure if the magazines style was appealing to its audiences and was going to change design and fonts to a more horror based magazine like SCREAM. However after several people from very different demographics commented on the design being very appealing I decided to stay with the more Total Film style I originally decided on. A few people also commented on the good use of the photo I used ‘Text fits around the face fell making the image clear’ this was after several attempts of use with different images and layouts making me very happy that the one I decided to go with fit the cover and complimented the layout effectively.

When looking at my feedback of the trailers poster I got some mixed feedback of good and bad responses. First of all going through the negative points. When people looked at the original draft of my poster people commented on the colours and image having too much exposure causing the image to be very unclear and hard to make out what it was from a distance. This is bad when the point of my poster to catch the audience’s eye not look like a blurry mess. Another comment was that the billboard text at the bottom was unclear towards the very bottom of the poster because of the clash of white text and whitish washed out background. A few people also said that the text was a little thin in places again having the same problem as the image being that it was hard to see from a distance. Lots of positive patterns of feedback was also received telling me what was good about my poster. First of lots of people said that the layout of the poster was well organised and effective ‘the text at the top and bottom make it look very industry standard’ this told me that my layout was very professional and didn’t need much if any rearranging. Nearly everybody commented on the title looking very good and effective resembling current existing horror movie posters. A few people also commented on the photo itself saying ‘the posters photo is creepy adding the mood of the whole poster’.

How did I use the feedback to improve my media products?

Movie trailer- After looking through all of the media trailer feedback it was very clear that the major first thing that had to be doe was sound and music needed to be added, without it the trailer wasn’t very strong in setting any mood. I started looking for music that was suitable for the trailer and once I found music I was happy with I began editing and cutting the music so that it would fit the trailer and effectively set mood and pace. Because of this I also edited some of the visuals in the trailer, removing a clip as well as moving around so titles to the trailer fit to the music and flowed nicely setting a horror tone. Because our trailer also had no sound effects as well as having some unclear audio we also decided to re-record some of the audio that was originally recorded on the trailer and added them where they fit. We did get a little more feedback on things we should change in our audience’s opinion but after making the changes with the sound we were happy with what we had and kept it as it was with the newly added sound.

Magazine cover- Most of the feedback for the magazine were just little changes that needed to be added or fixed to give the magazine a more professional look and to make it look more like movie magazines that are currently available. Because of this is made small tweaks and adjustments like moving some of the layout like the puffs location on the cover as well as some of the large text on the cover. I also adjusted the size of some of the text on the magazine because some people commented on the date and price being too small and unclear. I also made some small adjustments to the image so it sat better on the magazine, and the text was around the image clearly.

Movie poster- Similar to the magazine cover feedback only some small adjustments had to be made in order to give the poster a clearer more professional look. I first started off with fixing the overall quality and adjustments made to the image keeping the old and distorted look, but making sure the image is still clear. I also played around with some filters and overlays I liked until I found an old brown tinted one that gave the poster a vibe of an old creepy photo. I also changed the size of some the text and moved it slightly so it was much clearer and larger so you was easy to see and read from a far distance. The last thing I did to the poster was use the gradient tool to add a black fade at the bottom at top of the poster. This was so people can now see the bottom white text that before the gradient was very hard to see.