Question 3

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?
In order to create a successful media product I have learnt through all 3 stages of production that audience feedback is very vital; it’s just like golden dust. It’s very crucial to hear what your audience need to say about any media product produced as they are our only king. Us as film makers or any type of media product producers need to have that faith and trust in our target audience in order to fulfil their pleasures of predictability and know what they want and expect from the film or media product.At the early stages of pre production during creating our pitch, we were asked to read it out to the class allowing us to seek some feedback. The class feedback gave us so much interpretation on how to make changes to the first pitch and was able to ask our audience any questions about the pitch that was not conceived correctly such as, "how are you going to give audience insight into characters personality and background", "during the flashback are you going to show the two characters Johnny and Marie together" and "how does your story link in with the colour red". All questions were answered up to best standards by group members and myself so that there was no confusion with the audience and the pitch, "the key to showing Alfie’s character will be through flashbacks as his jealousy will show his motivation for his actions. We get an insight of Marie's character in the opening scene when there is a conversation between her and the other character Johnny regarding Alfie’s possessiveness. From this we learn of her need of independence and some freedom, as her cheating shows her rebellious side towards Alfie. Johnny's character is seen as womanising and moral-less through his behaviour towards Marie showing his selfishness, showing he is use to getting his own way. The question asked about Marie and Johnny occurring in the flashback was also answered in perfection, "In the flashback we also see Johnny and Marie together so the audience gets a taste of their relationship that progresses. We will show them by walking into classes together or perhaps a little flirtatious bond, so the fling is a prompted idea for the audience yet not a definite. Lastly our story links in with the colour as "the colour red firstly links through the theme of lust and sexuality. This is shown in the relationship between Marie and Johnny’s characters. The fire that takes place is also key to our “red” theme. Also, the aggression and anger of Alfie’s character and his motivation to seek revenge also expresses our “red” theme. From this audience feedback I was then able to adapt what the audience said to create the second pitch.The second stage of pre production was to construct the ideal script in order to move on to the storyboard and the next stages of pre production such as mood board of the world of our film, photo storyboard, location recce, cast list, prop list and so on. After receiving audience feedback on the script, "firstly the first scene in the lab contains a lot of dialogue and not a lot of visual. So think about how to cut this down and include more action to tell the story. Remember that is what good cinematography is about as well. avoid too much dialogue and think of more interesting ways to show the characters and narrative development" other comments were made too such as "same comments for scene 4 - too much dialogue", we were then suggested to watch more films relating with the same genre so that we can overcome this problem and gain more experience to write an ultimate script and permit me to take in consideration my target audience and from this feedback I also learnt that in order to create a successful film the script has to be overwhelming.Following on from the script we then moved on to the storyboard, the feedback gained from this, "there are not enough cut away/safety shots and in order to show more character development and motivation we need another quick, fast, snappy scene in the flashback. From this feedback I learnt that it is very crucial to have safety/cut away shots so that during production and post production there would be enough back up shots in case of an emergency so it prevents us from re-shooting.
Later then we moved on to the second stage, production which was producing our 5 minute film. This then leaded us into the third stage, post production. During post production while editing our film there was a lot of crucial feedback made specifically towards scene 1 our audience made us realise that when one of the character Marie, screamed it was too sudden and the was nothing shown to trigger her off to react like that and this caused the diegetic sound, dialogue not to match the image creating are very contrapuntal effect which we did not tend to achieve. Another aspect of scene 1 which was also looking out of place, was at the start of the film we as a group intended to create a pan to establish the setting and add a shook when noticing character Alfie on the camera to add a effective look and imply that the character should not be there, however after reviewing this part of scene 1 the target audience added that there’s no point of the shook "as it just seems to look like a camera movement error". This allowed us to fulfil target audience expectations and from this I learnt that we as film makers need to take into account that if we need to apply an effective touch to the film it needs to show significance and it should be clear and understanding towards the audience.
The last and final type of feedback was received when I created the posters to help promote our film. Overall three posters were made and there was a lot essential feedback given, when in progress of creating the first poster a lot of target audience pin pointed that the taglines on the poster "needs to be re-arranged and the red in the protagonist eye is not relevant", however the poster also had positive feedback such as, "the characters Marie and Johnny in the background look very effective with the blurred touch to show that they are not the main focus but still have a crucial part to play in the film". After developing the poster further and adding on the final touches the poster was created and received great feedback, After hearing awesome positive feedback from the audience I as the poster designer felt that the second poster would have to look more unexpected leaving the audience gasped and astonished, in development of the second poster many effects, layers and artistic brushes were used on Adobe Photoshop to help me gain exactly what was in my mind. I then received all positive feedback like, "the poster looks very professional and appealing, the cracks in the wall add the thriller atmosphere and the target audience adding how you could clearly see a house style between the 2 posters and how it is very mysterious and doesn't give away too much". The final poster was then created, as seen this poster had a lot of work to do and needed more work and was "naturally unfinished", using this feedback it automatically forced me to work on the poster and not let me audience down on what they expected so later on that same day the final third poster was created which were I just wanted the protagonist of the film to appear on it and this also had gained an remarkable feedback, "the poster shows that it is finished, looks very formal and proficient.
Overall like mentioned before any type of feedback is very important even if its from the most basic thing mentioned to any positive points made, this allows us as film makers to accomplish our target audiences expectations and needs.