Q4 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

1. WHAT HAVEYOU LEARNT
FROMYOUR AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK?

2. 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

3. ■ 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.

5. ■ 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.

7. ■ 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.

9. ■ 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.

11. ■ 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.

13. ■ My second set of feedback that I got around my AncillaryOne 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.