In this PowerPoint Presentation for our A2 Media Studies Coursework, we will be answering the question of what we learnt from the feedback given to us from the audiences and what actions we took to make good on those suggestions

1. What have you learnt from
your Audience feedback?
So what did
you think?
Well, there were some
good moments, and some
moments that could have
been done better

2. Importance of feedback
Audience feedback is one of the most important pieces of information
in the undertaking of producing any product designed for a group of
people, and this is because you want to make sure that the final
product that you produce is going to interest that group of people. If
the final product does not interest that group of people then the effort
spent going into the creation of the product was time that could have
been better spent doing other things.
This PowerPoint details the suggestions given to us from critical
feedback that we were given from a more professional standpoint, and
how we were able to deal with it.

3. Making improvements
Audience feedback was very useful throughout the creation of our trailer
because it allowed us to go back and make changes/improvements to the
work that we had already done. At various stages when we thought that the
trailer was nearing completion we would show the trailer to a select
audience for their thoughts and feedback, taking on board any of their
critical points that were necessary in order to make the trailer more effective
than it was already. The feedback that we received was always helpful and
useful in pointing out anything that we had missed or hadn’t considered
adding to the trailer. Whilst at times it gave us a lot more work to do, it was
well extra effort well worth putting in so as to make sure that the final
product that we would release would be as effective as it possibly could be.

4. Suggestion 1
One of the main elements of feedback that was given to us was
that (early on at least) the trailer felt far too linear, it felt less
like a trailer and more like an extract of the film. Whilst the
purpose of both of those is to give the audience a taste of the
film, the primary role of a trailer is to whet the audience
appetite by showing them a little bit of everything and yet at
the same time show them only the barest hint of the full extent
of what is going on in the film. Therefore, it was important that
we make sure that we added more and more different little bits
into the trailer, some of which did not have to be obvious as to
the exact nature of what was really going on so that the
audience watching the trailer would be able to feel like the
trailer had a lot going on so the film itself would also be
interesting because it would have a lot of exciting elements to
it.

5. Suggestion 1 (extension)
As an extension to this, audiences were also saying that what we
were showing them felt like it was all taken from the start of the film.
What a trailer should do, whilst it should not do anything to give
away any key plot twists or give away even hints of moments from
the very end of the film, is pick out key moments from almost all
areas of the film’s plotline. In order to make sure that our trailer fit
this mandate of showing more, we decided to add more scenes in
which Mya could be seen to have a closer look into what was really
going on behind the scenes at the Trory Anwir Institute of Mental
Health, as well as improving the later scenes in which Mya comes to
Christopher with information about what is going on. By doing this,
we were able to show more of what goes on in the film, whilst at the
same time we do not give away the exact nature of what is going on
and although we show bits of Mya’s reaction to this revelation it
does not show how exactly that will end either.

6. Suggestion 2
A key complaint that we received was that (initially) the trailer felt
like it lasted too long. The sweet spot for trailer length is usually
between 2 – 2½ minutes in length, whereas our initial trailer
iterations exceeded three minutes, with the first draft being 2:59 in
length. This was a huge miscalculation as a trailer lasting this long is
likely to either show far too much to the audience or outright bore
them. No audience likes to watch a trailer for that duration, and if
the audience is bored (as opposed to having their interest piqued
or their appetite whetted) then the producer of the trailer has
monumentally failed in delivering a good quality trailer. In order to
make sure that we did not do this, we made sure that any moment
of the trailer lasting too long was cut down (even by fractions of a
second because every little bit was going to count) and anything
that was either of secondary importance or just outright
uninteresting was cut in its entirety (and often replaced with
something that was shorter and more interesting). This allowed us
to keep within the desired time frame that any successful trailer
should exist within.
Original trailer length
– audience: ”this is too long, I’m
bored!”
Final trailer length
– audience: ”much better”

7. Suggestion 3
A demand, unsurprising for the trailer of a Thriller film, is that the tension
needed to be racked up more. In the initial draft of the trailer, after Mya
Brown discovers the initial file revealing that the Trory Anwir Institution of
Mental Health, she goes to talk to Christopher about her discovery. We
had decided to do this in a way that we believed was mournful and sad
yet dramatic with the revelation given by a final line. The effect that we
actually created however was awful because, according to our audience,
it killed the tense atmosphere that had been set up by the build-up to
discovering the file. A part of this was due to the change in soundtrack,
where the previous track had been gradually getting louder and louder,
the new track was quieter, slower and more peaceful therefore killing the
atmosphere. In order to fix this, we were able to film further scenes that
were not in the original script, leading to giving further and further hints
as to what was going on in the Trory Anwir Institute of Mental Health
without actually revealing the full extent of the truth. This enabled us to
create the tense atmosphere that was more fitting to the end of our
trailer.
Tension
(original
trailer)

8. Suggestion 4
Another complaint from our audiences was that the trailer did not feel professional
enough. This came through in a couple of different moments, of which the first was
the voice recording we had done for Silvia Brown’s dialogue; which is used to open
the trailer. In order to fix this, we needed to go back and re-record her dialogue
(whilst also making it shorter, which would allow us to fit in more moments that
would be taken from later on in the film). This time around, rather than trying to
film her talking and then removing the visuals (a poorly thought out idea that we
should never have decided to run with), we took a higher quality microphone that
we were able to plug into audacity. This enabled us to make the recording sound
more professional as the background echo was no longer there. The second thing
that we needed to change was a shot later on in the trailer which had poor framing.
At the moment in which Mya Brown is in a counselling session with DR Goodwin,
the second shot that we took (which was supposed to have greater focus on DR
Goodwin) still saw half of Mya on the edge of the shot. In order to fix this issue, we
decided to remove the visuals and have the audio carry through into the next
moment. Seeing at the counselling session scenario had already been set up,
audiences would still be able to tell that that is where the audio is coming from,
whilst at the same time creating the effect that DR Goodwin is internally mulling
over Mya’s slightly unconvincing reply that there is nothing wrong as she prepares
to go back into the science lab.
Keep it strictly
professional

9. Ultimately
Ultimately, without the feedback given to us from select audiences, we
would not have been able to make the final version of the trailer look
anywhere near as exciting, tense or professional as it could have been.
By allowing audiences to have a look at earlier versions of our trailer it
allowed them to give us those critical suggestions and thus allow us to
make the necessary modifications.