'What have you learned from your audience feedback?' By Kathryn Adam.

1. By Kathryn Adam

2.  The audience plays a very important role in film production, as the film can only be successful if the
target audience enjoys it. As a group, we decided to make this film really touching and emotional for
the audience so then they will have an overall positive opinion on the film. As the story of our film is
about two young sisters that have a strong connection but one is dying of Leukaemia and wants to die
and asks her older sister to help her. This will already make the audience feel in shock as they know it
is not good to have Leukaemia and feel sorry for her. Then the sister agrees to help her die even if it
means upsetting her mother and being arrested- this adds to the drama part of our genre and makes
the audience feel more tension. We just needed to show these emotions very clearly to our target
audience. We are trying to show the moral that family is the most important thing in life. To be able
to carry on with our production we needed to know what our target audience thought of the plot to
be able to make this film successful. So we carried out a questionnaire that we created on Google docs
and shared on Facebook so then more people can give feedback on our storyline.

3. We also printed off these questions and went around college asking random
students if they would read our storyline and answer the questions whilst we
got a video response. To make our feedback more detailed we added
additional questions to the sheets of the video responses. We asked
questions like, “What age certificate do you think our film will be rated?”
“Would you come see this film in the cinema? If not, where else would you
expect to see this film?”. Most of the audience responded with how they think
the storyline is different and has a twist to it that would encourage them to
watch the film.

4. Throughout the filming and editing process of our film we made sure we used
certain shots, angles and framing to get our idea across to the audience so they can
understand our message and enjoy the film. Whilst we were planning how to start
off our film we wanted to make the audience question what will happen and why is
it happening by having the scene where Peaches is being accused of Euthanasia.
We cut off Peaches answering the detective before she says ‘guilty’ and cut to the
montage of her and Lillie so then the audience is left wondering why she was there
and what her answer to the detective was. We did this because we thought it would
make the beginning more interesting for the viewers and tense so then they are on
their seat waiting to watch the rest of the film to see what happens.

5.  Our group knew that as soon as the audience saw Lillie, they would have to
instantly know she had a life threatening illness without us having to make
it completely clear to them. So the costume and make-up we used
throughout the film gives a hint that Lillie is the one with Leukaemia. We
made her wear a headscarf just like in My Sister’s Keeper so then the
audience will understand the stereotype and have the impression that her
hair has fallen out from the chemotherapy. The make-up we put on her also
makes her look pale and slightly bruised around her cheeks as though she
is dying. In contrast to this we made sure the other characters (Peaches and
Karen) wore normal, casual clothes and regular make up so they look
healthier than Lillie.

6.  One of the ways we showed the audience the story and tried to get
across to them which parts in the film are supposed to be highs
and lows is through the emotions of the characters. In most of the
scenes we have shots of the character’s faces to show their facial
expression so the audience know what they are feeling. This shows
how Lillie and Peaches are both happy to the audience, to show
that Lillie is having fun even when she has Leukaemia, this
message to the audience is that your life isn’t over until it’s over, if
you have a disease that is going to kill you, you can still live a life
up until it does.

7.  In this particular scene we want the audience to be shocked as they now
know the main plot of the story as Lillie wants to die and wants Peaches to
help her, this shocked emotion is shown through Peaches’ face so the
audience can join in. Another scene with intense emotions is where Lillie
dies as Peaches’ and Karen’s facial expressions when they realise what has
happened shows how tragic it all is. We have included these close-ups of
the character’s faces so then we hope the audience reflect these emotions
and join in with the atmosphere so we can get the reaction from them that
we hoped. We want the audience to feel upset in this scene, so they
understand that even though Peaches helped Lillie die, Peaches still loved
her very much.

8.  Throughout the whole film, we have used
jump cuts, eye-line-match, shot-reverse-
shot and filters to portray the message to
the audience in a representative way. By
using continuous shot-reverse-shots in
the conversation between Lillie and
Peaches shows the strong bond they have,
and then the lack of shot-reverse-shot in
the argument scene between Peaches,
Lillie and Karen shows how they don’t
connect with their mother very well. The
audience will understand this as they will
feel a sense of tension between the girls
and their mother as we don’t get too close
to her in the story and the audience ‘sides’
more with Peaches and Lillie. We have
also used eye-line-match to emphasise the
tense scenes to the audience. We used
eye-line-match in this scene to show how
Peaches is having second thoughts on
letting Lillie die, the audience will know
this from the way she holds the glass and
the shot cuts to a close-up of it. We used
this shot to make it seem more dramatic
and meaningful to the viewers as we want
them to feel like it is a big deal.

9.  Also, the music we have used in the film ties together
how we want the audience to react as it is all emotional
and soft music that will pull at their heart strings. We
had different tones for different scenes to match the
atmosphere, for the montage scene we had a more
cheerful piano track to let the audience know this is a
happy scene. Then we used slower and darker tracks for
the less happy scenes like Lillie’s death and the
argument between Peaches and Karen. We used these
tracks because we felt the audience would understand
what is happening more and get involved with the
characters to feel sympathy.

10.  To see what our target audience thought of our
film before we finished it we released a rough
cut of our film and sent out a questionnaire for
them to fill out on their general opinions of
the film so far. We did this so then we could
add any last minute touches to it if they had
any improvements we could make, as it is the
target audience we are trying to please. As we
weren’t too sure on the rough cut whether we
had used relevant music and if it needed
changing, we asked the audience in the
questionnaire, “Do you think we could make
any changes to the music we have used? If so,
what?”. From the feedback of this question the
audience wanted us to add some more
background music to some scenes, which is
exactly what we did for our final edit. They
also asked us to add some filters to some of
the shots to make them seem lighter and more
professional; we took this feedback into
consideration too.

11.  After we had produced the final cut of our film, we wrote up another questionnaire
for our target audience to re-watch the film we had finished and answer the
remaining questions so then we would know if we were successful at getting a good
reaction from our target audience. All of the responses said they totally understood
the film and wouldn’t change the storyline as it was “touching” and “well put
together”. They also said the music we had added to the scenes were relevant and fit
the theme of the film very well. As our film is very strong in the sense of the
audience’s opinions because there are different views on whether Euthanasia is an
option in Lillie’s situation, it was difficult to get across to the audience that we are
not making it seem like Euthanasia is neither good nor bad, we are simply making
people aware of it. It is very important to take note of what the audience mentions
about the film as it is easy to think you know better, however it is the audience we
are trying to please and if we don’t give them what they think is a good product then
we aren’t achieving what we set out to do in the first place.

12.  Overall I think we have managed to please our target
audience with our end product and got the reaction
we hoped for as all the feedback shows the audience
were touched by our film, ‘One Step at a Time’.
Without the audience’s comments, we wouldn’t have
produced such a successful film.