2. What is Audience
Feedback?
Audience feedback is, in my opinion, the most
important part of making a film.
Feedback is a key feature in the creative process,
and it allows the filmmakers to change things if need
be.
Filmmakers make films for an audience, therefore it is
crucial that you get their opinion on your product.
For example an audience could tell you if one scene
was too complicated or a character isn’t relatable
enough etc..
3. Here is a still shot from our
short film:
USEFUL
In the still you can see two of
our three actors. On the left
you have our protagonist, Craig
(Luke Morkas) and on the right
you have his nerdy friend
Simon (Noah Dunbar).
4. Dialogue and Acting
From our audience feedback we discovered one main problem, a lot of people
found the voice of Simon as really ‘annoying’ and ‘over-the-top’.
They thought that his tone and pitch of voice took the focus away from the plot.
One of my peers said “It would have been fine if Simon were the
protagonist…but he’s not”.
A lot of people also thought that Craig and Simon’s acting just wasn't
believable. I agreed, they were both shocking and we had a big problem with
editing later.
My media teacher thought that Noah Dunbar (Simon) was too theatrical and
annoying, while Luke Morkas (Craig) under-acted.
We even tried to see if we could cut out the annoying sound by creating a
foreign voice over and then adding subtitles. At first we thought that it might
work, but it really didn’t.
5. Editing
After all the dreadful feedback about the poor acting and voice work, we decided we really needed to find a
way round it.
It took a while but we did, luckily for us we had used a huge range of shots when filming so we had quite a
lot to choose from.
It was very difficult to find any good reaction shots and we even had to cut out one of the last lines of the
film because Luke Morkas just couldn't deliver it right.
We got passed that by finding a shot of him just looking back into the camera smiling, which worked some-
what more.
After a lot of work our main break through was with the music. It was a heart-wrenching piece and was full
of emotion. We added it to the film and it completely changed everything. we literally had a completely
different film.
After the laborious edit we asked our audience what they thought of the new and improved film and they
surprisingly said, that they loved the antagonist Charlie. And for some reason the music makes you really
empathise for him.
We thought that was great as it was so unexpected. The feedback saved us and gave us enough time to
change and add things that both my group and our audience think are very effective.
7. Location Feedback
Our audience feedback has told us that there favourite
part of our short was our location. Apparently this is
because it gave off an ‘eerie’ and ‘sinister’ vibe. One
person said the combination worked very well.
One of my fellow media studies students said that they
thought the contrast between the intricate setting and the
very simplistic story line was really effective.
I agree with his comment, I feel that the location adds
another dimension to the short and without it our film
would lack depth.
9. Poster Feedback
A member of my group, Quin, was in charge of the poster. He created two slightly
different posters and we couldn't decide which one we liked more.
As a group we preferred the yellow texted one more because it looked more
appealing. But we thought we would ask our audience as well.
Most of the feedback said they preferred the Yellow block text for ‘Useful’ rather
than the white. this is because they said it stuck out more and was easier to see.
They thought that both posters were believable and stuck to the conventions that
a poster should follow.
They said that they loved the ‘small details’, such as the credit block, the
distribution/production dents and they said they really liked the pool quote, which
came from our magazine. They said it was a nice way to link the two.
11. Magazine article feedback
Our magazine article got some very positive feedback. Our audience
thought that it portrayed the genre and style of the film well.
They also felt that the poster and the magazine article were both
‘closely linked’. This is because the pool quote is from the article and
is a review on the poster.
At first I had two pictures of the set as the still shots for our
magazine, but our feedback suggested that maybe we should put a
picture of the protagonist on the front.
Our feedback also said that they really liked the small details in the
mag. Such as the synopsis, the verdict, the title of the magazine, the
page number…etc
12. Feedback
Overall I feel that our feedback was extremely
useful and had a positive impact on our
product.
I now agree that feedback is one of the hardest
parts of the process but it is definitely the most
rewarding.
We have had an enormous amount of help from
our audience and I feel we wouldn't have the
film we have now if it wasn't for them.
