audience feedback

1. Audience Feedback
By Megan Vincent

2. What did I expect?
• We have aimed our media product to a more sophisticated target audience
(those in the A/B income bracket). I thought that our audience would mainly
be active which means they would challenge and question ideologies and
representations that we have portrayed in our opening sequence.

3. Our active audience members
• I feel that our audience members were fairly active, however, not as active as I
thought. This may have been they did not feel comfortable with expressing their
true opinions on camera or perhaps that I didn’t ask them the questions that
catalysed such a response.
• However, Emma (the 2nd female audience member) and Janine (the 1st female
audience member) both mentioned they thought that the costumes for the business
man were not quite accurate and a ‘little too stereotypical, like a caricature’. This
could be an example of how our sophisticated audience members may take the
stereotypes and challenge them. However, not all of them were challenged, perhaps
because they were rather subtle.

4. Active audience members
• In addition, Janine and Andy both commented on how the house where Ethan found the
letter was perhaps too sophisticated for the working class and does not represent their home
environment well. This is something we had not thought of and perhaps doesn’t represent
the stereotypical kitchen that the the working class would have. Emma also stated her
thoughts on props i.e having Ethan using a converged device which would make it more
relevant to modern day society. These comments and questions our audience raised about
mis-en-scene elements i.e the inaccuracy of costume, props and location are not really them
actively challenging our representation (i.e. they are not saying that the working class
shouldn’t be portrayed as feckless and dysfunctional); they are more pointing out issues with
our mise-en-scene which we didn’t question. As a result, this may suggest that if we wanted
to make a film for this audience, we would need a greater attention to detail, because they
are even more critical, in this regard, than what we accounted for which could perhaps be to
do with their age)!

5. Audience Feedback
• Despite some great feedback on the visual aspects of the production, our audience
members did not mention many more ideas or opinions on the representations i.e
women in the male gaze and races. This makes me question whether any of these
had any influence on their interpretation of the product. Consequently, the audience
were just accepting of the representation o the working class as dysfunctional.
However, this not what we wanted as we meant to challenge ideologies and attract
an audience that engaged in this process.
• This may have happened because perhaps I didn’t ask specific enough questions so
the audience were unable to notice these representations. But, I think I did ask
effective questions and did prompt the viewers to think of the relevance of the
characters to the working class and modern day society.

6. Why?
• This may have been because we were too stereotypical for a sophisticated audience,
and therefore these were too common for them to pick up on and challenge e.g the
working class/underclass’ association with crime. However, I think it is more that
we assumed our audience to be sophisticated but they actually just accepted the
stereotypes.
• To improve this, we could have perhaps been less stereotypical and even swapped
our primary and secondary audiences. This might have been more beneficial as the
secondary audience (those in the C1 income bracket) would be able to relate to the
character more easily (and gain personal identity) and accepted these representations
well.

7. Other Feedback
• Andy commented upon the sense of ease when Ethan finds the letter and that perhaps we
could have used different shots to connote his emotional turmoil. For example, we could
have used a titled high angle shot to dramatize the scene and make the viewer feel
uncomfortable.
• All members said they were confused as to what tone we were aiming for, either depressing
or happy (maybe because of the dual tone of the music). This is what we tried to make the
audience feel because it reflects the narrative of the plot and Ethan’s oscillating emotional
state. This also intrigues the viewers, of which all members said they felt, to go and watch
the rest of the film.
• Andy picked up on the urban location being relevant to modern day society which is very
important for the theme of the film, be the metaphor of the journey, or representing
current social issues in society, which is conventional for our genre.

8. Other Feedback
• Emma, particularly said that she found the first flashback rather confusing and thought it
was quite quick. This is might be because she is used to a Hollywood narrative that has most
shelf space as opposed to social realism drama narratives. In hindsight, it was very short and
we could of made it longer and shown him doing another action to highlight his usage of
alcohol.
• Emma also said about having Ethan saying something to trigger his reactions. This could
perhaps be because the audience wanted to gain more personal identity with the protagonist
and needed to satisfy their needs of morality. This would of made her confusion absent.
• Sean (the 2nd audience member) also said his enjoyment of the titles and how they were
cleverly placed (finally, someone appreciates our key framing!!). He might have noticed these
more because he has an more artistic eye.

9. Did we chose the right audience?
• After this, I think that our audience is very fitting for our production; those who are
in the A/B income bracket audience as they seemed to really enjoy it possibly
because of the intellectual pleasure of the genre as Janine found it ‘intriguing’.
• However, you could argue that we over-estimated our sophisticated audience, mainly
because they seemed to accept the stereotypes which completely opposed what we
planned and they were also slightly confused by the complex narrative and the
ambiguous flashbacks in our opening sequence. For example, Emma said that she
wanted more clarification of what the first flashbacks was, even if we put it later in
the sequence and made it longer.

10. Did we chose the right certification?
• I thought that it is appropriate due to the serious topics we are addressing
such as drug abuse and a dysfunctional family. This is a topic of which the
BBFC looked into when creating guidelines for classifications. Because this is
one of our main themes, a certificate of 18 would be fitting. Also, these
themes would not be suitable for a younger audience because of the negative
impact it might have on them. Additionally, there is a high chance of strong
language (to augment verisimilitude) which isn’t considered acceptable by the
BBFC as a 15. Overall, it is an 18 because of the bleak tone.

11. Audience Feedback
However, the audience feedback consisted of only 4 members who are very similar and
therefore maybe this feedback would be more reliable/accurate if we had more people to
watch our production (i.e we could have done audience feedback through a different format
such as a questionnaire and given it to our secondary audience). This could have been
improved by possibly doing an online survey via the use of web 2.0, on websites such as
‘Survey Monkey’ whereby our target audience via Facebook/Twitter are able to answer
questions. However, I did not do this as in the previous research and planning, no one
answered the online surveys and therefore I did not want to risk it being unhelpful or a waste
of time.

12. How could we have
improved our audience?

13. Improving our audience…
• I think that we did make the right decision for the audience, but I feel that we could
have understood our audience a little better which would mean that catering for
them would have been easier. For example, for our pilot questionnaire, our
candidates were mostly wanted the film to be called ‘Alone’ instead of ‘Reflux’
which serves as an example of our over-estimation on ho intellectual they are and
maybe they needed something simpler. This may have been because our active
audience members may want everything to be told to them, however, we expected
that they are sophisticated enough to realize the nature of our opening sequence,
merely through visual aspects such as mis-en-sene.

14. Continued…
• Following on from this, I think our original plan of ‘dialogue with music’
went wrong as there was virtually no dialogue in that this made it hard even
for the sophisticated audience to understand. Perhaps we tried to make it too
sophisticated, attempting to tell our narrative through action rather than
dialogue which made it too subtle when conveying or challenging ideologies
for the primary audience to pick up on.

15. Improving our audience…
• After holding this audience feedback, I have established that perhaps our
primary and secondary audience could have definitely been improved. With
having both of our feedback candidates as older in age (which turned our
slightly unsuccessful), it poses a question as to having people younger
audience bracket, for our target audience who may have felt more
identification with Ethan and the urban setting. This could have perhaps
been our secondary audience i.e those in the E income bracket, aged 18-24.