From receiving audience feedback on his film trailer and ancillary products, the student learned several important lessons. Feedback allowed him to catch issues he missed in editing, like out-of-sync audio. Gathering feedback early in the process from a wide audience on draft designs and content helped ensure he was on the right track. Taking feedback into account improved the pacing and quality of the final trailer and ancillary products.

1. What have you
learned from your
audience feedback?
Adam Webb

2. FILM TRAILER…
O I found that receiving audience feedback for my film trailer
was very important because it allowed points of criticism to
be made from others about certain aspects of the content
which I may not have noticed myself during the editing
process. One of these less noticeable points was the fact
that on one shot, the sound effects were slightly out of sync
with the video and until this was pointed out by somebody, I
didn’t notice this point and I am glad that it was noticed
because after more editing, that particular shot was much
cleaner and smoother.
O I created various questionnaires for different aspects of the
film idea which included one for the name of the film and
also the main font which would feature. Creating these
questionnaires was quite useful because it got different
views from people as to whether certain ideas followed the
codes and conventions of the genre which I was creating a
trailer for.

3. …
O From part of audience feedback I got, which after showing a rough
cut of my trailer to other media students, I got various different
points of positive and constructive feedback which included a few
comments about sounds not quite syncing up and also a point
which was fairly unanimous was that they mentioned that the trailer
did require an ident at the start to make it look more realistic and
professional. Also I found that my target audience would have
preferred it if the video clips were broken up more with additional
title sequences etc to make the pace of the trailer increase.
O Looking back at the quality of the audience feedback for my trailer, I
think that I should have started this process early on in the course
so that the quality and also quantity would have increased so that
more feedback could have been attained to improve my trailer as
much as possible. Another major point which I have found from
taking forward audience feedback is that I should have taken a
much wider variety of clips during the filming process because
some people made comments which involved reshooting and it was
going to be rather difficult to recreate the exact scenes so that it
flows with the existing footage.

4. ANCILLARY PRODUCTS…
O For my initial draft designs, I had decided to show a number
of people to show a general direction to which I would be
taking the ancillary products. I found this really helpful
because it allowed me to ensure that I am going the right
way about the task nearer the start rather than the end and
overall, my drafted flat plans were generally found to be
positive and clear as to what the final product will look like.
O I also regularly got different people to overview the
products, whatever stage they were at, and asked them if I
should change anything as to what I have completed so far.
This was really helpful because they were sometimes a
certain image or piece of text which didn’t really work in
terms of the product and I’m glad that these were picked up
at an early stage so I can alter the design to fit codes and
conventions more.

5. …
O For various fonts on the magazine and poster, I
downloaded additional fonts from dafont.com and then got
people to decide which ones follow the codes and
conventions more.
O Prior to confirming which images I was going to include on
the poster & magazine, I gathered a range of potential
images so that others could give me advice as to which
ones will look more visually appealing, but also which ones
will work better with the layout and design of the ancillary
product.
O I found the audience feedback much more helpful on the
poster because during the process I seemed to struggle
more with this than the magazine because the majority of
the time, the poster looked quite plain and rather empty
O I didn’t just stick to my primary target audience for these
products, as I gathered the thoughts and opinions of
various age groups so that I received as many
improvements as possible to make the product as good as
it can be.

6. PRIMARY FOCUS
O One area of primary focus for my target audience
was for the trailer because I distributed the various
rough cut stages to a number of people via the
YouTube link so that they can give me any advice
they had for improvements of the subject.
O The other main area was the actual content of the
ancillary products because one of my main
concerns was as to whether the images, texts etc
which I had included on the poster and magazine
cover were suitable for the specific genre and also
codes & conventions, and also if they were
positioned correctly to create the best effect
possible from the available resources.