The student learned several things from audience feedback on their soap opera trailer: 1) The editing, cuts, and use of cross-cutting to build tension were very effective. 2) They need to include more storylines, characters, and scenes showing the connection between the main characters. 3) The pacing could be faster to build more tension, and the music and some locations were not as engaging as they could be. 4) Both positive and constructive feedback provided insights to improve future work by incorporating more elements and adhering closer to soap opera conventions.

1. Evaluation Question 3
What have you learned from your
audience feedback?

2. Audience Feedback

3. Positive Feedback
• “Follows the conventions really well, the editing and cuts
connote drama perfectly.”
• “The cross cutting used the Kuleshov effect to put two
scenes together to create a third meaning, it builds
tension!”
• “Dramatically tense and gripping throughout.”
• “Shots flow nicely!”
• “The fade in and out between shots help connote a passage
of time very well.”
• “The use of match on action is done very well and the
props used are very effective to help add to the romance
and drama.”

4. What have I learned from this feedback?
This feedback has been very useful to see what aspects of our
main task were effective and successful. I have learned that we
were able to follow the conventions of a soap opera trailer very
well and our editing was the most successful stage when doing
this. The cross cutting of our different scenes seemed to be most
effective and we were able to build tension and use appropriate
shots and cuts to connote the drama of this trailer. Most of our
feedback was very similar when looking at the positives which
means that it isn’t just one persons opinion but the majority
would agree making it much more valid feedback.

5. Constructive Criticism Feedback
• Use more stories and actors.
• Use faster paced editing to build up more tension.
• More scenes of Luke and Xanthe (the male and
pregnant girl) to show a stronger connection/link.
• Music was more suited to a crime thriller rather
than drama/romance.
• Some locations were slightly dull and not as
interesting, need to be more vibrant and eye
catching.

6. What have I learned from this feedback?
This feedback has been useful but also productive as it is important to
understand which elements weren’t as effective and what you can improve on in
the future. Most of these points that our audience have picked up on are things
that I noticed when analysing it afterwards. By completing the first evaluation
question I am now more refreshed with the conventions of a soap opera trailer
and realise that we had a limited amount of actors and characters in our trailer
and therefore not enough different storylines to adhere to the conventions, so
that is definitely something that I would incorporate into another version if I
were to do this again. After our first cut we realised that our shots lasted more
than 5 seconds and the editing was not fast paced enough to connote the drama
and tension so I agree that we needed faster paced editing to build up the
tension which we would have done, had we had enough time to film even more
footage. The feedback I received on twitter from a media peer was that we
needed more scenes of the male and pregnant girl to establish the link and
strongly portray the relationship between them. This is something that I hadn’t
realised when producing my coursework, however I strongly agree with this
feedback as the relationship does need to be more obvious to the audience.

7. The feedback we received on YouTube concerning our music was
expected I thought, as we had a lot of trouble trying to find suitable
non diegetic sound that connoted the correct amount of emotion
and tension. We weren’t completely happy with our
choice, however it was the most relevant one we could find on a
copyright free website so we decided to use it as it still enhanced
our trailer and adhered to the timing of our editing very well. The
comment we received about our locations being slightly dull and not
as interesting as they could have been was not something that I had
thought about before but I would agree that some of our locations
in particular the park weren’t very vibrant of eye catching, however
we wanted to use the park for that scene to connate the fact that
their relationship is now out in the open and it was a close location
that was relevant for the type of scene we wanted. I’m glad that we
had a range of improvement feedback as we were able to see what
worked well for some people and what didn’t for others. We didn’t
have any repeated or unanimous feedback so there were no
unanimous errors within our coursework which is positive overall.