This is my media evalutation: Question 3.

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

2. Target Audience
 The target audience for my short horror
was young people, teenagers especially
due to the fact that they are going to be the
age group who are going to be more likely
to hold an interest in this genre of film
rather than a younger or an older audience.
Therefore, catering for the needs of your
target audience is vitally important as
ensuring that they are watching something
that they are going to enjoy as they will
continue to watch it again and again.

3. Who were our Audience?
 Due to the fact that we needed to find out the
thoughts and suggestions of people in a
specific age range; 13-18 year olds. We
decided that it would be best suited to our
production to conduct our audience research
with people in our year group who do not
currently study media. Most of our audience
was made up of people who had partaken in
the subject at either AS or GCSE level,
therefore they knew what sort of feedback
would be useful to us as a group.

4. How did we engage with the
audience?
 We engaged with our audience by
getting them to fill out questionnaires
and we also gained some video footage
from them revealing their feedback on
our short film production. From the
feedback we were able to act upon their
recommendations in order to create a
film that would suit the needs and
expectations of our target audience

5. My questionnaire
These are the questions which I asked my target audience to find out what
they thought about our short film production.

6. Strengths
 The strengths of my research was that is
allowed me and my group to identify
exactly what our audience’s preference's
were regarding certain aspects of the
film. This enabled us to act upon their
feedback so that our film so that it could
be adapted and improved so that our
product was best suited to our target
market.

7. Weaknesses
 The weaknesses of our audience testing
was that we only received feedback
from a small amount of people, if we had
conducted research on a wider scale,
then it may have resulted in us getting
more of a variety in feedback and
suggestions. We could have also
conducted more research as a whole
with a mixture of secondary and primary
research used in our audience testing.

8. Questionnaire Results
1. Were you able to tell that this short film
was within the horror genre?
Yes
No
This question’s results suggests that we were successful in replicating the
conventions that other films in the horror genre generate in their films.
This is very positive as it meant that the audience were certain when they
watched this film of what genre it belonged in.

9. 2. If so, what aspects of the film did you
feel were conventional of horror?
 For this question, most of the audience
put down that the conventional aspects
consisted of the location, with it being
isolated and surrounded by wooded
area. Along with the traditional things
you would expect from a horror film such
as the slow build up of music to create
tension.

10. 3. Did you feel as though the use of sound
was effective?
Yes
No
This question suggests that we were effective with our use of sound as
the majority of our audience felt in the same way.

11. 4. What type of sound did you feel was used
most effectively?
Diegetic
Non-diegetic
For this question, it was a 50/50 split between which sounds
were used most effectively. This is good as it suggests that we
used both aspects of sound effectively throughout the film.

12. 5. Overall did you feel that the film was
successful in creating a tense atmosphere?
Yes
No
The predominant vote for this question was that the film was successful in
creating a tense atmosphere. This is good as it means that we as a group
were successful in creating a media product that created tension and
therefore scared the audience.

13. 6. If so, what aspects of the film did you feel
helped to create this tense atmosphere
Mise en scene
Camera
Editing
Sound
From this question, the results suggest that the majority of people felt that the
mise en scene that was used throughout the film was the most influential
aspect that contributed towards creating the tense atmosphere. They also felt
that the sound had a big part to play, with editing and sound having less of an
impact.

14. 7. What do you think could have been
improved in this short horror film?
 For this question, the most frequently
suggested improvement would be the
lighting during the film. As sometimes it
was a bit difficult to visualise what was
actually going on in the film as it was a
bit too dark to be able to see what was
going on.

15. Focus Group
 The focus group that we
carried out during the editing
process of our media
production was very useful, as
it allowed us to receive first
hand feedback from people
who had either taken the
subject the previous year at
AS, or had studied the subject
at GCSE level. The feedback
that we received that day had
a massive impact on our final
production as we acted upon
the feedback that they gave
us.

16. Focus group feedback
 During the second cut of our focus group,
they said that the male antagonist shots
were too shaky, and the lighting was too
bright, and therefore not conventional of
the horror genre, which is more
accustomed to low-key lighting. This
influenced our filming as we had too re-
shoot the sequence so that it was made to
look more dangerous and scary, with the
antagonist being placed outside, where the
lighting was much darker, and much more
conventional.

17. The changes we made
These shots above show the changes that we made for this particular
shot within our production, you can clearly see that the shot on the left is
made up of much more high key lighting and is not conventional of
horror. Whereas the eventual shot that we took in our final film, (pictured
on the right) is much more conventional of the horror genre as it is much
darker and includes more of the appropriate conventions.

18. How did the feedback change your
project?
 This feedback helped me to change my
product as I could act upon the
improvements and suggestions that my
audience gave back to me. The
combination of both the video verbal
feedback, alongside the questionnaire
results together helped us to create a
product which followed the codes and
conventions of the horror genre, as well as
helping us to create a high quality, short
film production.

19. Why is feedback important?
 Feedback is very important, especially in media.
This is because having different people being able
to share their thoughts and opinions on a product
brings fresh ideas and a brings a different mindset
in that needs to be considered. It is also vitally
important that you receive feedback from your
target audience as their thoughts and opinions are
going to be the ones that matter when the product
is released. The feedback that we received from
our target audience from both the focus group and
the questionnaire enabled us to include the
appropriate signifiers of the horror genre, it also
enabled us to act upon any recommendations so
that we are meeting our audience’s needs and
expectations in our short film production.

20. Why was this feedback was
important?
 The feedback that our audience gave us was
very important to our group. The difference
between them giving us no feedback and
having some could be the difference in a few
marks which could take us over a grade
boundary with our overall coursework marks.
It was also important for allowing us to have
another insight into the project, so that
anything that we may have overlooked
throughout the process such as not including
the appropriate codes and conventions can
be ruled out.