The document discusses audience feedback received on three media products created by the author: a teaser trailer, film poster, and magazine front cover. Feedback was collected through two focus groups. For the teaser trailer, audiences understood the intended themes but some misinterpreted elements. The poster layout was liked but the central image needed enlarging. Audiences felt the three pieces combined effectively to convey the film's message. Overall, the feedback was positive but also identified areas for improvement, particularly making the genres more evident and asking a broader range of audiences.

1. WHAT HAVE
YOU LEARNT
FROM THE
AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK?
By Kirsty Steward

2. Audience feedback is necessary to obtain after making a media product because, as
the producer, I need to see whether my target audience read the text how I intended
them to as well as seeing what I did well and what I could improve on. The format in
which I collected my feedback was conducting a two small focus groups , one in which
I recorded on a video camera and one in which I took notes, so the people could feed
off of each other as well as not being too influenced by others, giving them a chance to
voice their opinion. This feedback applied to all three tasks I completed meaning I will
discuss each in full throughout this question. On the whole, my audience did recognise
most aspects I intended to include in my piece, yet there were some criticisms I could
develop on to make my piece/s better.

3. Firstly, I regarded my teaser trailer as it was the main product of the three tasks and was the basis of the other two
ancillary tasks. The audience did recognise a lot of the intentions my group and I had planned to be included in the
teaser trailer. For example, they recognised most of the themes included such as catfishing, online dangers,
relationships and starting a new school. Also, due to elements included such as the music we used at the beginning
of the trailer and the cinematic boom sound effects at the end and the structure of the piece in general made one
girl want to ‘watch it more; and the other , ‘felt like’ they ‘want to know more about what’s going on’ within the film.
This shows that the audience did recognise the main themes and even went on to comment on how the
protagonists abuse of alcohol resulted from pictures being sent round the school, which was a more difficult
concept to interpret from the piece. Therefore, we did provide elements that the audience could read effectively and
enjoy, making them intrigued as to what happened so they would want to view the whole film. However, not
everything about the piece was as good as it could be. One of our target audience members responded with ‘I’ve
never heard that before’ after being asked about the theme of cat fishing meaning that maybe not all of our
audience would be familiar with such a prominent theme. However, prior to the question she had recognised the
theme of ‘online dangers’ meaning the topic itself was familiar, but not as familiar as it could be. In addition, when
asked about any upsetting or disturbing themes in the piece, one girl replied with ‘rape’ maybe being an upsetting
theme, regarding the protagonist sitting on the park bench when someone approaches her. This was not a theme
included and not what we intended, meaning our audience may interpret our piece more negatively than we
proposed. In order to make our ideas apparent, we would maybe need to include more dialogue to explain what was
going on, yet this mystery was left in the piece to leave our audience guessing and have their own interpretation of
the piece.

4. Secondly, I will discuss the second ancillary task with is the film
poster. I did receive lots of positive feedback from my audience.
For example, on member said they ‘liked’ the movie poster
because it relates to ‘society’s’ view ‘on how girls should be
perfect’. Although this wasn’t my intention when creating the
piece, it shows my audience has polysemic interpretations and
the theme of society is a convention of the drama genre. In
addition, one reply I received was that an audience member
really ‘liked the layout’ meaning the z composition/layout I chose
to impose meant that it was aesthetically pleasing for my
audience. Therefore the two are loosely linked, but the main
point is that my audience like the piece I created. The main
criticism about the film poster was the size of the notebook in
the middle of the page. My audience said to make it ‘a little bit
bigger’ as the writing was harder to read. Moreover, when
asked how eye-catching it was, I got the answer of ‘3/4’ and this
was, again, due to the size of the centre image otherwise ‘it
would be a like a 5’. If my poster were to be displayed, it would
most likely be online due to my position as an amateur film
maker. This means the piece would need to be clear as it would
not be ‘blown up’ in size, compared to posters made by
conglomerate companies that feature on the sides of busses
etc. To make this text fully appeal and stand out for my
audience, I will make sure to increase the size of the image to
make the piece as good as it could be. Also, relating to the
genre/s in the text, I got a reply that ‘the film poster was a bit
ambiguous’ but she ‘liked the fact that it was ambiguous’. This
shows that my genres aren’t fully clear in the piece, meaning if I
were to create it again, I would have to be more conventional
regarding the genres. I would achieve this by using more evident
low key lighting and show evidence of themes such as
relationships more. However the fact that she ‘liked the fact that
it was ambiguous’ means she enjoyed the mystery element to it,
meaning I succeeded in that area.

5. Lastly, regarding my second ancillary task ; it was apparent
that this task as well as the other ancillary fit well with our
pain piece as after being asked whether all three pieces
combined clearly and effectively, one of the girls replied
with ‘yeah’ because they all ‘give the same message of
what the film’s about’. This shows that all three do
combine and my audience would be able to relate them
effectively. Focussing on the second ancillary task; my
audience recognised the theme of thriller being evident
because the protagonist ‘looked scared’. One audience
member suggested there could be drama but didn’t
explain why. Although I used the thriller genre to entice
my audience and I used the image that I did to recreate a
key scene in the trailer; by not including some drama
elements, I could be deceiving my audience by not making
both genres evident. Yet I did receive a lot of positive
feedback from the front cover. One audience member
thought it was good because it was ‘expressive’ and
showed her ‘what’ she was ‘guessing the film would be
about’. In addition, when asked what improvements I
could make to the piece they did not say to make any
improvements because they thought the magazine front
cover and teaser trailer were ‘really good’. This shows that
my audience received the piece well but if I were to do it
again, I would consider adding more drama elements to
the magazine front cover to make the second genre more
apparent. For example, I could achieve this by having the
model in a setting of a bedroom, which is a conventional
drama setting meaning the genre would be more
apparent.

6. Overall, the need for improvement lies most with my movie poster, however
improvements could be made to adhere to what my audience said. On the whole, my
products were not perfect but effective enough to target my audience and for them to
understand each text. Regarding my method of collecting audience feedback; that
could be improved as well. As with one focus group I only recorded notes, I could not
gain an extensive collection of their opinions on the piece, meaning my audience
feedback from that focus group was quite vague and unreliable. Furthermore, I would
ask more in depth, open questions to get specific answers from my audience that were
sometimes lacking, especially in the second focus group. Lastly, I would ask some older
audience members as well to get more reliable feedback. As my target audience is
meant to range between 16-24, my feedback was not as effective as I only mainly asked
16-19 year olds. Therefore, if I was to repeat this task, I would ask people over 20 as well
to ensure I obtain the best feedback possible.