Reel ProductionsQ3) Audience feedback

Research stage/ planning

During the first stage I made a survey for my target audience asking them several questions to do with the storyline we have chosen for our short film. I used this same method in my AS portfolio during the first stage and decided to use it again. The questions consisted of asking them their age, gender, what their thoughts were on the overall storyline, what we could improve on and much more.

This has helped me in terms of getting my survey across to people as it is an effective and easy way to get people to respond back. The response I received were useful as I was able to see if the storyline was realistic enough, if my target audience will find it interesting when the real film is produced, whether they would watch it and if I needed any improvements to be made. In terms of making my film this has helped me to make a decision about whether the film should stay the way we planned it or if we should change it however, majority of the audience response said that they preferred what we had and don’t want any changes therefore we made no changes.

Animatic

After we did our research we started to construct our film ideas into action during the planning stage. We found an app on the IPAD called storyboard 3D. This app allowed us to make 3D characters and add dialogue. After we made all the scenes from the script we started to bring it to life by adding each scene in final cut pro and adding SFX, music etc…

When we finished we asked these two girls who fit our audience profile what they thought of the animatic and everything about the short film. Their feedback was very helpful as it gave us an insight on what they thought of the entire animatic, what impact some of the scenes had on them as an audience. They also commented on the music such as the eerie music which was positive because the girl said it helped her understand the genre of the film. This has helped me when making decisions to change or not to change my media product as the audience said that they understood everything in each scenes but we still made some changes in some of the scenes for example instead of having Ivy in her bedroom we had her in the living room in her playroom, instead of having the dolly appear in the mirror reflection we had it sit on an object. These changes we made I think that they look much better now than how we shot it before.

Click me

Costumes and Props

Babysitter: Dark top and red coloured jeans with converse. Ivy: White long nightdress

Props list Scene 1Note for Babysitter Rucksack

Scene 2Coloured pictures Ivy drew Bed, wardrobeDolly Scene 3Bunch of paper for Lilly homework Living room furnitureLilly’s rucksack Dolly

Scene 4Bathroom scene usual toiletries Mirror DollyBedroom scene- bed, rug, wardrobe Emergency details on paper Mobile phone Fridge

Asking for the audience feedback on the costumes and props enabled us to understand if the character were realistic enough and if the mise end scene was too. Also their feedback helped us in our decision on whether we should change the costumes but we decided to keep it the same because the audience felt that it suited the characters.

Poster

The feedback I received for the poster I found it to be extremely helpful as the audience told me what was good and what I could improve on. The common improvement I received was to change the font of the writing on the poster at the bottom left, this was because the audience found it hard to read as it looked squashed. Getting feedback from the audience is important as it allowed me to understand peoples likes and dislikes on horror posters. I will consider changing the font of the credits to something more readable. Their feedback helped us to make decisions on our media product as we made changes to the poster by getting rid of any light areas and making them dark, we also added our slogan which audience response 1 suggested and many other changes. The changes we made has helped us to make our poster appeal to our audience.

TRAILER

After making our draft of the trailer, we got some students to listen to it and see what they say. One of the students said that the fact that it is a radio trailer made it hard for her to listen because there was nothing for her to watch. This has helped me in terms of thinking about what I could add for the audience to not feel that it is hard for them to listen to a radio trailer for example maybe adding more dialogue or having a voice over that guides the audience throughout the trailer. Another audience response I received was that the audience found the trailer to be interesting because they said that we didn't’t have that much dialogue unlike other trailers but the SFXs and the music kept them listening to it and made up for it but they do prefer more dialogue. This has helped us to make a decision on the trailer as we decided that we will not be able to add extra dialogue as the film had little dialogue and if we added more on the trailer this would give away the entire film.

Film draft

The film we first filmed the audience said that it was obvious it was in a school building because of the fire signs and other signs that showed that it was filmed in a school, however they said that the way the film was shot e.g. the use of angles and shots it made the film interesting. The audience said that the plot of the film was good as the SFXs and music we added complemented each scenes, but it would have been better if we filmed it in a real house. Due to the feedback we received we made a decision to reshot everything in a real house this time and made changes to some of the scenes. We have not yet got any audience feedback as we are in the progress of editing it and adding all the music and SFXs.