Evaluation question 3

OCR G324

Joe Garnett3304

Aquinas College: 33435

Evaluation question 3:

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Examples of real audience feedback

Twitter has become an international phenomenon, even the soaps themselves have twitter accounts. People can comment on anything they wish and start trending topics.

Examples of real audience feedback

Many people comment on soaps, some of the favourites are Eastenders and Coronation Street. If ITV see that people are talking about certain characters they may give them more screen time, this could also happen about characters that are not being talked about, to give them a higher profile.

Also, if certain storylines are given high praise, it gives the institutions ideas of what people want to see.

My audience feedback

We did our audience feedback as a class, each group or individual would show their product (most of them were still in the editing stage) and the rest of the class would comment on them.

This was appropriate as these people are a key part of my target audience (16-30, students, use Twitter and Facebook)


CU low angle shot of Archie (played by Max) –

Many people said once Max had read the text, the shot lingered for too long.

From this we edited down the shot from about 7 seconds to 5 seconds, this allowed max to pick up the phone and read it, but still allowed audience to see his emotion.


The sequence of shots/storylines –

As we knew the storylines, it did not matter which order they were in or how they intertwined as we would know what was happening, but people in the class said that they didn’t really have an idea of what was going on.

To change this we put each storyline one by one, with the main storyline (cheating) first so that it could build itself up. As the lighting was pretty much the same throughout, it still looked like the narratives were happening at the same time.


LS of Max and Emma walking –

Audience feedback also pointed out that this shot also lasted for too long. It was not a shot that needed to last for too long as their was no dialogue or interaction.

We shortened the shot by taking away the part when we first saw them walking.

Once Max and Emma had walked away from each other, the class did not know if max had walked straight to another character played by tiff straight away or whether there was a gap. We added a shot of max walking away straight to the other character.


BCU shot of murderer –

When people gave feedback they said that this shot was too shaky and unstable.

To combat this we had to look if we had any other footage of this shot, but they were also shaky. Instead we had to shorten the clip and then make what was left of it slow- motion, this also gave the effect of the murderer thinking carefully about what he might do.


When Tiff and Emma collided –

In this part of the trailer, when Tiff was barged into she made a noise, to show pain. Some of the class said that the noise was not needed.

We tried it with both the noise and without, we saw that without the noise it seemed more realistic.


Over the shoulder shot with the slap –

Unlike the previous shot, there was no sound in this shot as the original sound of the slap was no loud enough to here.

But, people in the class said the felt it would have been better if there was a sound.

After watching it back a few times, we decided to edit in the sound of a slap with sound FX.


The non-diegetic soundtrack –

The first soundtrack that we had chosen was a remix of many songs and lyrics, which featured The XX, when my teacher had watched the trailer she pointed out that the song had an offensive word which for some people can be seen as racist.

Because of this we immediately took out this song. We had many other ideas for songs, such as Westlife – what about now. Instead we chose the song Higher love originally sung by Steve Winwood, but a slower piano version of the song by James Vincent McMorrow.


The start of the trailer –

When editing our footage we did no have any title cards at the beginning to introduce the soap.

From the audience feedback we saw that many people said we should have title cards at the beginning.

We then inserted title cards at the beginning, we had created them on Keynote. We used the E4 style of American typewriter font and a purple background. This informs the people of what institution the show would be on and the relevant target audience.


Title cards –

When the audience feedback indicated I should have title cards at the beginning of the trailer, It gave us the idea to add title cards within the trailer itself.


Other audience feedback

Good range of shot types

Title card at end is clear link to institution

Storylines are realistic

I did not just learn from others giving feedback on my trailer and getting their perspective on the ideas and work, but I also learnt from giving feedback to others. When looking at other peoples trailers it is easier to see how adding transitions, slow-motion, or how shots that are too long or short can change how each shot it seen which then impacts on the soap as a whole

This helped me when further editing my soap trailer, I started to look at my trailer from an audiences perspective, rather than my view – I new the storylines, so when they were all slightly mixed together it did not mater to me, but for the audience who do not know the storylines, it did.

From watching other peoples work I also gained ideas and thoughts on what I should include and not include.

Giving other people feedback

Education

Evaluation question 3