What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Emma, Adam and myself all recently held an audience trailer review amongst some of our piers, who all varied in age, but the majority of which fitted within out target audience in terms of age. We created a questionnaire allowing our audience to give us both quantitate and qualitative feedback, with some general questions as well as detailed answers about specific moments within our media product. As seen below are some screen shots of the feedback sheets we received.
Within our hosting for the viewing of the product we received 17 responses with all of which categorised within our target audience of 15 - 24. Where we had originally thought our product would target a male audience, 65% of the audience consisted of women. We had arranged this to see how our product would fare within a slightly varied target audience. We found that we should have perhaps our target audience, as all of which , alongside with the male characters, rated our product highly. In order to gain knowledge into the specifications and preferences within our audience, we asked several questions before the viewing of the trailer. All participants stated that they regularly watch films, with no one responding that they don't watch any films within the space of a week. The majority, 53% stated that they watch at least 1 film per week. When asked about their favourite genre, the two clearest answers where thriller (42%) and comedy (33%). These great responses allow us to see that the young audience would all be interested in our product, and that the responses come from our target audience, giving us detailed and credible responses.
We felt another key aspect to question about their interests in films was their habits with watching film trailers. Their answers were encouraging again, with the majority of people stating that they regularly do watch film trailers. They were all keen to express that film trailers were a key selling point of a film, allowing them to decide what films they are interested in prior to the real ease of films. This encouraging set of responses allows use to use the feedback data in a constructive way, with it being very reliable in terms of real media texts. When asked what films they had seen out of a selection of films which had influenced our own product, it was unsurprising to find that The Dark Knight came out in first position with 14/17 people having sen it. This was followed by Reservoir Dogs, where 9/17 of the audience had seen it. However, many of them had not seen other films listed, which wasn't an issue as they had previously stated that the enjoy thriller films, allowing our audience to keep an open mind when it came to our own product.
After the viewing we asked a series of questions allowing the audience to give feedback about detailed aspects of the trailer. We started with broader questions, with 100% correctly identifying the genre to be thriller, as well as others adding in additional genres to what they thought would be the sub genre. One response gave our film the genres of thriller, action and romance. The romance aspect was an interesting response, which is not the common sub genre we were aiming for, however it is a concept which we encoded within our product, so that the audience could decode the idea. This was similar to a key influence that we studied, that being the 'Disappearance of ALice Creed', but this response is positive, suggesting that our decoding of the romance between two characters is identifiable.
We asked further questions, such as what they thought the target audience would be. 76% of responses said that it would be targeting both genders, whilst the other 24% thought it was targeted at male gender. This was particularly useful and informative as it shows that our target audience could be made larger, not just targeting males but also females. For the targeted age range, we had initially thought our target audience would be 15 - 21, however a majority of the audience though that the upper boundary would be as high as 50. We are unable to come to a set conclusion about our age range, but the audience responses suggest some positive feedback that a larger target audience is necessary. That being said, our initial target audience is not largely dissimilar, but was too narrow in comparison to what the viewers thought.
The question asking the audience about the narrative proved to be mostly positive with 65% of participants thinking correct amounts of narrative was shown, but 24% thought that the narrative and plot could have been held back, as to not give away the entire plot and ruin the purpose of the trailer as a marketing product. Out of all participants asked about what aspects of the trailer were unclear, 2 people responded 'How did the girl get to the woods?' and 'Whats the story behind the kidnap? WHy kidnap her just to rescue her again?'. Both responses carry a strong argument, with the second question actually showing a miss understanding of the narrative. This is suggestive that our narrative as a whole is clear, however there will always be one or two aspects which the audience may not find clear. This response should be taken as an anomaly, acting as a rare occasion at which the plot is misunderstood. Our choice to not show any more of the narrative was supported by the 65%. This is encouraging feedback for our trailer, and gives us insight into how accurately our product sells as a marketing piece.
In regards qualitative research we posed a question regarding their favourite parts of the trailer. All the responses can be seen below.
The acting, it brought the trailer together
The suspense as it was a cliff-hanger
Title at the end/Car chase with gun/Shooting Robbie as it was realistic/Eliza
The death scene
The acting it made me smile/Background music was cool
The ending I liked that it didn't give too much away
The title/The first shot of the hands tied up as it gets your attention
The pace of transition between scenes
The ending with the victim crying with a bag over the head as it was believable
When the girl was tied up good acting/Cutting between scenes
Didn’t reveal too much plot
The chase part, liked the ending because the suspense built up/The music was good too
Music was really suiting/Loved the filming from a variety of angles
The shot where 3 guys were stood around the captured girl, very dramatic
I liked the kidnap scene
Eliza crying with the bag on her face/good acting/setting
Running through woods as it was tense
Ending with the blood
We also asked 'What their least favourite part of the trailer was
Sitting round table, didn't seem serious
Too many scenes in house/sitting around a table
The running sequence
The scene in the house where the men discuss the girl
Started off slow/Lots of the storyline given away eg "There’s two choices" Really? We see Robbie dead…where’s the suspense?
The actors smiling when the guns where by their faces
Robbie’s acting
The scene where they are deciding what to do
The music in the background was too loud
The weird blue shot of the house
Background music slightly too loud
Some of the shots eg. House one/POV
Too much of the beginning was given away
It gave away a lot of beginning of the film
Again, questions based around the acting were ignored. From this question we found that many people though that the shot around the table where the actors were deciding what to do with the girl was one of the weakest parts of the trailer. This is important to note, and in a later edit we could cut this sequence down to remove and slower shots, and breaks in the tension. Another aspect around this tension was the easily identifiable lack of acting skills, meaning that the shot seemed even worse than if it included better actors. This is something that in future products should be focused on, but is not something that can be easily fixed within the product, obviously. There was further feedback about the music being too loud, something which distracted form the footage. Another response focused around the death of Robbie, our lead actor. It questioned the building of suspense and how it gave too much of the plot away in the opening of the trailer. The final question we asked was 'Does the trailer make you want to watch the film?'. 100% responded Yes. This is extremely encouraging also due to the fact that all the participants were of our target audience and all enjoy films this shows us that this group is perfect and we are targeting the right audience. This is a great response, allowing for us to clearly see that our target audience all enjoyed our product, as well as it begin an all round successful product as it did what a trailer is supposed to do: build tension and male the viewer want to see the film.
For feedback about my poster and magazine cover, I found it all in all not overly helpful, as a lot of comments focused around what they liked rather than would could be improved.
That being said, comments about my poster were encouraging, showing that the layout of the text was clean and precise. Everyone liked the detailed work on the title, where I had used the ink texture as well as lens flares to make it stand out from the other text. Emma, (the one woman) stated that she could clearly see the juxtaposition between the light and dark, using the characters to present them as either good or evil.
EL
