Evaluation: Question Three

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We have made a variety of changes to our media product so that they can have a positive outcome on our final media product, however none of these changes could have been completed if it wasn't for the feedback we received from our audience. When in the reproduction stage of our project we created a questionnaire that included questions about the genre of our film, whether of not the storyline made sense, what music you would expect to be heard in the film etc.

From the feedback we received we were able to see that some of the respondents were unable to identify the genre of our film properly. This is because many of our respondents identified our film as either a horror film, or a film or the crime genre. However it is common for people to mix up genres as many film genres include the same codes and  conventions. E.g. both the horror genre and the psychological thriller genre have knives and blood as common conventions. Therefore it is easy to mix us genres. However it was clear in the feedback from the respondents that the storyline of our film was relatively clear.

I came to the conclusion that most of our respondents had been focusing too much on the death of 'Jane' the antagonist in our film, rather than the actual plot, as they weren't focusing on the prank the two friends pulled on their friend and the psychological harm it would have caused to her. They also weren't focussing on the motive behind the 'prank' as revenge. so if the respondents focussed on these crucial parts of the film they may have found it easier to identify the genre of our film. 

We decided that in order to make our genre clearer to have our flashback scene at the end of our film, this way our audience would have more time to reflect on the events of the film. This would also make the audience pay more attention to the plot of the film, as they would see the motive of the 'prank' and the planning stage of the prank after the scenes shown where you see the psychological effect the prank has had on the protagonist, this would help the audience identify the genre of the film more easily as they would be able to have a clearer outlook on the events in the film. 

(The flashback scene)

When we began filming we decided to keep the idea of a non linear narrative, as this would be the best way to make the audience understand both the plot and the genre more carefully. When discussed we decided that it was best for the flashback to be at the end of the film so that it would cause less confusion for the audience, and would also mean that we weren't giving away the full plot too soon. We also made sure that when editing the film together that the flashback scene was made really obvious to look like a flashback. This was done by adding the caption "two days earlier" as well as putting a black and white filter on it so it looked different from the rest of the footage.

Also when filming the flashback we wanted to make sure that both characters could be clearly heard, so the audience could clearly hear what the two friends are saying so that they can fully understand that plot twist, and have a better understanding of the film, so they would be able to identify the genre of the film more easily. 

After we finished filming and editing the film we exported it and created another questionnaire this time we wanted for the rough cut of our film. We asked the respondents if there were any changes they would make to our film to improve its quality, we got a relatively strong response stating that the beginning of our film in the 'art room' sounded too 'echoey' making it harder to hear what the dialogue, therefore we decided to re-shoot this scene in a smaller, quieter room so that there would be less chance of echoes, as well as other noises that would distract the audience or make it difficult for them to here the dialogue. 

(Charcoal rough cut)

(Charcoal final film)

We then conducted a another questionnaire after we completed our final draft of our film, so that we could be made aware on how our audience feels about the film. 

From these results we found that the problems we had with the sound/ appearance had been resolved, as the results from our new questionnaire showed that the majority of our audience felt that the appearance of our film was 'very good', also no one said that the appearance of our film was 'bad'.

The feedback we received from re-shooting the 'art room' scene was a lot more positive too as the audience felt as though the whole scene was a lot more smoother and it was easier for the dialogue to be heard by the audience. Therefore by re-shooting this scene we have drastically improved our film. 

However we also asked our audience to try and identify the genre of our film, some audience members were still unsure on the genre of our film, however much more audience members were able to identify that the film was of the psychological thriller genre, this means that by putting the flashback at the end of our film we were able to allow the audience to look through the storyline more carefully so they would be able to identify the genre of the film more easily. 

Overall we found that the responses for our film were positive as we were able to show that from the  feedback from our audience we were able to better our film, as we were able to look at our film from a range of different perspectives. This meant that some of the faults that even we hadn't noticed were highlighted so that we could make changes to create a positive outcome for our film. Also from these changes we were able to get more audience member to reach a better understanding of our film. 

Therefore I think that we used feedback from audience well as it hasn't just bettered the look of our film it has also allowed the audience to understand it more, so acting on the feedback we have recieved from our audience has had a big impact on our overall product.