Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 Most of the feed back I gained on our magazine front cover were all quite positive. The responses (on the left) showed that our target audience liked what they saw. Altogether I was able to obtain 10 comments and 14 likes on facebook, and some of them agreed on the same criticisms that were made.

Most people commented on the good use of colour scheme and the red 'glow' effect against the background of the featured actor on the magazine.
They collectively agreed that the colours used made the cover stand out and the use of red & white on the film title was very effective.

Judging from the positive comments about the use of colour, i can say that we successfully made the magazine look appealing to our target audience.

"Yeah, the colour and text are appropriate if its a horror magazine"

This is because, in parts of our feedback we saw that some people said they could tell that it was a horror film magazine. Although they liked the colour scheme overall, they added that a bit more red could have been used. A suggestion was made by one of our respondents: "Changing the khaki font to red"

On the other hand, the feedback made me realise that there were some issues with the font. Some explained that although our magazine looks good, it appears to have too much font. They also suggested that the strap lines should have been bold and the cover lines should have been normal. From this we learned that its not just about having a lot on the front cover, but its also about having a range of fonts and more pictures on the front cover to make it appeal to the audience.

We also learnt that familiarity with the layout of the magazine cover was very important. As one person commented, "Followed magazine conventions which makes it look like a real magazine"

this suggests that we did a good job with sticking to the conventions of a magazine cover. Also, this shows that our target audience expected to see a lot of conventions used here which suggests that, they are more likely to read it if it looks more realistic.

We didn't challenge any conventions but we came up with the idea of adding a different bar code which may not be familiar to some people (especially older people). However, we spotted in one of the responses that this was great to put on the front cover. "You kept it modern in terms of the language & neo-code reading"

It was good to see a potential consumer point out what we were trying to do with the bar code; which was to add the use of new technology to engage with our product, in order to attract our target audience.

But there are still a few issues with our magazine front cover. Based on the feedback, we learnt that the main image of the front cover is very important. Its important because it has to correspond to the content of the magazine and the genre. For example, the image used was a bit too simple. No props were used to enhance the fact that it is a horror film poster. Due to the type of picture used, there are chances that some people seeing the magazine for the first time wouldn't know its a horror film magazine until they read the cover lines. "Its edgy but looks more youth, I thought it was like a teen gossip mag and not film until i read the body text"

On the other hand, its possible to say that our masthead is quite good. Many said that it was eye catching. This means that even though the front cover doesn't look horrifying; the kind of font used here, the colour, and the name of the magazine itself could make the audience recognise that its meant to be a horror film magazine.

Since we got some suggestions for improvements on our magazine, we knew that our final piece wasnt perfect. We learned that the appearance of the magazine is important. in addition to that, what is most important are the expectations of the target audience and being able to meet them. So, in our case, if we were to go back and improve the front cover design, we would need to consider what the audience want to see more than what we think looks nice on the

cover.

For the teaser trailer I found it very difficult to gain responses. But in the little responses I saw, I got the impression that the viewers were confused about the concept of our trailer. As a group we agree that we were slightly unsuccessful in delivering a narrative that is easy to understand in the trailer. So, one thing I can say we could have improved on is the story of it.
We learned that it was a bit too simple and lacked a bit of action, which could be one of the reasons why some people didn't understand the trailer.

I did not gain much feed back on the film poster aswell. Although the feedback below shows that a few people like it, we learned that the poster was not really designed effectively. By this I mean that more effects could have been added to the poster to make it look more appealing. Or, the main image used could have been a lot more scarier to show that the film is actually a horror film. Altogether, i was able to obtain 7 likes and one comment which some people agreed on. "Nice font/style, good light effects, nice rhetorical question, picture is not scary"

Written by Christina

Audience Feeback

What I learnt from my audience feedback was that our teaser trailer was very popular with people of the age bracket 13- 34, in terms of views on youtube. This was very positive news because our target audience was the age bracket: 15 to 30. However it was most popular with males then females, with 71.8% of the total views of the teaser trailer relating back to the male gender. This may be due to the fact that the actor in the teaser trailer is black. Furthermore what I also learnt is that many people, who viewed our trailer on youtube, viewed it from a mobile device. This example of technological convergence also was positive in some sense because it showed that our trailer was being or had the potential to be viewed on the go or viewed among friends, thus increasing the buzz and promotion of the trailer. Furthermore something else positive about our trailer feedback was that the trailer was viewed in other parts of the world also.  With it being viewed in America and Australia showed how technological convergence was important to us because it aided in the promotion of our trailer.

The percentage of male to female who
have watched our trailer

Snippet of devices people
used to view our trailer

However in terms of the actual trailer, what I have learnt from audience feedback is that many people who viewed the trailer did not understand the story behind the trailer or the whole concept. Many felt that the cupboard was the iconic prop in the trailer where as in reality, it was actually was not. This has taught me that had we made the story clearer the trailer would have been better.

Example of someone who did
not understand our trailer

The audience feedback for our poster was all in all very positive. Generally people liked the lens correction effect on the image and the Mac computer, which relates back to the target audiences easily recognising apple products. However many who viewed our poster was unable to understand what the title actually said.

To conclude what I have learnt from my audience feedback on the trailer and poster is that it was to extent popular with the target audience but just needed a clearer story. I generally feel that, with that small improvement, everyone who viewed our trailer would have liked it more. 

Written by Michael




WHAT WE LEARNT FROM OUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

Through statistics provided by YouTube, we found out that our teaser trailer had been viewed mainly by Males aged 13-17 in the united Kingdom. 

We also found that when our teaser trailer had been viewed, only a small percentage of people watched it for the whole 42 seconds, with most people switching off six seconds into the teaser trailer. These findings suggest that our teaser fails to keep the audience engaged and as a result leads them to lose interest in the content they are viewing. Perhaps we could have amended this if we had included more exciting events in the teaser, such as a death to satisfy the viewers. 

This representative of our target market believed that the teaser trailer was successful in creating tension. However he did brand it as difficult to understand in terms of what was going on. He also thought favorably of the effects used in the production logo and movie title, which prompts us to think that maybe we may have benefited from adding more effects in the teaser, as it seems to be something that our target market appreciate. The fact that this representative also said he would view this film in the cinema, does lead us to think that we have achieved our goal of promoting our film.

Written by Cyprian

Feedback analysis
Despite using different platforms to market our main procut and ancillary texts, the majority of feedback I recieved was through Blackberry messenger. I would say that all of the feedback I recieved would have aided us in prepartion for another main product (if this was needed) as I view all of the feedback as being constructive. Below I have included screenshots from conversations that took place on Blackberry messenger.

 The feedback that I recieved from this conversation with Funmilolaa was quite simple for me to understand and to see where a member of our target audience was coming from. This response was from viewing our film poster.

My interpretation of these comments is that the choice of image could have related more with the achorage that was used. As it seems as though the two different elements could have been from different products.

The conventions that we did choose to follow also didn't seem to be specific enough to the horror genre alone as this particular person stated that there is nothing within the image that tells the target audience if the poster is promoting a horror film.

This feedback was also on the film poster, when Natalie recieved  the poster and was asked for her feedback she was unsure on what exactly to comment on.

One interpretation of this could be that the poster as a whole followed conventions rather well meaning that it came across as looking rather professional.

Unlike the other feedback I recieved concerning the poster, this one talked a bit about the text used, in this case it was the size and visibility of the fonts we chose to use. This could translate to meaning that we may have underestimated the importance of the date of release which was picked up on by a member of our target audience.

But similarly to what Funmilolaa said, Natalie commented on the relevance of the image and how it could possibly 'stand out more', in my opinion this could be altered by making the image that we used on the poster one which our target audience would have found much easier to associate with a horror film and more specifically, a psychological horror film.

 The feedback and response that I recieved from 'M' was very positive as it reflected that for some members of our target audience it was plain to see that the teaser trailer belonged to the horror genre. This means that despite us not using the most obvious conventions of horror (i.e. blood, and gore) people are still able to recieve the message we are trying to convey.

M's response when asked if there was anything that she would change about the trailer tells me that she did find it scary but believed that it could have been scarier. Yet again, this is a good reflection of how more subtle conventions can be followed and still evoke certain emotions within the audience to a level required.

She also mentioned the sizing of the fonts which leads me to the conlusion that the fonts overall could have been more easily visible.

The reactions I obtained from the two conversations following both referred to the media products as 'cool' and both people seemed to have some sort of disbelief that it had in fact been created as a part of A2 media coursework. The reference to the teaser trailer as 'cool' also tells me that we have been successful in appealing to some members of our target audience and gaining positive responses.

Neither parties had anything negative to say after watching the teaser trailer, which may been an indicator that we used just the correct balance of following and challenging conventions within the production of our main media product.



However, in spite of the above conversations not all of the conversations took this course as here is one that labelled our teaser trailer as 'boring', this was probably down to the lack of variation as far as location was involved or maybe no inclusion of a real antagonist.

To make sense of this feedback as a whole, I think we achieved what we set out to do which was to make a psychological teaser trailer that would entartain and persuade people to go out and watch our film. But there were a few things we could have changed to make it more appealing for example, more appropriate fonts, more engaging photos and a bigger feeling of suspense, all in all the feedback recieved was incredibly useful.

Written by Gabrielle