what have you learned from your audience feedback

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Klodiana Lleshi:Advanced Portfolio / Evaluation Question

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Why is audience feedback essential? Audience feedback is important because the audience

is the main source of revenue. If the audience is not pleased then the film may not be successful.

The main aim of the director/production company is to please their audience, in order to gain a wide following of people and essentially maximise their overall profit.

Often many film distribution companies will have private viewings and focus groups for their target audience, in order to gain feedback from them and make the necessary changes before the film is released. This is done to ensure the film appeals to the designated target audience.

What types of feedback are possible? Box office feedback: The box office weekend is the most

important weekend for any film maker. The weekend determines the duration that your film will be in cinemas for. If the film is exceptionally popular during the box office weekend, more cinemas will show the film in several screens over the coming weeks. However, if the reaction to the film is poor during the weekend then cinemas won’t bother wasting screens with empty seats so they wont show it a lot or even for a long time.

Advantages: Determines the success of the film within other theatres and the

target audience. If successful the box office weekend can generate a lot of revenue

for the film.Disadvantages: From this point no further changes/modifications can be made to

the film so if it is unsuccessful it cannot be withdrawn from release after A LOT of people have already seen it.

Types of feedback (part 2) Social network sites: This is an effective way of promoting a

film, as well as gaining helpful feedback from a target audience. Through the use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, word spreads about the film and ‘builds hype’ so people are more likely to go and watch the film. Also, new films are likely to have a page on Facebook, which people can ‘like’ and see photos of the film and trailers, etc.. By liking the page this then tells the film maker that the audience enjoyed the film and had a positive reaction to it.

Advantages: Quick and efficient way to gain recognition of your film. Can reach a specific audience (of your choice) depending on

the ‘likes and interests’ featured on their public profile.Disadvantages: Negative comments (on Facebook pages) by people who

disliked the film are likely to get round and may cause people to criticise the film even more.

What did you do to get feedback? I produced a questionnaire featuring several questions

about my short film. The aim was to see what the appeal of the film was and also to find out whether the audience could identify the film genre.

I selected 10 people from my target audience and asked them watch the film and afterwards fill in the questionnaire.

I then collected the questionnaires and analysed the results. I produced some graphs/charts to visually display and represent what I concluded from the feedback and what the general consensus (from the audience) for the film was.

59%

16%

17%

9%

What genre of film do you think ‘Mock of Love’ comes under?

MockumentaryComedyDocumentaryRom-Com

59% of the people who took the survey were able to identify the genre, indicating that most of the target audience could recognize the genre conventions and elements presented in the film. The second most selected genre was comedy, which I can appreciate and understand as there are elements of comedy and humour within the film, for example, the overly cheesy lines by Sarah and James.

Cast Genre Theme Other0

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What aspect of the film was the most appealing to you?

Appeal

Most people chose the cast as the most appealing thing about the film. It is of no surprise that the audience fell in love with the cast- with all their dysfunction-ships (dysfunctional relationships) and quirky attitudes, who wouldn’t love them?

Cast Genre Aesthetics0

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What aspect of the poster was the most appealing to you?

Appeal

How useful was the feedback? Film: the feedback was able to help us

identify audience appeals and whether the film had a positive reception. Also, we learned that we had used the typical conventions of a mockumentary effectively as they were successful in helping the audience identify the genre and distinguish it from others, e.g. comedy.

Poster: the feedback allowed me to go back and make any necessary changes and modifications in order to appeal to the specific target audience.