- 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?Our demographic which we are aiming for is between the ages of 16-25 and we decided this because it would be easier to get feedback from people of this age group. Also this is the age group that Little White Lies aim for. The importance of feedback is high because we need to know what we need to improve on and getting feedback will let us know what needs the most attention within our coursework. It also helps that we are within this age group as we can understand how to interest people of our age and how to make it relatable.
One way in which our product appeals to this age group is the fact that we had actors within this age group and this would make the film relatable for the target demographic. Another way in which we made our film appealing to this audience was through the narrative of our film. We made the situation interesting because this is one of the concepts we found typical of a short film. The situation is interesting because of the plot twist which we feel people our age enjoy.Poster feedbackThroughout the whole blog process we have been collecting audience feedback so that we could keep on improving. We collected it about the poster, the film and the review and these are the three main components of the coursework, we did this by using surveys through digital media. I recorded a video of one of my poster feedback sessions:With this feedback in mind we discarded my poster as an option at all because it was described as ‘boring’ and ‘unimaginative.’ The other members of my group didn’t get very good feedback on their posters either so in addition we scrapped all of them and creating a completely different and new one. This one had much more positive reviews as it had more codes and concepts that were typical of a short film poster for example we took away the actors names and just kept them in the billing block. Another example of how we changed our poster due to feedback was that we changed the colours and image to fit our genre. The dark colours reflect the dark nature and genre of the film. We added one word reviews such as ‘Unpredictable’ and ‘dramatic’.
Here is my poster and the poster that we ended up with:
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| My poster idea |
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| The final poster |
Short film
feedback – Take one
The first shoot of our short film was shot with an IPhone 6s
due to our camera not working and this worked well until we sent the footage
over social media and had it drained of its quality by quite a lot. After
getting audience feedback, we decided to reshoot because we just couldn’t deal
with the quality. Also someone commented on how they could see us in the
background of one of the shots which was another reason why we went to go and
film again. After reshooting, the quality of the footage was much better and if
it hadn’t been for audience feedback we wouldn’t have gotten as a high a mark
as we have.
 |
| Bad quality footage |
These are some examples of the feedback we got back from the
first part of filming.
We made changes accordingly to these comments and kept the positive aspects of them, for example the soundtrack was said to be good. In terms of changing things and editing our film further, we replaced most of the footage with new footage and within this we added in a few more close up shots so that it is easy to see the character’s faces and more importantly their facial expressions to make it clearer of what was going on and their feelings towards it.
 |
| Better quality footage |
Short film
feedback – Take Two
After reshooting our film the quality was a lot better and
we got some more audience feedback. Here are some examples.
The
editing was good, with a good use of varying transitions and the editing is
done in a way that makes the meaning apparent to the audience.
Some
of the shots were noticeably unsteady. Also, the footage used for the shot that
follows the protagonist was very shaky which was apparent when the footage was
sped up. This shot could be shortened to make the shot less shaky.
2.
-Very
good use of shot framing with all appropriate characters and props on screen
-Appropriate
use of sound which complements the editing
-Questionable
use of transitions in first scene
-Time
lapse of walking seemed to fill time rather than generate further meaning
-Unsure
of the meaning of 'The Magazine'
-
Good use of appropriate sound (parallel to imagery).
-
there was a good use of props which suggested meaning, for example; the blanket
to show being homeless
4.
-the
soundtracks fitted well
-varied
shot angles
-variations
of foley's to exaggerate situations
-unclear
shots in the darker room
-camera
movement was quite scatty
-the
storyline was a bit confusing, but also good use of ellipsis
As we can see here, there are a variety of concepts that
people liked and disliked about our short film. Some of the main positive ones
that stood out for me were as follows:
- “Very good use of shot framing with all appropriate characters and props on screen.”
- “The soundtracks fitted well”
- “There was a good use of props which suggested meaning, for example; the blanket to show being homeless.”
- “The editing was good, with a good use of varying transitions and the editing is done in a way that makes the meaning apparent to the audience.”
In addition to these comments we kept the soundtrack the
same and were happy with our props and composition of the characters. We knew
that we didn’t have the change much because of the statement ‘the editing was good’ which gave us the
confidence to keep all of our editing the same.
 |
| Example of good editing and composition |
Some of the negative point of audience feedback which stood
out to me are as follows:
- “Some of the shots were noticeably unsteady. Also, the footage used for the shot that follows the protagonist was very shaky which was apparent when the footage was sped up. This shot could be shortened to make the shot less shaky.”
- “Time lapse of walking seemed to fill time rather than generate further meaning”
- “Unsure of the meaning of 'The Magazine'”
- “The storyline was a bit confusing, but also good use of ellipsis”
The main points here are that the camera was shaky and that
the meaning wasn’t clear. We were also told that the title “The Magazine” shouldn’t
be at the end of the film because this wasn’t typical of a short film. However
we chose not to change this because we wanted to challenge the conventions of a
short film and therefore putting the title at the end of the film was planned.
 |
| Title at the end of the film |
In terms of the time lapse filling in time, we cannot really
change this because it shows the character moving from one location to another
and if we cut it down any shorter it would confuse the audience. Its purpose
isn’t to fill time it’s supposed to emphasise that Louise is embracing her fame
and shows her developing as a person over a short period of time.
 |
| Time lapse |
The camera was a bit more shaky that preferred at parts but
this is because we used a phone to film some of it and had no tripod for this.
Also in the reshoot the only way for me to film the time lapse was to walk
behind the actress so the camera was going to be shaky as we didn’t have access
to a steady cam at the time.
I think that as a group we have learnt that our film will never be perfect and that all there will never be no changes that we can make but we have stuck to what we planned and are proud of our final product.
