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

In regards to my feedback, I have made a survey for my film and my poster and shared it through social media, as audience feedback is very important in order for me to look back on my work. I have sent my survey onto social media where I am more likely to get viewers who have never seen the film or the progress towards it and viewers within my target audience seeing as most people who use social media for a majority of the time are teenagers and young adults. I have managed to get some results, but this was from a small sample due to the fact that many people may have not had enough time to watch the short film and do the survey, or due to the fact that most people find survey's to be irritating and a waste of time. 

Below are the questions and results of the questions I have asked to my audience.I felt that it was important to ask questions that looked at the audience's interpretation of the film and their general opinion, so that I am able to see whether my film satisfied the uses and gratification of my audience. I wanted to also see whether my audience can understand my production, and in order to confirm this we must look at Stuart Hall's model of ways in which we read media text. There are 4 ways in which we do this. One way is preferred reading where the audience will prefer to read the text as the producer intended them to. The meaning is clear, natural and transparent. Oppositional reading is when there is a disagreement with the ideology from the genuine idea, so they reject the reading. Whereas negotiated reading looks at how the audience would work out the meaning of the film with the concepts that they don't understand and would sometimes modify it for their preferred reading. And aberrant reading is when the audience completely misunderstands the film or they read it in a way in which it wasn't intended to be read.

By asking my audience whether the story was easy to follow and what they thought was the plot, I am able to see which one of the 4 models relates to them and whether they were able to understand what I presented to them. Whether my film had a flow of meaning and whether it was clear and concise.

When looking at other questions, my first question was how the audience felt as they watched the film. By doing this, I wanted to measure whether my film is actually doing what I intended it to do; build up tension in the audience. This is important because I wanted to see whether my film can fit into the horror genre - especially the psychological thriller sub-genre - through its use of conventions and tension building, and whether the film was interesting enough to keep my audience watching.I have used words such as "scared", "uncomfortable" and "tensed" as an indicator that my audience is aware that this is a horror film and is able to identify where tension is building. I have also included words such as "confused", "neutral" and "bored" as a way to see whether my audience understood where the film was going.


I have asked my audience about my poster, but I also did a separate survey for it. I asked whether they would watch the short if they saw the poster first. This was done to see whether my poster is effective enough to promote the film seeing as they now know the plot (if they understood it).

Below, are the final 3 questions which focused around criticisms of the film. Whether the audience would recommend the short to anyone else, what scenes or features they liked and any criticisms (positive and negative). This will enable me to see how far my film is doing in regards to what's good and what's bad. For a short film, this would be important due to fact that because it is short in duration, the audience will need to like it to remember it. And if someone doesn't wish to share the film, then it shows that it does not exactly satisfy the audience and immense improvement will need to be made. If this was done before the final release of a film, then changes can be made before it is distributed.

- Results -

For the first question, 33.3% of the 9 people surveyed said they felt tense and 33.3% said they felt scared. This is a positive thing due to the fact that horror films are meant to make people feel tense and somewhat uncomfortable. However, 2 people said they were confused and this could be due to the way I presented my story because of the lack of dialogue or anything significant that could help them understand. Although, one person did say they were intrigued, this could be due to one of the effects of horror, most likely the drip-effect, which means that as one is gradually exposed to a subject over time (in this case, horror films), their attitude towards that theme or subject will change. So maybe that one participant, was used to such themes of horror, to the point at which it doesn't frighten them or they just wasn't too scared of the film. Which in this case would be negative seeing as this is the opposite effect of what I wanted my film to do.

With regards to question 2, most people did get the plot of the film correctly. With a majority of them mentioning the girl and the being under the bed. However, some were still confused about the plot of the film and this is an issue that may be a continuation from the first question's results. Most of the people were unsure of the ending, but I have decided to leave my ending open for interpretation.

About 55.6% of the people who took part, have said that the story was confusing, which is not the result I wanted, but the result I have predicted. This could be due to many things within the film such as the lack of dialogue to aid them with the narrative or because of the way I have sequenced the film in post-production. Therefore, the reading model from my film is negotiated reading, due to the fact that they were able to establish the plot, but there were still areas of confusion.

Another question that I have asked my audience is whether they preferred open endings or closed endings. Helping see whether they got confused because of the open ending. However, a majority of the participants preferred the open ending to the closed, suggesting that doing an open ending may have been better than a closed one.

For question 5, about 56% of the audience said that they would watch the film if they saw this poster. Whereas, 33% said maybe, meaning that in order for a poster to be truly effective in promoting a film, it would depend on what other marketing/promotion is made about the film that could bring them to watch the film. For example, reviews would be a good way to see whether a film is worth watching or not. And trailers are another good way to find out about a film before it has been released. These would probably have been a more effective way to promote a film rather than a poster.

Out of all the people who took the survey, 2 of them said they wouldn't recommend the film. Leaving the rest of them saying that they would. One comment that caught my eye is the one that said:
"I'd say I would! It's definitely a very interesting short. The camera was a little shaky, but the sound design was very, very good in my opinion. It had me tensing up, expecting some kind of jump scare." 
This response and the responses that were similar has really uplifted me due to the fact that it illustrates that people were able to look at my film from an in depth perspective. Looking at features such as camerawork, sound and narratives. In which I have thought about deeply and tried to integrate as best as I can and produce a film that is clear, understandable and tense at the same time. This also suggests that there is something about my short that is captivating to my audience, but I have left this question to be an open one to allow my audience to truthly say whether they would recommend the film or not. One of the participants who said no, said that the film "didn't make them feel anything." Now although they were being truthful, this shows that there is room for improvement in my film or (with assumption) that they did not like the film I produced. This is understandable seeing as everyone does have different tastes in regards to film genre and subgenres. But as filmmakers, this would be an issue that we would need to face against and understand as we live in a subjective world full of varying opinions and tastes.

I have left this question as optional due to the fact that I wanted to see which specific points my audience liked  or disliked. From this we can see that there were a variety of sectors that people liked and disliked. For example, one person liked the various shots of under the gap, however, another person said that this was too repetitive. Another person recognised a scene where there was a continuity error in which should have been sorted out, but to re-film that scene as exactly as it should be would've been very time consuming and difficult. One other said how they liked the acting of the main girl and a majority liked the sound used. This demonstrates that my film does have many positives but still needs polishing in regards to editing and the actual story. However, this also portrays that the audience is aware of what is occurring in the film. That they are able to identify errors and positives, showing that they were watching the film with full attention, which is what we need in order for us to see what needs improving and what has satisfied the audience.

The final question was asking the audience to critique my film as a whole, including positives and negatives. Some of the responses I have received were very insightful and helpful in regards to what exactly needs improving and what is seen as positives to the film. Whereas, some were not as indefinite as I wanted it to be. This could be due to the fact that some of the people who took the survey did not have enough time to make a long paragraph about the film. All in all, these comments have really helped me reflect on my film. One critique that I was interested in was the long one, in which this person has explained where errors have been made such as the sound being forced, but they have also made suggestions to what could have been better such as placing the sounds in scenes where camerawork has been effective and having a backing track towards the beginning as the child played. Responses as such are very effective in regards to audience feedback due to the fact that not only do they point out the mistakes made, they also propose ideas as a way to refine the film. Other responses have done so and most of them have included sound as one of the errors that needed to be worked upon. But on the whole, most answers included praise towards the good aspects of the film. 

- Overall -

When looking back at my media product and the feedback that I have received from it, I can say that audience feedback is critical if we want to be able to upgrade our work. It is also critical to see whether our films and products satisfy our audience and how much of it they understand and can recognise as a convention of the genre presented. I believe that my text has been presented adequately enough for most people to understand, but not well enough production-wise, but looking at the audience feedback, this will help me in any future productions and what I would need to do to make things more appealing to the audience. However, if I were to show my film to people outside of my target audience, the results presented would have been very different, seeing as if some of the audience members were not able to fully understand the film, then those outside of the target range would probably not understand it as much as the target audience. Which is something that I probably won't change seeing as I wanted to go for a more meta narrative approach to my film. 

In my overall opinion, I would say that it depends on the filmmaker on whether they see audience feedback as important. From this experience, I see it as very crucial. However,others may not pay attention to the criticisms and continue to experiment wildly. Creating various products that could have an outcome that will be considered a miracle or a complete disaster.