(55) Evaluation Q.3
What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?
In order to obtain audience feedback on my short film, I created a survey for people to fill in. The reason I opted to use a survey as a device is that, firstly, it is an anonymous method people can use. This is important because people are more likely to answer truthfully (particularly if they're being critical) when they are anonymous, and I wanted to ensure all of my feedback was accurate to how my audience felt about my film. Secondly, a survey is useful because it is convenient for both me and the respondents as all of their answers are kept in one place and it is a swift and straightforward process, unlike sitting and talking face-to-face or on filling out a written questionnaire. In terms of my focus group, unfortunately, the only people who could respond to the survey were people who had seen my film, which is obviously a limited number of people and, therefore, restricts how representative my results are. I did not want to ask new people to watch the film in order to complete the survey because this would lengthen a process that should only take a few minutes as my film is approximately sixteen minutes long, therefore, I sent the survey to people I knew had already seen the film. The sample of people I sent the survey to, however, were quite diverse. This is because I intentionally sent the survey to people of varying age and gender, particularly middle age people and young adults, as young adults are my primary target audience and middle age people are my secondary (to read about this, click here).
In my survey, I asked the following questions:
Here are the results:
Not only did I produce a survey for my video, but I also produced two surveys for both of my ancillary tasks, one centring on the poster and the other centring on the magazine review. The results of these surveys can be found below:
So, what did you learn from your audience feedback?
Before I sought feedback from my audience, I had many insecurities about my film in terms of technical issues. Many of these insecurities stemmed from issues with the editing and audio, as to me, these areas felt rushed, even though I spent a lot of time and effort on them, receiving feedback was a great reassurance to have. What I can take from having positive feedback is to have more confidence in my work. This is important because, when working on a project, it is important to remain confident in your choices as working confidently will likely lead to higher quality work.
When discussing my video, a lot of people praised technical elements such as the cinematography. The cinematography was one element that I tried to not pay too much attention to detail on. This is because I wanted to make it very natural and very bare so that it corresponded with the simplicity of the film. This meant I spent little to no time composing each shot and often always framed the shot based on my initial instinct rather than spending unnecessary amounts of time thinking of creative ways to frame the shot. This is uncommon, as often students focus primarily on the look of a film over any other aspect, whereas I wanted to channel most of my focus on the story of my film. Furthermore, I chose not to spend too long framing each shot because often or not, spending loads of time on the look of a film often ends up with a very contrived and forced look. Sometimes this look works well with particular styles, however, I wanted to use naturalistic imagery and I thought that bare and natural cinematography was best suited to this. Therefore, I found it surprising that the cinematography was one of the main things mentioned in my feedback. Something I can take from this is that my techniques worked, and I know I can use this for future projects when I want to create a similar effect. Furthermore, I believe it also tells me something about my audience. To me, this shows that my audience is very observant because they notice tiny details such as the camerawork, particularly when, to me, the camerawork isn't noticeable. Understanding that the audience is observant is important because it allows me to test the boundaries of my audience and understand what they do and do not look for when watching a film. When I showed my film to audiences, I didn't expect them to pay much attention to minute details - despite minute details such as colour and so on being the driving force of the narrative - so it was interesting to learn that my audience does, in fact, pay attention when watching a film.
Another element mentioned in my positive feedback was the meaning they inferred from my film. I found this the most surprising to find in my feedback, particularly as the meaning each respondent inferred was different to each other. For example, one person compared my film's plot to the persecution of Native Americans, whereas, another compared it to the Nazis and Jews and another to the marginalisation of transgender people. The fact that all of these interpretations differed from both my main intention and each others' readings of the film was particularly insightful because it suggested that the audience were watching the film and taking their own meaning from it; that they were projecting their own experiences and biases onto the film and not just accepting what I was 'shoving in their faces'. This, to me, confirmed Stuart Hall's Reception Theory, in which the audience actually interacts with the film they are watching rather than remaining passive viewers. I expected my audience to just watch the film mindlessly but actually learnt that they were engaging and interacting with the narrative and characters. This idea is further reinforced by how my audience interpreted the characters. When asked, 'Who was your favourite character and why?', I expected my respondents to choose Bleedingheart as she is presented as the most morally sound character and, therefore, what they would be expected to support. To my surprise, none of the respondents selected Bleedingheart as their favourite character. Instead, a large percentage of the respondents chose Egon as their favourite character, and not simply because he was a protagonist and they liked him based on their preconceived notions of narrative in which the protagonist is the character they support. The reasoning most of the respondents gave was that they could relate to him and put themselves in his shoes. A couple even went as far as to say that they felt that Egon was a bridge between them and the film world. This was extremely surprising to hear as, even though Egon being a replacement for the audience was my main intention, I didn't expect the audience to notice. This further supports the Reception Theory because it shows that my audience was engaging and relating with the character and, therefore, placing themselves in the film and interacting with the story rather than being passive viewers that watch the film mindlessly. They don't just witness a story but, in fact, live the story. This was the main thing I learnt from my audience feedback.
When receiving negative feedback, I expected people to pick up on technical faults that can be noticed immediately rather than overriding problems, such as in the narrative, that require a second thought. I was correct in my assumptions as the only negative feedback I was given as a general comment was to do with the audio and a few acting gags, such as Beth laughing in a few scenes. Something I can learn from this is to gain more practice with the microphone, as this was an area that let me down because of my inexperience when operating these technologies. Likewise, I can take more care in ensuring that my actors perform to the best of their ability, or even take more care when choosing the cast. These minor comments have helped me learn where I need to improve in terms of my skills and organisation.
Another piece of 'negative' feedback I received was when I asked the question, 'who was your least favourite character and why?'. Several people responded Bleedingheart, not because of a dislike of her character but because of her lack of development. This drew my attention to my lack of attention in developing Bleedingheart's character, as I didn't devote enough screentime for her. The reasoning for this is that, firstly, as it is a short film I didn't have time to input scenes that weren't completely necessary in aiding the narrative. Furthermore, given Beth's limited acting experience, I don't think she would have been capable of performing in multiple scenes. This may be an issue with the casting, which is an area I have now learnt to improve upon in future. On the other hand, the majority of the answers to this question were 'The Preacher'. Although this was the answer I was expecting, the reasoning for the responses was what surprised me. When people explained why they disliked the Preacher, it was less about his character being conventionally villainous - which is what I was expecting to be the reason - but more to do with how the audience could see real-life political leaders in the character, and this angered them. What I learnt from these responses is, once again, audiences were projecting their own real-world experience onto the film, and therefore interpreting their own meaning based on their own thoughts. This proved to me, against my expectations, that audience's are active in their reading of a film and not just passive consumers. Similarly, when asked the question, 'What was your least favourite scene?', some responses were based on scenes that they didn't think were badly constructed, but were difficult to watch. For example, a respondent explained that the scene in which a woman mourns her child was their least favourite because it was 'too emotional'. This suggested that, as a viewer, they had become so engaged and involved in the film's events that it had become very real to them, making it difficult to watch. If the respondent was merely watching the film passively, they would not be so deeply affected by the scene, proving that audiences, in fact, interact with what they are watching.
These same ideas can be applied to my ancillary task feedback. For example, when asked the question 'how does the poster link to the film?', people picked up on particular things such as the smoke and the character. One respondent even interpreted it as the smoke being representative of Egon's downfall because of its connection with the terrorist. What I learnt from this is that Reception Theory doesn't just apply to films but to other media texts too, in this case, posters. This is because the respondents have inferred their own meaning from the image, purely based on a visual prompt and no other guide. This shows that the audience is projecting their own creativity and ideas onto the artwork to infer their own meaning from it, clearly showing that they aren't just passive consumers. This was particularly surprising, as it is merely a poster.
Another thing I learnt when receiving feedback for my ancillary tasks was that audience's pay attention to visual elements. For example, not only did all of the respondents mention the illustrations when talking about things they liked, they also mentioned only the illustrations when asked to link the magazine article to the film, despite there being screenshots directly from the film. This shows that audience's pay most attention to bright and unique things that catch their eye because they failed to notice something that linked more than the illustrations. This has taught me the best way to catch a reader's eye when designing things in the future, as I now know what audience's pay attention to because they were so fixated on the pretty designs.
In conclusion, I have learnt two types of things from my audience feedback: the first is how to improve myself and my skills for future projects. For example, how to maintain an audience's interest by developing characters and so on. The other thing I have learnt is how an audience interacts with films, that they are not just passive consumers but really do engage with films (and images!) by projecting their own ideas and experiences onto what they're watching and thus interpreting something for themselves from a media text.
In order to obtain audience feedback on my short film, I created a survey for people to fill in. The reason I opted to use a survey as a device is that, firstly, it is an anonymous method people can use. This is important because people are more likely to answer truthfully (particularly if they're being critical) when they are anonymous, and I wanted to ensure all of my feedback was accurate to how my audience felt about my film. Secondly, a survey is useful because it is convenient for both me and the respondents as all of their answers are kept in one place and it is a swift and straightforward process, unlike sitting and talking face-to-face or on filling out a written questionnaire. In terms of my focus group, unfortunately, the only people who could respond to the survey were people who had seen my film, which is obviously a limited number of people and, therefore, restricts how representative my results are. I did not want to ask new people to watch the film in order to complete the survey because this would lengthen a process that should only take a few minutes as my film is approximately sixteen minutes long, therefore, I sent the survey to people I knew had already seen the film. The sample of people I sent the survey to, however, were quite diverse. This is because I intentionally sent the survey to people of varying age and gender, particularly middle age people and young adults, as young adults are my primary target audience and middle age people are my secondary (to read about this, click here).
In my survey, I asked the following questions:
- Did you enjoy 'Consume'?
- What did you like about the film?
- What did you dislike about the film?
- What was your favourite scene in the film? Why?
- What was your least favourite scene in the film? Why?
- Out of the three main characters, who was your favourite? Why?
- Out of the three main characters, who was your least favourite? Why?
- Did you understand the film's plot?
- What was the underlying message you interpreted from the film?
- Do you think the events/themes of the film can be applied to society? Why?
Before I sent out the survey, I composed a hypothesis for each question. My hypothesis can be viewed here:
Here are the results:
Not only did I produce a survey for my video, but I also produced two surveys for both of my ancillary tasks, one centring on the poster and the other centring on the magazine review. The results of these surveys can be found below:
Before I sought feedback from my audience, I had many insecurities about my film in terms of technical issues. Many of these insecurities stemmed from issues with the editing and audio, as to me, these areas felt rushed, even though I spent a lot of time and effort on them, receiving feedback was a great reassurance to have. What I can take from having positive feedback is to have more confidence in my work. This is important because, when working on a project, it is important to remain confident in your choices as working confidently will likely lead to higher quality work.
When discussing my video, a lot of people praised technical elements such as the cinematography. The cinematography was one element that I tried to not pay too much attention to detail on. This is because I wanted to make it very natural and very bare so that it corresponded with the simplicity of the film. This meant I spent little to no time composing each shot and often always framed the shot based on my initial instinct rather than spending unnecessary amounts of time thinking of creative ways to frame the shot. This is uncommon, as often students focus primarily on the look of a film over any other aspect, whereas I wanted to channel most of my focus on the story of my film. Furthermore, I chose not to spend too long framing each shot because often or not, spending loads of time on the look of a film often ends up with a very contrived and forced look. Sometimes this look works well with particular styles, however, I wanted to use naturalistic imagery and I thought that bare and natural cinematography was best suited to this. Therefore, I found it surprising that the cinematography was one of the main things mentioned in my feedback. Something I can take from this is that my techniques worked, and I know I can use this for future projects when I want to create a similar effect. Furthermore, I believe it also tells me something about my audience. To me, this shows that my audience is very observant because they notice tiny details such as the camerawork, particularly when, to me, the camerawork isn't noticeable. Understanding that the audience is observant is important because it allows me to test the boundaries of my audience and understand what they do and do not look for when watching a film. When I showed my film to audiences, I didn't expect them to pay much attention to minute details - despite minute details such as colour and so on being the driving force of the narrative - so it was interesting to learn that my audience does, in fact, pay attention when watching a film.
Another element mentioned in my positive feedback was the meaning they inferred from my film. I found this the most surprising to find in my feedback, particularly as the meaning each respondent inferred was different to each other. For example, one person compared my film's plot to the persecution of Native Americans, whereas, another compared it to the Nazis and Jews and another to the marginalisation of transgender people. The fact that all of these interpretations differed from both my main intention and each others' readings of the film was particularly insightful because it suggested that the audience were watching the film and taking their own meaning from it; that they were projecting their own experiences and biases onto the film and not just accepting what I was 'shoving in their faces'. This, to me, confirmed Stuart Hall's Reception Theory, in which the audience actually interacts with the film they are watching rather than remaining passive viewers. I expected my audience to just watch the film mindlessly but actually learnt that they were engaging and interacting with the narrative and characters. This idea is further reinforced by how my audience interpreted the characters. When asked, 'Who was your favourite character and why?', I expected my respondents to choose Bleedingheart as she is presented as the most morally sound character and, therefore, what they would be expected to support. To my surprise, none of the respondents selected Bleedingheart as their favourite character. Instead, a large percentage of the respondents chose Egon as their favourite character, and not simply because he was a protagonist and they liked him based on their preconceived notions of narrative in which the protagonist is the character they support. The reasoning most of the respondents gave was that they could relate to him and put themselves in his shoes. A couple even went as far as to say that they felt that Egon was a bridge between them and the film world. This was extremely surprising to hear as, even though Egon being a replacement for the audience was my main intention, I didn't expect the audience to notice. This further supports the Reception Theory because it shows that my audience was engaging and relating with the character and, therefore, placing themselves in the film and interacting with the story rather than being passive viewers that watch the film mindlessly. They don't just witness a story but, in fact, live the story. This was the main thing I learnt from my audience feedback.
When receiving negative feedback, I expected people to pick up on technical faults that can be noticed immediately rather than overriding problems, such as in the narrative, that require a second thought. I was correct in my assumptions as the only negative feedback I was given as a general comment was to do with the audio and a few acting gags, such as Beth laughing in a few scenes. Something I can learn from this is to gain more practice with the microphone, as this was an area that let me down because of my inexperience when operating these technologies. Likewise, I can take more care in ensuring that my actors perform to the best of their ability, or even take more care when choosing the cast. These minor comments have helped me learn where I need to improve in terms of my skills and organisation.
Another piece of 'negative' feedback I received was when I asked the question, 'who was your least favourite character and why?'. Several people responded Bleedingheart, not because of a dislike of her character but because of her lack of development. This drew my attention to my lack of attention in developing Bleedingheart's character, as I didn't devote enough screentime for her. The reasoning for this is that, firstly, as it is a short film I didn't have time to input scenes that weren't completely necessary in aiding the narrative. Furthermore, given Beth's limited acting experience, I don't think she would have been capable of performing in multiple scenes. This may be an issue with the casting, which is an area I have now learnt to improve upon in future. On the other hand, the majority of the answers to this question were 'The Preacher'. Although this was the answer I was expecting, the reasoning for the responses was what surprised me. When people explained why they disliked the Preacher, it was less about his character being conventionally villainous - which is what I was expecting to be the reason - but more to do with how the audience could see real-life political leaders in the character, and this angered them. What I learnt from these responses is, once again, audiences were projecting their own real-world experience onto the film, and therefore interpreting their own meaning based on their own thoughts. This proved to me, against my expectations, that audience's are active in their reading of a film and not just passive consumers. Similarly, when asked the question, 'What was your least favourite scene?', some responses were based on scenes that they didn't think were badly constructed, but were difficult to watch. For example, a respondent explained that the scene in which a woman mourns her child was their least favourite because it was 'too emotional'. This suggested that, as a viewer, they had become so engaged and involved in the film's events that it had become very real to them, making it difficult to watch. If the respondent was merely watching the film passively, they would not be so deeply affected by the scene, proving that audiences, in fact, interact with what they are watching.
These same ideas can be applied to my ancillary task feedback. For example, when asked the question 'how does the poster link to the film?', people picked up on particular things such as the smoke and the character. One respondent even interpreted it as the smoke being representative of Egon's downfall because of its connection with the terrorist. What I learnt from this is that Reception Theory doesn't just apply to films but to other media texts too, in this case, posters. This is because the respondents have inferred their own meaning from the image, purely based on a visual prompt and no other guide. This shows that the audience is projecting their own creativity and ideas onto the artwork to infer their own meaning from it, clearly showing that they aren't just passive consumers. This was particularly surprising, as it is merely a poster.
Another thing I learnt when receiving feedback for my ancillary tasks was that audience's pay attention to visual elements. For example, not only did all of the respondents mention the illustrations when talking about things they liked, they also mentioned only the illustrations when asked to link the magazine article to the film, despite there being screenshots directly from the film. This shows that audience's pay most attention to bright and unique things that catch their eye because they failed to notice something that linked more than the illustrations. This has taught me the best way to catch a reader's eye when designing things in the future, as I now know what audience's pay attention to because they were so fixated on the pretty designs.
In conclusion, I have learnt two types of things from my audience feedback: the first is how to improve myself and my skills for future projects. For example, how to maintain an audience's interest by developing characters and so on. The other thing I have learnt is how an audience interacts with films, that they are not just passive consumers but really do engage with films (and images!) by projecting their own ideas and experiences onto what they're watching and thus interpreting something for themselves from a media text.
Comments
Post a Comment