1. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK? Evaluation Question Three:

2. Why it is useful for media producers to identify and gain feedback from their target audiences. Media producers use audience feedback, using focus groups which represent their target audience, to help see what their product is doing right and what they need to improve on. The process is very useful as it means the producers can get a rough idea on how the film for example, will be perceived and reviewed for when it is officially reviewed. It also means they can change anything that may be seen as negative by the audience. However overall they can see how effective their products are before it is actually released. This can be a vital tool if for example there was something in the media product which audiences found offensive or inappropriate, it could save from them from a lot of hassle or problems. Quentin Tarantino has used audience feedback before releasing his films, for example he used it before releasing his most recent ‘Django Unchained’ with the scene where the slave gets ripped to shreds by dogs, this scene before audience feedback was a lot more gory, graphic and brutal before the focus group of students told Tarantino it was too much, and so the director changed the scene.

3. Media producers can gather audience feedback in a variety of ways. The traditional way is by gathering a focus group that best reflects the target audience and getting opinion from them. However the other ways include: - Box Office figures, for example how much money they make from the opening weekend, whether this increases or decreases can reflect quickly audience opinion on the film. - Reviews, from both established critics and normal user reviews, this can generate a variety of responses. -Private views, private showings of the film to specific groups to get opinion on the film -Awards, if a film receives any awards or even nominations this usual suggests that the film is doing well! -Readership Stats, provides estimates of the number and habits of people reading and watching media products, obviously a useful tool! -Forums, reading what people have to say on forums can help to establish how popular or recognised the film is, if the film is generating any type of buzz on forums even if its negative, it is still being talked about which is a good thing as it shows the film is getting out there. -Social Media, the largest part of the internet which is probably the most current efficient tool to gain feedback on the film. People now a days will tweet, write, and share anything, and are very much able to post their opinions on everything!

4. Before we released our final media product to the world, we wanted to gain some feedback on our main product from a focus group that represents our target audience. Our target audience are in the age group of 15-23, they are edgy and indie and are all regular users of social networking sites. Therefore we gathered a focus group of 15 individuals who fit in well with our target audience, who we obtained from Varndean College. We gave out our 9 question questionnaire to all participants and then proceeded to play our trailer to the group. After the trailer had ended we gave the participant as long as they wanted to answer the questions and then collected them up. In our questionnaire we wanted to include both open and closed questions, this is because open questions allow more information to be collected but are more subjective in their responses and harder to collate where as closed questions allow greater analysis of statistical data and are more objective but maybe prone to bias, therefore by incorporating both open and closed we gathered a range of different answers to analyse.

5. 1. Does the trailer make you want to see the film? YES NO MAYBE 2. What genre would you say the trailer fits into? 3. Which part of the trailer is the most effective indicator of the genre? 4. And which part is the least effective indicator? 5. What certification would you say the trailer is? PG 12 12a 15 18 6. What type of production do you think the trailer is? INDEPENDENT MAJOR 7. How would you improve our trailer? 8. How did the trailer make you feel? 9. Out of 10 what would you rate our trailer? (10 being AMAZING!!! 1 being Awful!!) Here is our questionnaire that we gave to all of our class, who then watched our trailer and then answered the following questions:

6. Answers from trailer questionnaire: Question 1: For this we got a mix of answers, however in general, the main feedback we got were that the participants would ‘maybe’ want to see the film after watching the trailer. Question 2: For question 2, the main pattern was that our trailer appeared to fit into the Thriller genre. However we also got answers that included crime/thriller and postmodern. Question 3: In general, participants said that the most effective indicator of the genre in the trailer was the use of props such as the drugs and blood, answers also included the voice over. Question 4: There was also a general pattern of answers with this question, where the least effective indicator of genre was seen as the party scenes/the opening of the trailer. Question 5: For this question, we found an even spread of answers between 15 and 18 age certificate, none lower than 15. Question 6: All participants believed that the film was an independent film production. Question 7: There was general agreement that to improve the trailer there needed to be better indicators to explain what actually happens in the narrative. For example one participant wrote ‘add more crime related scenes as its not entirely clear what has happened.’ Question 8: We got a range of answers to this question including ‘excited’ and ‘intruged’, but also ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘confused’. Question 9: Again we also got a wide range of answers for this question as well, however in general most answers were at a rating of 6 and above. We even got some 10’s!

7. We also wanted to gain feedback on our ancillary products, our magazine cover and film posters. Therefore we once again collected together a focus group that reflected the rest of our target audience. However this focus group was smaller than the one we used for our main product (trailer), we used 5 people, 3 females and 2 males from our class at Varndean who best illustrated the range of people in our target audience. We wanted to again include a variety of open and closed questions to therefore effectively gather a range of data included qualitative and quantitative. When gathering feedback on our posters we wanted to get answers about a range of them as we have several different posters, therefore our questions on the posters could not be too specific. We also included a short description of our marketing plan with the film posters. Therefore we gave out our questionnaire on the ancillary products to all participants including an image of the magazine cover and also an image of all the posters we used.

8. Here is the questionnaire we gave to our focus group in order to gain feedback on our ancillary products, we gave them these questionnaires and also images of the products: 1.How effective is the layout of the magazine cover in attracting the audiences attention, on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not effective at all, 10 being very effective) 2. What are your opinions on using several different film posters in promoting our film? 3. Do the selection of film poster’s compliment the Euphoria’s promotion? YES NO SORT OF 4. Which aspect of the film magazine cover would you improve? 5. Which aspect of the film posters in general would you improve? 6.Does the type of marketing we are using with the film posters appeal to you? For example do you think you would research further into the film if you saw the poster for yourself? 7. Have you ever read Little White Lies? YES NO If not does the magazine still appeal to you or not? YES NO SORT OF 8. Which is your favourite poster out of the four we have shown you? 1, 2, 3, or 4?

9. Answers from ancillary products questionnaire: Question 1: For this question we got a range of answers, in general the mean score was a 7, with the answers ranging from 4 to 9. Question 2: Here we got generally positive feedback on using several different posters, with one comment including ‘makes the promotion appear a lot more professional’ Question 3: for this question, in general most of our participants said YES. Question 4: Some participants did not answer this question, however the idea of making the title ‘Euphoria’ stand out more, cropped up more than once. Question 5: Again this question seemed to get missed out, however one participant said ‘give more information on the film’. Question 6: Most participants said that the marketing campaign did appeal to them, however in general they said, they would only research the film if they had free time or were bored. Question 7: Those that said they had never read Little White Lies, most said that the magazine would appeal to them. Question 8: In general the favourite posters were between these two :

10. OTHER METHODS OF COLLECTING FEEDBACK: As well as the questionnaires we used, we would also collect feedback via other platforms as well. For example we will post our trailer and ancillary products onto social network sites Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr and ask our followers or friends to leave any feedback. However the problem with this is that it may be bias feedback if it is our own friends and family. Doing this on social networking sites will also create a buzz however for our film. After the film was released we could also gain feedback from looking at the box office figures, and reviews from critics. We would also look on forums and perhaps generate conversation about our film ourselves by going under fake profiles and posting comments such as ‘so what does everyone think about the new Euphoria film?’. Award ceremonies and film festivals are also good indicators for feedback, for example if we were nominated or even mentioned at a film festival we know we are doing well!

11. How did positive answers help to reinforce you intentions? The answers we gained from question 9 on the trailer questionnaire found that the participants rated our trailer at a 6 or above, therefore this suggests that our trailer effectively appeals to our target audience. We also gathered positive feedback on our ancillary products where participants said that the marketing campaign we used appeals to them, and therefore again this reinforces our intentions of attracting our target audience. The participants also recognised that the film was independent and at the age rating of 15, therefore I think we effectively portrayed this through the conventions in our trailer. Did your target audience understand your intentions? I think most participants who answered our questionnaires did understand our intentions for the trailer, most saw the genre as thriller/crime which is correct and recognised the juxtapostitioning of the party and woods scenes. However for the marketing campaign I do not think they all fully understood why we used limited detail on our magazine cover as most had not read Little White Lies and so did not now the conventions of the magazine in general. However most liked the idea of the marketing campaign with the use of several posters, which reflects that they understood why we were doing it that way.

12. How did any critique help to inform you of how you could improve the outcome of your production in the future? From doing this research we found that in terms of the trailer critique included comments that said the trailer did not give enough information and therefore it made it unclear as to what actually happens in the narrative. Therefore if we were able to improve the production, or re-do it, we would include more shots of perhaps the character, give some more background or perhaps include more narrative and scenes which include diegetic conversation between each characters which help to explain more of the narrative and relationships of the characters. For our ancillary products we in general got positive feedback however the critique was very useful, critique for the magazine cover included making the title bolder so it stood out more and became more eye catching, and for the posters, to perhaps include a little bit more information, to sell the film better. Although our intentions for the posters were to be very subtle, I do agree that perhaps some of the posters could include more information such as dates of release, or the directors names, just to help with enticing the audience in more.

13. Was this useful? What have you learnt? Doing this audience feedback has been most definitely useful as we have been able to see other un-biased opinions on our products and therefore get a fresh look on them. We have been able to find out what the audience think is effective, and improvements they think we should make on our products. By doing the feedback it has helped to illustrate that our intentions for appealing to a certain target audience have been fulfilled positively. Also the critique from the participants who took the questionnaires have suggested improvements that we could take forward and therefore produce a better overall product! From this process I have learnt that it is good to get a range of different opinions on the product in order to get a clear view of what it actually appears as to other viewers who see it for the first time. Some times it is hard to look at your own product and critique it properly, so it is usually best to get other impartial opinions on it.