Q3 part of the Evaluation: What have you learned form your audience feedback?

For this part of the evaluation I will be explaining the help from the audience Feedback from different sources: YouTube, Facebook, Friends/Family and Questionnaires. The main purpose of audience feedback is to identify areas for improvements so I can advance and produce a better version or dismiss mistakes for upcoming tasks. But also the other use is the recognition of strengths in which the audience has identified and I could realise for myself on what I’m quite superior at then concentrate on areas for improvements. As a result, screenshots/images, charts, audience quotations have been used to mark/recognize the good and the bad towards the construction of my Multimedia Project (Short Film/Ancillary Tasks).

Audience Feedback Chart Results

Having created a Template Feedback Questionnaire earlier within the production time (posted on Blogger-PowerPoint- Audience Feedback Design) I have asked 8 of my friends (mixed genders) some questions regarding my short film and this is the outcome:

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Yes No Partly

Did you understand the storyline/narrative?

Question 1

As the chart shows that question, being about the understanding of the story line/narrative the results are quite positive.6 out of 8 people answered Yes to this with 0 No’s and 2, Partly.This tells me that the storyline/narrative was quite basic and understandable as I have planned quite clearly using my script, storyboard in which only 2 people said partly. Looking at the

reliance of this questionnaire, I have asked some of my colleagues at work and with some of them, English is their secondary language thus this could be the problem to understanding the exact meanings of the narrative/story line and most importantly the twist

Audience Feedback Chart Results

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Action Comedy Drama Horror

What genre would you classify this short film?

Question 2

Quite close to being a true story and also following the daily life of a student this short film is a Drama type.The results are quite surprising, I predicted a clear 8/8 with Drama however the results are quite different.1/8 voted for the Action type and my guess is the when the bullying happened and the action music used

have contributed to quite an action sequence but looking at the bigger picture the intention is to create the daily experiences of the bully and create sympathy. 2/8 people chose Horror and this could be due to the blood use/wrist cutting, the opening that was quite dark. Through this I have learned that the music plays an important part in contributing to the film Genre as well as the use of dark sequences which have been very effective to the misunderstanding of the audience.

Audience Feedback Chart Results

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Sympathy Deserves it Don't Care Other

How do you feel about the Main character: Question 3

In my opinion this is a strength within my short film as I have tried to create a clear sympathetic view towards the main character.Using the violence, music track (Wounded Click to play) I have build quite a clear picture that the central character is has a disturbed life with the constant bullying

as well as cyber bullying and his parents being alcoholics as portrayed by the Spirit bottle (Vodka). With this outcome I have learned that combining the music/video as well as the dialogue (swearing towards the protagonist character) can easily get the point across, for example ambitious music, person singing, the dialogue of people telling him/her they are good at singing could create a quite transparent picture of the audience feeling aspirated to do an something; targeting their goal for the future.

Audience Feedback Chart Results

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Was the story predictable?Question 4

Based on the chart, this outcome is an area for improvement. With a twist at the end of the short film I thought that the story was unpredictable but knowing that there are quite a lot of short films/movies/songs and even books of similar storylines it appears that the audience has gained quite a knowledge of this plot.My view was that giving the audience a bullied central character, they’d instantly think that he’d commit suicide

and to top that up I gave some shots of the protagonist character attempting suicide but the next day we unexpectantly find out that he survived and the bully has died due to his violent father. However, due to the fact that the handheld camera shots identified the two locations between the bullies house and the central characters and also the scratches/bruises of the bully as well from the beating up showed the fact that both of these characters were oppressed/harassed which could have hinted/connoted that one of them is going to die as a result 4/8 people voted a Yes to the predictive story.

Audience Feedback Chart Results

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No of people

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Yes No Partly

Did the film contain the characteristics to be a short film?

Question 5

As I researched numerous short films and looked for the conventions of such as well as the planning of the: script/characterisation, step by step I have achieved quite a positive view of 7/8 people saying Yes to my short film possessing the characteristics of an actual short film. With the duration of approximately 6

minutes long and a small cast (4 main characters) my short film has no real time wasting and it gets to the plot at the instance with every shot/object denoting something that reveals an important message to the audience. Thus, it appears that the research/planning have paid off to the contribution of making this short film.

Audience Feedback Chart Results

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No of People

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Yes No Partly

Was the music appropriately used and did it flow with the video? Question 6

The chart clearly shows that a high proportion of people felt that the music was inappropriate to the video, 4/8 people voted a No to this question. When the first bullying sequence happened the audience felt that the music was too “dramatic” for the actual footage and it gave

out a false occurrence of what actually was happening. Moreover, the second bullying sequence, ‘the music was also ‘dramatic’ and hardly anything happened’ (a viewers opinion). This showed me that using such music is inappropriate if it doesn’t match, for example action music needs action, sad music needs sadness (bullying). Another weakness was the use of the nursery rhyme ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’, click to play , although this was quite a more serious version the actual feeling from the audience’s childhoods didn’t disappear and it made the sequence less serious of what its meant to be. Consequently, I have learned that the music needs to fit with the video perfectly without dramatising/exaggeration as well as the appropriate choice of music.

Audience Feedback Chart Results

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No of people

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Yes No Partly

Were the transitions appropriatley used (Fadein/out)?

Question 7

With the draft short film that I created, my friend (Laura O’Connor) suggested that I should use transitions (Fade in/out) and I took that on board and created the Final Version of my short film with additional Fade in/out where I thought was appropriate.However, the chart shows otherwise with 2 people voting No and 2

choosing Partly. As a result having watched the film numerous of times to identify what has gone wrong about the use of these transitions I came up to a conclusion; there are far too many and they also change the whole location. For example, when the central character is in the house, there’s a fade out to the pill taking and a fade in back to the protagonist character’s house. The location changing is supposed to be concealed and make the audience think that the bullied character is the pill user but the fade in/out contribute to the confusion between two characters.I also learned that every suggestion/feedback can never be 100% accurate and could cause negative aspects, thus great care has to be taken and consider if they’re going to be useful or useless.

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No of People

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What rating out of 10 would you give my short film?(Out of 5)

Audience Feedback Chart Results

Question 8

The rating of the film is quite satisfying. Having taken around 2 weeks just to film/edit I have put a considerate amount of effort into producing this and the results are positive.

Question 9, Areas for improvement. There were numerous responses to this question and I have picked the most appealing:‘A good idea to have included in this short film is another sequence of the abusive father to clarify the exact plot to make it understandable’.In my opinion, this is a great suggestion due to the fact that some people with basic English will have a hard time getting to understand the twist at the end and the reason why the bully dies instead of the central character, who is clearly bullied to the maximum.

Facebook Being the best/most visited social networking site on the net,

Facebook was a great way to gain Audience Feedback as I could post any type of file including images, sound files and videos. Thus I took advantage of this opportunity to attain useful feedback.

What makes Facebook so useful for Audience Feedback:

• More than 500 million active users• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day• Average user has 130 friends• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on

Facebook (source:Facebook)

Facebook-Short FilmAs I posted the video for feedback the result was very pleasing with 17 likes which gave me a hint that my short film was quite a good piece of entertainment for this audience.

I also received a suggestion, on the edited clips non-diagetic sounds. This person is clearly referring to the point when the central character is attempting

suicide and I have edited the clips to seem like flashbacks of the central character as well as giving the non-diagetic music over the top ‘Three Days Grace Pain’ which fits with the ‘pain’ the character is going through.

The other comments were extremely positive, thus I learned that my short film was very successful judging by the comments received.

Facebook-PosterWhile creating my Film Poster I posted two versions on Facebook and asked for more feedback.One of my friends suggested that, I should change the text around between the two as the right one looked more professional and more appealing. The text on the right saying ‘Cinema April 1st’, made a false advertisement due to the fact that short films do not appear in cinemas as recommended by another reviewer. Another point was that the title of the film ‘BackFire’ was too concealed and it should be in the front and inform the audience of the film title as well as the tagline which was too transparent.But overall, the poster on the right was far better by public views than the left which helped me choose and improve the final version of my poster. Facebook has become a really good source of audience feedback giving us a lot to learn.

YouTubeAnother great source of Audience Feedback is YouTube. Unlike Facebook, YouTube users can be anonymous of liking/disliking the video therefore it is not biased in the vein of Facebook as friends tend to guide your back. Why is YouTube good for Audience Feedback:

Source: Google images

YouTubeSince my upload of this video on March 9th, the views have progressively gone up (150 so far) which is very satisfying. Out of the 150 views I received 3 likes and 1 dislike which gives the video a 3 out of 4 rating. I am very pleased of this rating but the views are the most surprising.Although I didn’t gain as much Feedback with this social networking site the likes/dislikes are completely anonyms and

I’m unable to find out who has rated which is a positive thing that it has no bias unlike Facebook that I can see my friends comments.

More SuggestionsBaz Cloud- ‘In the beginning of the film you can see yourself in the door reflectionrecording in first person’. As I didn’t realised this mistake, my solution response was to make the shot darker in which the reflection would fade away.

Lance Sudeene- ‘Continuety error when the central character walks in, Dan is in both of the shots. This was also unexpected as the zoom in is very quick that is gives the viewer little chance to spot this. I could have cropped the shot to reduce this error.

Myself- I noticed that the bag in which I carried by props around while filming was in the shot but within the other shots it disappeared. This was also a continuity error but I was unable to re-film due to time limitation so I had no choice but to keep it.

Alice Harker- ‘The pills used are very small in number, to make it more realistic you should’ve used double/triple the number’. This was a fair point but in my view as I showed the pill taking sequences twice I thought that there were enough of daily dosages that lead to the death.