What did you learn from your audience feedback?

Throughout the film-making progress I have learnt the importance of constantly referring back to my target audience and their feedback. This helped me to shape the progress of my film and eventually lead to the finished product. My target demographic was adults and teenagers (of both sexes) aged 16+. My initial research showed me that this is the target age for viewers of my type of documentary. Before I filmed my footage and started choosing and editing clips, I asked my target audience what sort of conventions they expected and liked to see in a documentary, and what sort of documentary would capture their attention. One piece of helpful feedback I received was that most people liked to see interviews (as they were engaging and interesting to watch) instead of just being fed information. I therefore featured a wide collection of interviews in my documentary. Once this was done, I showed it to my target audience again and found that most advised to me give the people in the interviews a title/name. Initially I had thought that this would be unnecessary. Named interviews are usually used to add credibility to the sources, i.e. Professor of History. My interviews were with a wide range of people I met in a town centre, meaning that they were not deliberate or qualified experts rather accidental experts I chose them because of the area they live in. Also, due to the extremely fast pace of the interviews I felt that naming them would be impractical. However, my audience felt that the interviews would be much more believable if I used mini credits to

inform them of their importance to my film, i.e. Southend inhabitant. I have now included this feature at the beginning of the interviews. I collected initial feedback by asking people their opinions and this was verbally relayed to me. However, once I had roughly edited my film together, I used Google Docs to gain much more thorough feedback (see below 1) In addition, I also recorded (see below 2) some feedback. This was invaluable as it reminded me that my film had to be enjoyed and understood by my audience, not just by myself. I made three different versions of my film and each one was improved due to the feedback I gained. For example, one member of my target audience informed me that I could make everything look and sound much more professional by sharper editing. The beginning of my film started much more slowly and the sky montages were about three minutes long. With this feedback I cut the montages in terms of length so it was an introductory feature, rather than a large portion of my film. I also added more voice-over to give it a smooth finish. My audience were also able to tell me whether they would view the film were it to be released at a local cinema/film festival or straight to DVD. This was encouraging as I learnt that my film would be received well by the public. My target audience belong to a group of consumers often referred to as digital natives meaning that they are familiar with several aspects of modern technology due to the time in which they were born. Many of them therefore consumed films by downloading them onto their laptops (although some also attended the cinema.) This helped me decide the best technique for marketing my film. Many of my audience heard about films through trailers on TV or on the internet through social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. I created an interactive facebook page (including online polls and quizzes) to help engage with my audience. I also asked people what type of non-diegetic sound they thought I should use for my documentary. Fast piano music was suggested which helped me narrow my search for music. After watching the final version of my film, 100% of people in my audience

feedback said that the music worked well throughout my documentary, which I was pleased with. Not only did they help me with the film itself, but with my accompanying products (poster and review page) People told me that they liked the design of my review page and suggested key conventions such as star ratings. For my poster, they told me that they understood my key themes but that I should change the font in order to relate it more to the seaside atmosphere. This inspired me to almost completely change the mise-enscene of my poster. I downloaded brushes to change the typography and make it look like water dripping and splashing on the letters to symbolise the sea. Also, my background photo now has a larger emphasis on the beach and the sea. Frequently communicating with my focus group also gave me insight into how they interpreted my film. As the director, I had a clear vision in my head as to what I wanted my audience to think and feel (and even learn) from my film and I hadnt considered any alternatives. Stuart Halls theory of Three Readings can therefore be applied to my product. Hall has written extensively about media language and argues that there are different readings available to an audience through the consumption of a media text. Two readings that are particularly pertinent to what I learned are the preferred and the negotiated. My own preferred reading would be for people to watch my film and understand that Southend as an area has a lot more to offer than its stereotype. However, some people in my audience feedback did always completely agree with this view. As some of them live in Southend, they brought their own cultural competencies with them, forming what Hall calls a negotiated view; they agreed with some of my points although, due to personally experiencing Southend, also disagreed with some of them. In the future, I would keep in mind that my audience may not necessarily just accept my view and instead will form their own readings.