What have you learnt through audience feedback?

Our imagined audience:

• Our imagined audience are aged 15 to 40.
• They are a more avid watchers of film, with more cultural and political awareness.
• They listen to a wider variety of music such as acoustic, alternative, singer/songwriter, etc. 
• Have a greater knowledge of British social realism conventions.
• Female or male though there may be slightly larger audience of females because of the nature of the narrative. 
• They may also have watched films such as This is England and Fishtank

This is merely an ideal and of course as in all things there are exceptions and abnormalities. For example within the age range you will probably have a spill over into the older age ranges. Uses&Gratifications theory can be applied to our target audience as part of it says that audiences use texts for personal relation ships and personal identity.

Teacher feedback: when we showed our trailer to our teachers over the course of its production there were various tweaks suggested to us from them, mostly they were to do with transitions and shot lengths.  A few times we asked them there advice on whether to include certain shots and there feedback was useful in our overall finished product.

    This pie chart is response we had from the screening of our trailer, we asked what genre they thought our film was, as you can see the answer they gave was predominantly social realism with a scattering of coming of age. Though our film is a social realism it could be interpreted as a coming of age film which is what our narrative is partly about. Two responses came back as adventure as you can see from this link they are obviously thinking of different codes and conventions to us.  Example of an adventure film, Indiana Jones

You could also apply this anomaly too reception theory which says that viewers view texts differently depending on cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

The bar chart below is to show the response we got from another question asked at our screening of our trailer. The question that we asked was how well they thought our trailer fitted with our genre, overall we got a very positive response apart from the one result of not very well however if you cross reference that answer with the genre that they believed it was, adventure, then this can be mainly discounted.

At the end of the screening the audience were also asked what there favourite part of the trailer was, with a lot of the saying the final scene with the hood. One person said "its a special moment in the trailer and gives you a real insight into what the film is about" This perhaps shows that we gave too much of our narrative away but i think the progression and the content of our narrative is more important than just knowing what our film would be about.

we created a poll on our blog as well to increase interactivity and to ask what age our protagonist the audience thought he should be. we dismissed the idea of using a female protagonist as we thought that this would create more problems than benefits to our trailer. 8 people voted on our poll and with 6 of those votes on the thirteen to fifteen category we decided that was the prudent to choose. The actor of Jacob is in fact thirteen, that isn't outlined in our trailer and he could be seen as older.

We started our research initially with a questionnaire, which we placed on survey monkey. Using survey monkey allowed us to easily share our questionnaire on Facebook and send it by email which maximised the amount of exposure to it.  Our questionnaire consisted of questions about genre and what people enjoy the most about and within that genre. The most important part of this was the questions about genre, as we needed to choose one at that time to be able to begin the production of our trailer. Not many people chose British social realism however we decided on a social realism film because we thought it would be the most interesting and challenging film to create.


when doing our poster designs  we had trouble deciding which one too choose, eventually we narrowed it down too two designs as shown on the left, we did not conduct a formal questionnaire or produced a poll or something similar however we asked a lot of people for there feedback and comments. Both posters were received with very positive feedback, people said they liked the urbanised feel of the one below and the fact that his expression could be that of exasperation and futility but showed the innocence of the character. The first poster is in fact our final one and the one that people and our group personally preferred. people contrary to statements about liking the urbanised setting Said they also liked the naturalistic setting and the use of the silhouette. Our groups opinion on why we chose this was similar to our feedback but we also liked symbolism of the sun.






Here is some feedback from our YouTube account:

Uses & Gratification Theory

The uses and gratification theory seeks to understand why people actively seek media products for gratification purposes. The theory discusses how users proactively search for media that will not only meet a given need but enhance knowledge, social interactions and diversion. It assumes that members of the audience take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory reveals that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs, suggesting people use the media to fulfill specific gratifications.

According to Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch's research there were 5 components comprising the Uses and Gratifications Model. The components are:

• “The audience is conceived as active.”
• “In the mass communication process much initiative in linking gratification and media choice lies with the audience member.”
• “The media compete with other sources of satisfaction.”
• “Methodologically speaking, many of the goals of mass media use can be derived from data supplied by individual audience members themselves.”
• “Value judgments about the cultural significance of mass communication should be suspended while audience orientations are explored on their own terms.”

four primary factors for which one may use the media:

• Diversion: Escape from routine and problems; an emotional release
• Personal Relationships: Social utility of information in conversation; substitution of media for companionship
• Personal Identity or Individual Psychology: Value reinforcement or reassurance; self-understanding, reality exploration
• Surveillance: Information about factors which might affect one or will help one do or accomplish something

Our social realism film can be related to these factors to explain why an audience may be attracted to see our film. Social realism is often a common conversation as it reflects everyday life therefore we address the idea of personal relationships. 

personal identity can also be applied to our film, as the audience form opinions of the characters portrayed. For example, some viewers, may be able to relate the young boy who we are portraying as innocent but is influenced by bad behaviour because of the environment in which he lives which creates a bond between the on-screen character and the audience, so they are likely to become more invested in the outcome of the film. The audience could also consider the characters as aspirational, which would also affect the intensity of their attraction to the film. By viewing the effects of the characters' corrupt behaviour causing them to be punished may also be considered within our trailer to teach the audience lessons in terms of appropriate behaviour,which falls under the category of surveillance, as the audience form their own conclusions of how they would deal with or avoid the situation.