Evaluation Question 4: How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Constrution, Research & Planning and Evaluation Stages?

To answer this question I've decided to split the term "technologies" into two separate categories. These are hardware and software. I've decided to do this so I can show the different in how they've benefited my project. I'd shown this information using an image version of a PowerPoint I produced with a conclusion at the end.

Across the two types of technologies I noticed that I had used a lot more software/programs than I initially thought I would. This was likely because this year I wanted to try newer programs I wasn't familiar with or used much last year. I'm happy I did this as it meant I was able to test myself in a fun way as it was helpful to my blog. I found that each technology I talked about helped me in a different way. For construction I believe the most important ones to be the: Nikon DSLR 3300, Rode Shotgun Microphone, iPhone 6s, Photoshop & Corel as they allowed me to film/capture images I could edit to create my film piece. When it came to research and planning I would have to say that YouTube, Google Forms, Microsoft Word/Word Online and other online services (the previous slide) helped the most as it meant I could learn about the various things I needed to in order to know the codes/conventions and theories surrounding films similar to mine before being able to write my scripts in Word. Finally, Blogger was the main technology I used to evaluate as without it all my information would be separate but being able to upload everything to Blogger meant I could analyse photos and videos here. Other technologies helped my evaluating stage as well through being the way in which I would receive the information/image, such as the DSLR, PowerPoint, Google Forms and Prezi. To conclude, I would say I have used a large range of technologies to benefit my project in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages as all the technologies listed above have had a clear impact on how my short film, radio advert and poster were created.

Evaluation Question 3: "What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?"

To get an understanding of my short films audience I decided to create a questionnaire on Google Forms and I posted it to about 20 people. Not all of these people were able to complete my questionnaire in the time frame I had available so I decided to screenshot what responses I had at the time and split them into individual questions in order for me to better breakdown what I learnt from them. To successful talk about how each piece of audience feedback helped me I've decided to split this post into two parts. These parts are my regular audience feedback for my main task and my professional feedback for my main task with a short Prezi embedded at the end to show my conclusion.

Audience Feedback Results - Short Film:

I asked this question because I wanted to see if I was right in thinking that the male section of the market would enjoy my short film more than the female so asking this question allowed me to see this in a practical way. As you can see 86.7% of my audience members in fact turned out to be male ensuring my assumption to be right. This meant that I was on target for successfully understanding how to market a film towards a certain audience correctly. However, I am surprised more females didn't watch my short film, or at least take this questionnaire. It might have been down to the fact I wasn't able to cater to a females comedy desires so next time before planning to create a short film I will research into what women find funny in order to please their side of the demographic more as they make up just a high percentage of the population as men do so they are important for a film to succeed.

For this question I received data I was expecting. This is because I stated early on my target demographic for this short film was going to aimed toward the 15-20 years old section of the market and a combined total of 93.8% of viewers turned out to be these age groups. This means that I have successfully catered my film towards the age segment I wanted to meaning that I can be happy in the fact people my age are just as interested in watching my short film as I am making it.

I decided to ask this question as it has allowed me to see whether my film was successful with the gender and age demographics I intended it for. As you can see 75% of people loved my short film whilst 25% of people liked it. I was surprised these figures were so high and that I didn't receive any negative responses either. This means I have successfully created a short film that is funny enough to please my target audience making me confident on that if I were to release this short in a real life context in cinema I could expect it to me a moderate success at least.

This was an important question for me to ask as it allowed me to see what I had done right in the eyes of my target audience. As you can see most of them loved different aspects of the film which wasn't a surprise to me as film is very subjective. However, I want to try and breakdown why I believe their response is the way it was. The characters/narrator was named by multiple people, I think this was because people could relate to the characters as there were a number of people they could try and identify with. This and the way they were perfomed by my fantastic group of actors is why I think people felt as if they were the best part of the film. A number of people also named the humour as their favourite part. I think this was because I was able to consult Joshua, my partner on this project and my cast to help me write the dialogue for the film. Having the input of seven other people meant I was able to create a script that combined all of our opinions to create the funniest and highest quality we could for what we wanted to do. Finally, the other most common aspect people enjoyed was the way the short film was shot. I put this down to me and Joshua planning ahead and being able to storyboard our short film before we started filming as this meant when it came to shooting the film we had so much extra time we could retake shots and create new ones. This meant we were able to have much more to work with when it came to editing and as you can see it paid off as a lot of my audience members enjoyed this most about my final product, The Room. 

For these next two questions I asked them "Who Was Your Favourite Character?" and why this was the case to see who the overall favourites were so I was able to see which was they most popular and why. From doing this I was able to see what made certain character funnier than others.

As you can see the clear winner was David's character with 43.8% of people naming his to be the best. The reasons given for this were his reliability, his acting skills and his humorous fight scene with Lawrence. I believe these reasons were mainly given as David is the first face we see on screen so we automatically try and create a bond with his character as an audience member so we can become invested in the short film as we want to see what happens with him. These questions allowed me to learn what makes a character successful in my target audiences mind. This was a helpful question for me to ask as it meant I can use this information I have obtained and apply it to my future productions with the knowledge I could create more loveable characters for my audience so I could produce a better film overall.

I wanted to ask this question so I could get some quantitative figures about my short film. As you can see the lowest score I received from the audience was a seven out of ten. I still believe this is a huge confident boost as most people would say they strongly liked it or thought it was even better than that. This was a good question for me to ask as it meant I was able to take these scores and find the mean which turned out to be an average score of 7.8/10. This was a much higher score than I thought I would receive as it meant in a real life context my film would be a huge success with audiences loving it, in the case of my target market. This question helped me reassure what I had created was a worthwhile production that directly played to my audiences desires.

Every response I received were helpful in informing me where I had gone wrong when it came to making my film. The main pieces of feedback I got were comments about how I should have stayed in the room longer and shown a scene in which the characters reveal their secrets. Upon reflection I believe that most of these comments were correct and that the person that said "Some clips felt too long, car sequence went on for too long I thought" was the most interesting comment as I thought that was a funny scene. This told me that I still had a long way to go to fully understand my target audiences desires for a short film. However, I am still pleased with how my production turned out because most of these comments are small editing complaints or telling me what else I could include rather than saying certain aspects of my film were why they made it bad. If anything it was the audience wanted more out of my short film and I found this to be good feedback as it meant what I had produced was still entertaining.

Finally, I asked whether the viewer would recommend my short film to other people and the majority response was yes with it getting 68.8% of the votes. This result made me very happy as it meant I had made a short film people would be happy use their own time to introduce others to it. This ultimately told me that my film was a success as it allowed me to find out that people would spread a positive word of mouth about my film and as this is the best way a film can be marketed I am very happy with these results.

Professional Feedback Results - Short Film:

I'm only going to breakdown two answers I received from my professional as these are the only important aspects to their response in my opinion. These are the answers to the "How Could I Improve My Short Film" and "What Did You Enjoy About My Short Film" questions as they show the real difference of opinions compared to my regular audience.

Overall, what I've learnt from my regular and professional audience feedback questionnaires is that to cater my film towards more types of audience members I will next time need to have a clearer understanding of what women find funny so I can let them have more enjoyment from my short film. Another aspects I'd need to adapt is that I should consider spending more time writing the script to allow the quality of my dialogue to improve to a higher level so older people can appreciate to humour more. Since David was named the overall favourite character I am also led to believe that to produce a better sort film I need to give my characters more screen time as well as giving them more to do once on screen. This is because people seem to appreciate the amount David did in the film so I'd want to replicate this with other characters to let people have a better experience watching my film. If I were able to make all these changes I strongly believe that my final product could have been funnier, pleased more types of people and therefore more popular.

Evaluation Question 2: How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product With Your Ancillary Task?

For this year's project I needed to create a main task with two ancillary pieces that go with it to create one overall production. I chose to create a short film as my main task with my two ancillaries being a radio advert and a poster for my film. There are many ways in which these three pieces of my production can be compared. To show this I will be creating a subtitle for every commonality to summarise the main point and below I will talk about how I think they are effective with one another. Here are all three of my products:

The Room (2017) - Short Film:

The Room (2017) - Radio Advert:

The Room (2017) - Movie Poster:

David Is In Every Text:

As you can see/hear David Jones is in all three of my media products. I made this creative decision early on as I thought it would give the audience a chance to find something familiar across all of my texts and allow them to become more invested with David's story. I think this was effective as David (at the time of me writing this) was named by most people as the favourite character in my short film as you can see my results of my audience feedback questionnaire below.

It seems this creative decision was beneficial to the production as it allowed the audience to sympathise with David and it made them become interested with my project. This shows that getting David to be in all three of my tasks allowed my marketing of the film to be effective in getting people wanting to watch the film so personally I think the combination of these three tasks which span across three different media platforms: written, radio and film, was highly effective when combined.

Use Of The Same Outfit:

David in both the poster and film can be seen wearing the exact same t-shirt. I thought this was a good decision as it also allows the audience to link images they've seen to one another. This is effective as it means the audience can see David wearing the shirt in the film and think back to seeing the poster allowing them to remember certain secrets that might be revealed in the film. This use of similarity is helpful when trying to interest an audience member as it lets the audience reflect upon what they already know and gain knowledge to help them figure anything out the initially had questions about.

Repetition Of Dialogue:

In both my short film and radio advert you can hear the line "I'll be the one asking the questions around here" being said by the two narrators. I decided to write this line into both scripts as I thought it was an interesting way to link the two pieces of work. I thought that if an audience member were to hear the two narrators using the same type of dialogue it would make them think something is going on in the world this film takes place and make them ponder and dissect my movie more by making them as questions like "How are they doing what they are?", "Are there other narrators?" and "Do these two narrators know each other?" to name a few. I believe this was a smart technique for me to use as it meant that if this were a real life film getting released it would get people talking about my film more and increase the interest in the film.

Vampire Weekend's "A-Punk":

For the start of my short film I use this song to introduce David's character with a montage of him getting ready for school but, I also use this song as a backing track to the conversation between the radio presenter and the new narrator as well. I decided to do this as I wanted to use the song as way of taking advantage of cross media convergence and synergy. By this I mean I thought that if people hear the song being played in both pieces of text they'd then associate it with my short film. This would mean that I could get a free way of promoting my film as people would remember it whenever they hear the song and would likely talk about its use in film. I think this is an effective link I have created between the two pieces of text as it would be a way the audience is able to enhance their enjoyment of the main production because if they remember the use of the song in the radio advert they can take pride in the fact they noticed the song being used in the marketing campaign. This is also a very popular song with the generation I am looking to target my film towards so the use of it helps create a positive experience for the viewer the second they hear it as they're able to sing along hopefully making the film more fun as a result.

The Type Of Comedy:

I used sarcasm a lot across my short film and radio advert. This is because I believe this sort of humour is very popular and commonly used by my target audience. This means they are able to relate to what the characters are saying and can better understand the situation they're in as they would likely react in the same manor. This is effective as it allows the audience to feel empathy for the characters as they're portrayed in a way in which people think they can think they're similar to a certain character, allowing them to identify with a particular one and making them their favourite. I also used dialogue heavy humour rather than props or reactionary humour in both my short film and radio advert. This was because I wanted to make sure my comedy was more than just a toilet humour film and it actually made people have to think a little in order to understand the joke and it didn't rely on cheap tricks to make them laugh but instead it relied on mine and Josh's writing skills. This effectively meant the audience could have a better experience as they'd be able to rewatch/listen to each of my tasks and be able to find new jokes they didn't the first time which allows them to have a repeated good experience with my productions.

Teases About The Plot:

I wanted to make sure I let the audience have a rough idea about what the film is about through the use of my ancillary tasks but I didn't want there to be a lack of surprises in the film so in my poster I included secrets that might be revealed but others that won't be allowing the audience to keep guessing the plot details. Then, in my radio advert I made the presenter ask "Aren't you the voice in the film?" meaning that the potential audience members were able to release that the movie has a narrator and get a feel for this personality. These two tasks get the audience wondering what the actual film is about but don't give the true plot away meaning the audience can be 'hooked' into wanting to find out what the short film includes meaning the mystery surrounding my film until it is released would let their imagine run wild with ideas allowing them to create their own excitement about my short film.

Multiple Narrators:

I thought that using two separate narrators across the two media projects, the short film and radio advert, would allow the audience to create their own theories surrounding my film. This would then allow them to generate mysteries for them to solve on their own which the theorist: Roland Barthes says this is important as every narrative should contain multiple codes that the audience should want to find a solution to by viewing the product, in this case my short film. This basically means that the film, poster and radio advert should make the audience want to find out the answers to their own questions and questions others have about the three pieces of media. This is an effective use of a basic idea as it means the narrators become a narrative hook the pulls in the audience in the first place and should make them want to watch my main task.

The Simplicity:

Although this sounds like an obvious thing I decided to make sure the design of my poster and my radio adverts conversation were simple to match the simplicity of the movie. This is because I didn't want to falsely advertise the movie and make it seem like something it's not. By making the poster have a plain background it meant the person looking at it shouldn't expect much and this is the reaction I want as I don't want them to think my comedy set in a school will be full of explosions and other things. The effectiveness of the radio advert being simple is basically that the plot isn't revealed, it gives the listener a chance to understand the theme/style of the movie a bit with the reveal there's a narrator and it allows the people to become excited to see what the film is actually about. These both help my main text as it allows the audience to not have to overthink the movie and I won't deter anyone from watching it as it's an easy going comedy that doesn't require much thought meaning you can sit down and watch it at any time.

Themes/Messages:

I decided to make a theme of my radio advert that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I showed this by the narrator eventually being persuaded he should go watch this movie after initially being against the idea. I think this was an effective use of narrative as it shows the audience anyone can change. This idea links in nicely with the fact at first the narrator is horrible but after he gets what he wants he becomes a nice person again by freeing the people he trapped. He also reflects upon what the film has taught us and says "So what did we learn from this wonderful experience. Well I think the obvious thing is that everyone has secrets and they should probably stay that way. But if they don't stay secret, are you willing to justify them" allowing the audience to get a sense of morality as they ponder whether they are a good person and if they were the narrative would they abuse their powers or just keep what they know to themselves.

Now that I've completed this post I believe I have successfully identified that both of my ancillary tasks are important to benefiting my main production. This is because I've managed to pick some common aspects that link the task together and analysis how they benefit one another in an effective way. Upon reflection I am very happy with how all three of my tasks turned out and looking about at my plans for each the poster, radio advert and short film I have realised each has turned out the way I'd hope and I'm pleased with the success each piece got reaction wise from my target audience and questionnaire participants. This portfolio of work has also given me a better understanding of what it would be like to work in the movie industry as I would have to think about every aspect when it comes to creating posters and adverts to match a movie as without clear links my film could receive the attention it doesn't deserve for being falsely advertised so I'm glad I've learnt this now through the use of these tasks being effective to one another in multiple ways.

Evaluation Question 1: In What Way Does Your Media Product Use, Develop & Challenge Forms & Conventions Of Real Media Products?

To answer the question "In What Way Does Your Media Product Use, Develop & Challenge Forms & Conventions Of Real Media Products?" I'm going to split this question into three sections for each part, these are using conventions, developing conventions and challenging conventions. I'm going to be analysing these three parts in order of appearance in the question so I'm going to start with using conventions and to do this I am going to use JPEGs of a Microsoft PowerPoint I'm going to create.

 

I'm now doing to type directly onto Blogger and analyse what conventions I developed in the context of my short film. The aspects of creating a film I believe I've developed are the location, number of characters and camera shots.

The Location:

Typically in a comedy film the setting doesn't have a set location but when making a teen comedy it is assumed that the movie will take place either partially or entirely in a school. I did conform to using this convention. However, whereas a normal comedy film would have the characters in a class being taught or being outside on the playground my film takes it's characters into a unused room and they become trapped. I decided to develop this convention as it better suited my story rather than just having the characters in a normal classroom they could just walk out of. I also managed to use multiple locations which isn't common in a short film because of the budget being small so I'm glad I could develop and use multiple locations that include: a home, the road, a carpark and the unused room. I believe me using these locations allowed me to develop upon a convention I'm not a fan of in sort films as I like to see the characters moving to new places so being able to use different places helped me feel as if I was doing something different in my short film.

Number Of Characters:

For a short film and most feature length comedy movies it common to have a small group of around 3/4 characters. I decided to stay close to this number but increase it by three to give my short film a total of seven main characters. I decided to add more characters as I thought that a school is an environment in which someone would have more friends around them so I thought it would be better to include more people. I think this benefited my film as it allowed me to use different camera shots regularly which allowed me to keep the audiences interest as the shot didn't spend too long on one character individually.

Camera Shots:

I did nearly stick to just using the conventional types of camera shots and angles by using very basic ones in order to not over complicate my film. However, the shot in which I did a long take for the journey to school from the Horrabridge household meant I could develop this convention. This is because it allowed me to speed up the shot to about 10 times the average speed to allow the journey to appear faster. This shot allowed me to get some more comedic value out of the narrator by making him the one in control of the film and by adding the elevator music I was able to use an old conventions and reinvent it in a better way to improve my comedy short film as a whole.

Finally, I will talk about how my short film developed certain aspects of filmmaking to create something new and original. I'm going to display my work by using a Prezi to create a short but informative post about how I think I've changed old and underused conventions that rarely exist in normal comedy films.

To conclude, I believe that all three of my products between them use, develop and challenge typical film conventions. I think I've made the appropriate decisions when it came to deciding what conventions to use or not to better benefit my media products. This is because its allowed me to create a successful short film by trying new things but not stepping too far outside the comfort zone of making a comedy film. This has lead to me creating a unique product overall, I believe and hope it has lead to a more enjoyable short film because of its different qualities compared to what is available online to view when looking for a short film on sites such as YouTube.

The Room's Movie Poster

As you can see I used a design similar to my first drawing but there are a lot of changes too. This is because a few different factors influenced how I was making this poster. The first was that I was unable to find a microphone that matched my drawing and the only ones available to me were a camera microphone and a few different handheld because of this I couldn't make a poster about the narrator without compromising the look of the poster by using a cheap quality microphone. The other reason I was unable to stick with my narrator poster (drawing one) was because I was unable to generate the effect where I removed the facial features of the actor, Simon Hunter without it looking horrible as I'm not a professional with Adobe Photoshop. These reasons meant I had to use one of my actors as the subject of the poster and I decided to use an image of David Jones as he's the first character shown on screen in my short film. As you can see at this point I made the creative decision to blend the first and seconds ideas I had on my ancillary poster ideas list. This was because I felt having just his face normally wasn't appealing enough to draw attention to the poster and it also didn't represent the film properly. By including the zip over his lips it meant I could give the audience and idea of what my short film is about when matched with the tagline. I used a red front with a white outline as it matched his shirts design and I think the pairing works quite well when compared to the plain background as it makes it stand out more making it easier for passers-by to read what it says.

Upon reflection I am pleased with my final poster. This is because although I had changed the design during the creation of the poster I closely stuck to my plans I'd already drawn up, making it much easier to produce. I feel as if even though it is a basic design it stands out and draws people in because of its simplicity. This was the effect I wanted to create because my short film isn't overly complicated and has a basic plot so I thought the poster should represent that by also being simple. I was sure to include all the features I identified in my "Conventions Of A Movie Poster" post as the research I undertook beforehand meant I had a good knowledge of what was important to show on the poster in order to market the film properly. I'm happy I decided to include the tagline that matches the image of David having a zip across his mouth too as it means nothing was a waste of time when I created this poster as it's all connected and important to the short film itself. I got the inspiration to have some of the secrets written around David from my partner Joshua's poster. I am thankful for this as it meant I didn't have too much blank space but also as it meant I'm able to give the audience some more insight into what the film is about. Overall, I am extremely happy I managed to create a poster that suited my target audiences needs of having a character on the poster and I believe I did this in a professional way too.

The Room's Movie Poster: Initial Ideas

As part of this years coursework we need to create to ancillary pieces to go with our main project. For me, I need to make a poster and film magazine review of my short film. I thought that designing a few mock ups and writing a small bit about each would allow me to pick which would look and suits Josh and I's short film the best. As part of my questionnaire I decided to include some extra questions that would be useful for my ancillary's. Below is a screenshot of the question and answers to: "What do you think should be included on a comedy movie poster?" I chose this question as I thought it would be best for me to get an understanding of what best resonates with people when it comes to a comedy film. The clearest choice is the include the characters as the main feature of the poster as 16/17 people that took my survey answered this way. 

I broke up "The Characters" into two categories as I thought I could either go with a picture of the mystery narrator or the group of teenage friends. After doing this I then gave each group two separate poster designs that featured just them. 1 is a close up of the narrator sat in the dark with a light emerging from behind him with a microphone placed in the center in front of him. 2 is an extreme close up of the narrators lips/chins with a zip photoshopped on but slightly open. 3 is meant to show the group of teenagers looking out the door of the room they become locked in with a comical but scared expression on their faces. 4's probably the simplest poster I came up with as it's only a line up of all the teenagers dressed separately to try and show elements of their characters personality.

Below the small drawings with some description I decided to name the positives of each poster idea. I did this because I thought it'd be nicer for me to try and evaluate each instead of just randomly picking one of them. After consideration I have decided to go with poster design number 1 as it looks the most professional, leaves some mystery to what actually happens in the film and whilst it does show a character from the film, it's not one the audience would be expecting to see as the poster character. However, I'm going to also make a few basic designs for posters that primarily feature a scene from the film, a prop or something obscure.

After drawing this I decided I didn't want to produce anymore obscure posters as I knew I wasn't going to pick any of them and me drawing and analysing them was using time I didn't want to lose.

I found this post useful as it allowed me to write down my main ideas and develop upon each of them without losing anything that made each idea good as I could just go back and add more information if something came to me. If I were to do this poster again I would add negatives about doing each poster so I can get a better sense at which choice is actually the smartest one whether than which one has the best positives as it could easily have the worst negatives too. You can see my film poster for "The Room" in my next blog post with a conclusion that talks about how I feel this task went.

Radio Advert For The Room

I am very pleased with how this ancillary task turned out. This is because I believe all my planning of listening to other radio adverts, writing a basic script, rehearsing it to identify problems, rewriting the script and the editing it on Corel to add music has left me with a final product that is to a professional level as it has all the needed traits to be played on the radio to market the short film properly. I believe this ancillary task was the best choice of the three I made as it allowed me to produce a high quality piece of work with less work required and time spent on it meaning I could focus on my main production more. I was able to stay on schedule when recording this because I chose strong voice actors that were of benefit to me as they were great at memorising lines and were able to produce great work with a low number of takes. This advert also does a good job of promoting the short film for what it is, a comedy that doesn't take itself seriously and has fun breaking the fourth wall. The only thing I would change is that if I could do this task again I would upload it as an mp3 file because that's the preferred format for a radio advert but as this isn't a real life production that will be aired on radio this isn't a problem.

The Room's Radio Advert: Planning & Production

I decided to listen to a number of comedy movies radio adverts in order to find any common traits and trends that occur. What I discovered was that each advert is quite different but there's almost always a back and forth conversation between two or more people. Due to this I decided I would create a small conversation between a radio presenter and a voice similar to the one in my movie. I thought that by doing this it would allow the people that listen to the advert to get a good idea of what my short films style is like. This means that I could rely on it being successful in expressing the tones of my film as it shows arguing and a self aware nature where the characters (primarily the narrator) can break the fourth wall.

As you can see this is a draft of what I planned to include in my advert. This was a quick 5 minutes sessions where I scribbled some notes on to a piece of paper. After I'd written it I gave another copy to a friend so we were able to see how it sounds in real life. Whilst reading it I noticed certain parts were flawed such as the part where the presenter asks who the voice is. This felt as if it wasn't a natural response as the way the dialogue was written was very simple meaning it was hard for the actor to give a real performance. Due to this I produced a rewrite to fix the flaws I identified so I could make a better radio advert. Below is the result.

As you can see I decided to change a few things and most notably I added a disclaimer at the end of the advert. This was because after reading the script I few times I realised that the add wasn't giving all the information in an understandable way and without "The Room, rated 15" people listening may have just thought it was a sketch on the radio created as a joke. I also managed to include more comedy within the advert by having the part where the person is stating if they begin hearing voices they believe are narrators they should visit a doctor. I'm happy I thought to include this as it gives the listeners a better understanding on the tone of my film whilst still being informative/fun.

I took this photo whilst my two voice actors were recording the advert on an iPhone 6s on the "Voice Memos" app. I did this to show that I have included a familiar face (David) in my advert so people listening would be able to go into my short film knowing one of the characters a bit meaning they could easier identify with the film and be able to believe the story better as they knew someone in it. The other person, featured on the right side of the photo is Patrick Thomas Ahern. He was one of the people that auditioned to be in my short film in the early stages of production. I decided to include him as the narrator as his voice suited the role better than any of the actors I used in the short film besides the actual narrator. This was because he has a low voice meaning he seemed more believable as someone how would original oppose the release of this film but Patrick had the ability to also become enthusiastic too meaning he could portray the difference of opinions that occur in the advert well after the presenter convinces him the film is worth seeing.

I used Corel to edit the advert together as it allowed me to crop Vampire Weekend's "A-Punk" into dialogueless pieces meaning I was left with just the music. I wanted this to be the case as it's the music I use in the opening shot of my film so I thought including it in the radio advert would be a subtle easter egg for people that watch the short film. I also used this music as without it the advert seemed very unprofessional. I was unable to convert the advert into a mp3 file though so to get around this problem I decided to attach my movies poster to the clip so I could convert it as a video and upload it to YouTube. You are able to listen to the add fully in the next blog post where I also talk about my feelings about how this ancillary task went.

Professional Audience Feedback

I made another questionnaire with exactly the same questions in order to see what a professional would think of my film.

To get a clear understanding of a professionals opinion I'm going to analyse one of my responses to see what they believe to be the positives and negatives about my film. I imagine the response shall be different as the persons age and life experience will change the way in which they watch my short film and how the perceive comedy in general.

Professional Feedback Candidate's Response:

As there are less responses for my professional audience feedback I will only be analysing this persons response. As you can see my professional in this case has answered very similarly too my regular audience. This wasn't a surprise as the candidate is still a relatively young male meaning his comedic desires aren't likely going to be very different to a younger males. However, as this is a professional they were able to give me a better insight in what I could do better next time. They said "Improve the ending. I felt like as soon as the characters were stuck in the room they were freed again with no real reason why". This has stuck with me as it completing makes me think of how differently I should have made my film. This is because I believe I should have made the opening montage sorter to allow myself more time to explore the events that unfold in the room. If I had produced this questionnaire sooner I believe I would have ben able to produce an even higher quality piece of work overall as I could use these comment to impact my writing technique to better cater towards more people of different ages.

Audience Feedback

I created this post with the purpose of getting the thoughts/opinions of friends and family, as well as some strangers after they watched my short film. I've done this because it's important for me to see whether it was enjoyable for my target audience and it allows me to see what I could do better next time to improve the quality for the audience. To collect this data I made a questionnaire on Google Forms and I sent the link to a number of people with the hopes they'd fill it out. I also left a link to the questionnaire under my final production on YouTube so any strangers were able to participant too. Below is an embedded version of my questionnaire.

I've decided I'm going to take a sample of three peoples questionnaire responses and analyse them as it means I can go into depth when talking about them without needing to repeat myself whilst completing evaluation question three which is "What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?".

I've asked:

1) "What Gender Are You?" - This is because I wanted to see if I was right in thinking that the male section of the market would enjoy my short film more than the female so asking this question allowed me to see this in a practical way.

2) "How Old Are You?" - I decided to ask this as I predicted that the best audience for my film would be aged between 15 & 17. This was because I've said my movie would get a certificated rating of 15 by the BBFC so I wanted to see what the most popular age demographic for my film was in the end.

3) "Did You Enjoy My Short Film?" - Although a basic question I still believe it's an important one to ask as it allows me to breakdown whether the audience member loved, liked or disliked the film.

4) "What Did You Enjoy About This Film?" - This question allowed me to identify my movie strengths so I know what to do again next time.

5) "Who Was Your Favourite Character" - Asking this question means I can see what character people thought were the best written and acted within the film.

6) "Please State Your Favourite Character & Why They Were." - This matched with the last question will let me see which characters were the best identifiable for my target audience and which weren't if they don't get picked meaning I can see which types of characters to include in any future shorts.

7) "How Would You Rate My Short Film Out Of Ten?" - I chose to ask this because I thought having a quantitative piece of data would give me factual data I could better breakdown to see whether it could be a success in the real life market.

8) "How Could I Improve My Short Film?" - This was an important question to ask as it means I can see what my target audience thought I did wrong/didn't do at all so it would allow me to next time better focus my efforts on these factors to make sure my short film is of a higher quality/enjoyment for them.

9) "Would You Recommend This Short To Someone Else?" - I thought I'd include this question as it means I could see if my short film could be a success in a real market as the only true good publicity is a positive word of mouth from the audience.

Participant 1)

I chose to analyse this participants response to my questionnaire as they're part of my predetermined target audience as their age and gender match what I intended for my films audience members to be which allowed me to centre my film around their typical desires in a comedy film.

As you can see from these results this student clearly enjoyed my final media product which has shown me that I have produced a suitable and enjoyable film for this audience member. This fills me with confidence that in a real market my short film could be successful one as other people would likely share the opinions and thoughts of this audience member. This participant also gave me some positive criticism with there answer to question eight. This is because they said to improve my short film I should include a scene of the group revealing their secrets which helps me know what I could do better next time in order to receive a ten/ten from this type of audience member. This response overall was useful to me as it means I could reconfirm my beliefs about whether I made a good product for my audience and it allowed me to see what I could do better.

Participant 2)

I decided to analyse this persons response as it was someone I hadn't considered targeting my short film towards as they are a female of an older age so I'm hoping they give me some information that is different than my usual demographics.

This participants response surprised me as although they were a completely different segment of the target audience they seemed to really enjoy the production and understand the tone of the short film without any issues. As they loved the short film I haven't got any criticism to build upon but, they chose David as their favourite character and stated "his acting abilities" were the reason for this. This has helped me as I now know what other types of audience members like in comedic short film as I can assume as David was this persons favourite they enjoyed the opening montage too as it starred him. This has made me think I could easily include other scenes like this successfully to please more people, making this response very useful to me when considering future projects.

Participant 3)

Finally, I've chose to analyse this persons response as it was one of the lowest scoring feedback I received when it came to the rating my film out of ten. I think analysing this will best help me identify the flaws in my film and hopefully upon reflection would help me make a produce something better in future.

What I've learnt from this response is that this participant in particular is a fan of action being mixed in with his comedy films. I've been able to come to his conclusion as he's stated his favourite character was Lawrence because he knocked out David and that scene in particular was his favourite as well. This has shown he that next time I could include some more action scenes or confrontational scenes at least to better cater towards these sorts of audience members. The answer for what I should improved was a little surprising to me as I thought it would be for me to include more fighting but instead I go a useful answer that made a comment about how I should show more of the arguments/things that are said between the characters. This has helped me understand my target audience better as it showed me that although I'd predicted my ideal audience member that there are others that don't conform to it and I should consider more peoples thoughts and desires rather than a select few when making a short film.

Overall, the feedback I received from this sample was very positive for me to get from creating this questionnaire as it allowed me to see that my product is successful with multiple audiences but, it also managed to show me what I could have done better too. This wasn't a negative thing though as it has allowed me to reflect upon my work in a more critical way and if anything it has made me more determined and confident that next time I produce a similar piece of work I can improve the quality further. However, I am still very happy with my final piece now and these responses are partly the reason for it because even though people managed to pick out certain flaws or things they'd change they still gave me high scores and responses saying they'd happily tell others to watch my short film meaning I can say this project was a success.