Audience Feedback on ‘Freeze’By Lauren Hill

What we did…• When we made our first draft for our trailer, poster

and magazine cover we wanted to get some audience feedback to get some outside opinions on what they liked and what they thought could be improved.

• Firstly, we asked our media peers and teacher in order to get technical feedback to make artistic and creative decisions about our work.

• We then got feedback from friends and family to get opinions from non-media specialists.

• After making our adjustments and completing our final trailer, I then additionally made a questionnaire which I sent to people to ask for their overall feedback on the success of our media package including our trailer, poster and magazine cover.

First draft feedback- trailerHere is a complied list of all the different aspects of our trailer people suggested we changed:

• - Changing the ending from “5, 4, 3, 2, 1″ *gun sound* to “5, 4, 3, 2″ *title with gun sound* so that the ending isn’t so predictable and to heighten the tension and interest- this allows for narrative enigma.

• - Making the reviews and critics longer to give people more time to read them.

• - Shortening clips to add to the pace and tighten clips (For example, the lipstick scene and dialogue scenes to remove pauses in-between.)

• - Adjusting sound so it crescendo’s in line with the action and decreases when the reviews and critics come up.

• - Reducing the size of our critic names and enlarging the size of the quotes.

Feedback continued.• - Using pull out’s for the actor’s names so the clip froze when

their name appeared to fit with the film noir genre and also make it modernised.

• We then also got feedback from teachers and made some final changes such as:

• - The spelling of ‘Bribary’ to ‘Bribery’.

• - The font style in order to appear more modern in 2013 trailers by using ‘Bebas Neue’ font instead of our original font which looked too ‘cartoonish’. (As shown above)

• - Cropping one of the final camera shots in the garage to make the frame tighter to remove dead space.

Feedback on our posterAs the work on our poster was one continuous process, we didn’t do a first draft and instead just planned out the layout from our inspiration from the ‘Lawless’ film poster.

We got feedback from our teacher and peers and made the following changes:

-Used 3 words at the top as opposed to 4 in order for the poster to not feel crowded. -Changed the font colour from everything being white to just ‘Freeze’ being white in order for the titles to blend easier with the background and look easy to read on the eye. -Moved the credit block and social media websites to the left in order to fit in the additional information on the right.

-Include film awards and critics quotes to make the poster look professional and realistic.-Include a star rating- we changed the colour to red to differentiate it from the rest of the text and to break it up from looking like a big ‘chunk’ of text. We also chose red to match with the protagonist's lipstick to add to the continuity across all three tasks. -Move the actors names from the corner left of the poster to the right in order for the poster to look proportioned.

Feedback on our magazine coverLike our poster, our magazine cover was already well thought through due to initial research on magazine covers so we constructed it in one go.

Our feedback from our teacher and media peers, suggested we changed the following:

-Changed the font so that it appeared more ‘elegant’ and ‘girly’ to suit the magazine style of being feminine. Therefore we changed everything to a thinner, and elongated font style.

-Have our magazine articles running along the left hand side to follow suit of similar magazine covers and to leave her face and hair free of any text.

-Use the colour red to ensure continuity with the red lipstick across all tasks.

-Use the same font for ‘Freeze’ as we did for our film title in the other tasks to help create a brand image.

Once we had made all the changes we could possibly make, I then carried out some audience feedback post-editing in order to learn about what we could have done the next time or in the future had we had our time again.

In order to make this audience feedback as informative as possible I did both quantitative and qualitative research in order to create diagrams but also learn about people’s opinions in order to understand their point of view and their explanations.

Independent audience feedback- Quantitative research

43%57%

Are you male or female?

MaleFemale

14%

43%14%

29%

What is your age?

7-15 years 16-2425-3233-4142+

Here you can see I asked a range of people from different age groups and genders, but asked lots of 16-24 year olds as they are the most frequent cinemagoers. However we wanted to appeal to a wider audience too which is why I asked different ages too.

29%

14%14%

29%

14%

What is your favourite genre of film?

Horror/thriller

Rom/com

Sci-fi MysteryAdventure Other

The people I asked all had a broad range of favourite genres, however the majority liked horror/thriller. Therefore it’s good to have a perspective from people with broadly different opinions.

14%

29%

29%

14%

14%

What genre of film do you think this trailer is?

Murder mys-tery/detective

Thriller

Film noir ActionDrama

I then got everyone to watch the trailer and asked which genre they thought it was (this was an open ended question). I was interesting that 29% knew it was film noir, as it isn’t a well known genre, which showed that the audience understood the genre being presented.

Yes No0%

20%40%60%80%

100%

Have you heard of the genre 'film noir'?

60% of people had heard of film noir and 40% said they had not. However, as film noir incorporates many different styles of genres such as detective, action etc. people weren’t too far off when guessing the genre. Film noir is just not as popular as other genres.

14%

29%

29%

14%

14%

What genre of film do you think this trailer is?

Murder mys-tery/detective

Thriller

Film noir ActionDrama

Black and white

Colour Both0%

40%

80%

Do you personally en-joy black and white films or colour films?

Old fash-ioned

Modern Both0%

40%

80%

Do you like watching old fashioned or modern films?

42%

29%

29%

Does this trailer make you want to

see it in the cinema?YesNoMaybe

60% of people prefer watching coloured film and 42% prefer watching modern films, however 71% would definitely or maybe be interested in seeing this film in the cinema, which shows that the film would also attract people who don’t particular like this style of film, but are intrigued to see it. This shows that our package is successful in promoting the film and sparking interest.

Yes No0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Is the title memorable?

71% say that the title is memorable and 29% say that it isn’t. This is promising as the title ‘Freeze’ was meant to be short and snappy.

Independent audience feedback- Qualitative research

What do you think film noir is?

Dark films in black and white with lots of

drama.

1920’s style and sometimes silent

movies. Old fashioned films and sleazy

plotlines.

Underground plotlines with obscure and

artistic camerawork and maybe French.

Dark and sinister film

plots.

Black and white films,

mostly American with detective plots.

What do you think this film is about?

Male has used woman and she wants revenge

Girl is in a deal and has to take drugs because she needs money and

has to kill that man because of it

It’s about conspiracy and woman wants

revenge on the man

The woman got into problems with the wrong

guy

It’s a murder mystery and will have detectives. She could be a misleading woman and she

has a business that could involve taboo subjects.

As you can see, everyone has interpreted the trailer in their own way, which shows that the trailer allowed for narrative enigma, however this could suggest that our trailer could be confusing, as no one got it entirely correct.

From watching the trailer, do you think the main protagonist fits in well with the trailer and its meaning? If not, who would you have as the protagonist instead?Yes because she will

attract a male audience as this

would usually be a male role

Yes but she needs to act more in control as she owns an Empire.

She doesn’t carry herself well but the

trailer has been edited well. She needs to be

more feisty as she seems too calm for this

type of role.

Yes, it is a nice slant on an unusual

subject. It switches up the usual roles in a

film like this.Yes it makes a change that a woman is the lead role in this type

of film.

No, it needs a male character. Even with a female protagonist you would expect an older

woman.

Do you understand the meaning behind the title ‘Freeze’?

Yes it represents when the police put

someone at gun point

It can represent the obvious gun point freeze.

However I feel it also represents the feeling of

going down a dark alleyway and you have to

be careful about everything that you do and always be aware of

your surroundings. No I don’t

understand it.

Yes it means ‘Freeze or

your dead!’ like the

woman did at the end.

Most people said the same answer that it represents the police gun point so I only showed the answers that were different. When I told people that is also represented the street name for the drug ‘cocaine’ nobody knew it. However they thought it was a clever twist on the title to link to the plot but wasn’t obvious enough to the audience.

Do you like the film poster, and why?Yes I like the woman and how the title

‘Freeze’ looks.Yes I like how the woman looks on the poster she looks like

she’s in control. No I don’t particularly like it much. I don’t

like the font and everything looks too

big on the poster.Yes I like it, especially the quote “Film noir

reborn” but I feel that the rating and the awards are a bit

unrealistic.

Yes I really love the “Murder, Extortion, Bribery” at the top and I love everything! However, the

guy on the left is looking into the distance in his own world but the others are looking straight at you.

He needs to show more of a purpose. It would look more

effective if they all looked the same way as it’s more personal and makes you feel uneasy (in a

good way).

Do you like the magazine cover and why?

Yes I like it but it’s not the best angle

of picture for a close up. I think it’s

better face on.

Yes, the W really stands out and it really looks like a magazine cover. It looks good overall.

I don’t like it. I don’t think it fits well with

the trailer and poster. I think it should be

more continuous and I don’t know it’s

promoting the film.

I like it. Her face is really prominent on the page and would really stand out on a shelf.

I don’t like the font of the “Who, What, Where, When,

Why”. Also her makeup is too similar to the trailer and

poster, she should maybe do something different with her hair to separate the actress

from the role.

Overall the audience feedback has been highly effective in finalising our trailer, poster and magazine cover. We found that once we made the changes, we liked them a lot more than the original. By getting feedback from outsiders, we were able to pick up on additional features we could add in or change that we hadn’t noticed beforehand. It helped us to learn how to create a more effective looking poster and magazine cover.Audience feedback is really important in trying to ensure the success of our film as we are asking people who would potentially go and see that film or consider seeing it. By addressing our media package to their desires, it increases the chances of people wanting to see the film and it gives us a greater understanding of our audience’s preferences for our project now, and for any projects we may individually pursue in the future. The main things I learnt from this are: the trailer creates narrative enigma but could be confusing to some people, the protagonist needs to show more control, the left man on the poster should have looked forward and finally we could have thought more about makeup on the magazine cover. Also, we could have chose another magazine such as Empire to fit more with the genre and we could have experimented with making a portrait poster.