BlurredMotionPictures

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

WHY IS AUDIENCE FEEDBACK IMPORTANT?• We felt audience feedback was the most important part of our production because it is

vital our target audience is attracted to what we are delivering to them. Throughout all of the stages in our production we collected feedback to see if there was room for improvement.

• Before we actually made our documentary, we carried out a target audience survey, in which we asked our audience a serious of questions to see what topics/issues they felt were important in regards to the black youth of today. With this, we were able to come up with what content we thought would be suitable for our piece.

EVALUATION OF TARGET AUDIENCE SURVEY• From this we learnt black youth genuinely feel they are seen in a negative light. Majority

of other ethnicities also felt that black youth were portrayed in a negative way.

• We also found out that even though both blacks and non-blacks do feel this particular race of youth are portrayed in a certain way, they feel there will never be no change, because it is the MEDIA who make them seem this way so they might as well conform to this.

• With this information, we decided we would include the opinions of both black and non-black youth, to avoid being biased.

1

• We held a viewing day in our class, where students were able to view our rough cut. Our feedback helped us to find out that the audience did like the concept of the documentary, and how we stuck to the conventions. Our audience also like the fact there were different attitudes and opinions in our documentary, releasing a variety of information.

• OTHER POSITIVE FEEDBACK?

• However, they didn’t like the way the opening jumped from the ident straight into the documentary, they felt there should’ve been some sort of blank screen before this. We were also advised to include more transition cuts to create a smoother change in scene, enabling all characters to have their own section which the audience can identify.

• We were also advised to make our documentary a bit longer.

• Add in voice over.

• Add more facts

• Professional views

• With our feedback, we decided to make our documentary a bit longer by adding more content in there. This included footage from TV programmes and movies (Ross Kemp and Kidulthood). We realised while watching over our documentary that the ‘fact-slide’ went by too quick, not giving the audience enough time to read the information which was on there, so we decided to extend the duration of this.

• Extending the duration of the newspaper slides also give the audience the opportunity to read without having to rush.

• In regards to the camera angles, we decided to re-shoot a few scenes to get a better focus and sound as we also discovered we had a few scenes where the background wasn’t as quiet as we thought.

• We decided to add in a professional view into our documentary, so we added Dr.Sarah Graham, an author of a book targeted at black boys, just so the audience were able to get a more reliable opinion from a useful source.

• We decided to add a voiceover introducing our documentary to the audience.

• A few changes to the titles were made, ensuring they were all of the same size and font.

• We got some feedback regarding the soundtrack, as it was louder than the speech some of the time, confusing the audience.

• Within the group, we felt we needed to turn the soundtrack down to a suitable level so the audience were able to hear the interviews and footage.

• We also realised we had to record our voiceover as soon as possible as this was at the start of our production, and we want to keep our audience engaged. By adding the voice this relieves the awkward silence at the start, keeping the audience happy.

ROUGH CUT #2 What did we do different?

• We decided to add the title in about 40 seconds in rather than at the beginning as we felt it would run smoother.

• When the professional is talking we decide to include some newspaper articles which back up what she is saying as further evidence.

• We also took into account the fact we did not have any footage, and with this decided to include a scene from ‘Kidulthood’ as this to was relevant to what she was saying.

• We re-shot Ashley’s interview scene, having him sitting down rather than standing up, with a mid-shot rather than a high angle. We felt this was suitable as he looks more comfortable with what he is saying.

• We also added titles so the audience is now aware of who is now talking/where the footage is coming from.

• We added a full scene from ‘Kidulthood’ to show how youth are portrayed in the media.

• We also added footage from another documentary ‘Ross Kemp London Gangs’ where the angry teens are expressing their feelings towards the government. We thought this would be suitable as the teens were black, so this is a very reliable source as our documentary is also about black youth.

• An interview from Zain enabled the audience to see how black youth are portrayed from the view of another ethnicity.

• Photos were added in whilst the youth were talking to back up their feelings. E.g, photos of council flats and london riots.

• We added an interview in from a GCSE student as we thought it would be a good idea to get an opinion from different age groups. E.g, GCSE students, Higher Education.

FEEDBACK – HOW DID THE AUDIENCE FEEL ABOUT THESE CHANGES?

• Our audience told us they liked our 2nd cut way more than the first cut and they were happy that we made the changes they stated.

• They felt the fact we had more opinions in such a small space of time, gave them the opportunity to take something they can then share with others.

• They were also glad that they were able to read the text properly, as we increase the length of these clips.

• However, from watching the 2nd piece, we felt there were still a few things that needed changing.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT?• As a team, we were able to include nearly if not all of the advice we were given. This included

changing:

• The fact there still was no voiceover at the start

• We decided to put a clip containing writing in between the ident and the beginning of the documentary as some of the audience didn’t like the way it jumped. We also added a ‘fade to black’ transition at the end of this just to make it look more presentable.

• We moved all the titles to the lower right hand side, as we realised some were all over the place.

• We added a ‘fade to black’ transition at the end so it ends more smoothly than it did due to the audience being a bit confused as they wasn’t sure if the piece was finished or not.

• We had a bit of difficulty with the sound, but managed to overcome this issue quicker than we thought. We also decided we were going to play the soundtrack throughout the production as it was a bit weird that the music kept jumping in and out.

• With these changes, we feel our production is finally ready and suitable for our target audience.

ANCILLARY TASKS(PRINTED ADVERT

ANDDOUBLE PAGED SPREAD)

DOUBLE PAGED SPREAD. FIRST DRAFT.

FEEDBACK

• We got the mixed reaction from the double paged spread:

• We decided to change the genre from an interview to a review as we felt this will help promote our product more. Also, in regards to our audience, they are more likely to want to read a quick review rather than a whole interview.

• The audience also advised us to make the channel 4 logo smaller, but we figured, if we promoted the documentary in the text, we would be able to remove the sign, making it simple but informative for our audience.

• As there is no image, the audience weren’t sure who the target audience were, in regards to the gender. We decided we would add a photo of Shanique and Ashley, who featured in the documentary, creating synergy. We felt if we put the image on the left hand side, this will challenge the conventions, making our piece unique.

• We also decided to change the quote to ‘I Don’t Mean To Be Rude’ which featured in our TV printed advert, once again, creating synergy.

• The audience felt our double paged spread needed more colour, but as our topic is quite serious, and as the media see the black people as being quite negative, we felt a black and white layout would be perfect. We knew once our audience watched the piece, they would understand why we made this decision.

• Our audience were concerned with the amount of the text included in the spread. This is also why we made the decision to change it to a review.

• Our target audience were very impressed in the changes we made, even though they did like the interview they did agree the review was more interesting and made them want to see ‘Blacked Out’. Overall, we feel the positive criticisms we received enabled us to come back stronger, keeping our audience entertained.

FEEDBACK EVIDENCE

PRINT ADVERT PROGRESS• After this feedback, I created a print advert that had a female character in it. How ever, to

avoid male audiences feeling excluded from the print, we decided not to do one with each character individually but included them both in one picture. Our feedback allowed us to maximise the success of our target audience by widening the audience margin.

• While making the changes, I thought it would be beneficial to adjust our first poster and keep it as an alternate option. This way, I was satisfied with my poster and so were our audience. I chose to do this as I received positive feedback on the simplicity of our first draft. The audience said that they found it easy on the eye and simple, so I wanted to keep it this way.

Block text adjusted

We added a photo of both male and female

Channel 4 colour changed accordingly

CONCLUDE• With out the feedback, I would not have recognised specific flaws with my Print Advert.

Feedback meant I was able to acknowledge, discuss, consider and change the negative things that were mentioned in the feedback and continue the positive things.

Overall feedback allowed us to keep on track and in touch with our target audience, enabling us to create the best documentary and ancillary products possible.