Explain why audience feedback is important to a production?
Audience feedback is vital to the successful of a production because the audience can comment on what went well within the film and what improvements can be made to improve the overall quality of the film. This not only allows us to know what the audience would like to see, but also gives us a chance to perfect our production before release. It is even better to pull in members of the target audience for feedback because they are who the film is targeted at. They can give you constructive criticism as to what they would like to see. This is highly beneficial because we could then take steps to improve and incorporate elements that they would like to see in a thriller.
How did you recieve audience feedback from your target audience?
To collect our feedback we showed a rough cut of our production to a group of members from our target audience for them to evaluate the work in progress. Once we had shown them our work so far we got them to give feedback on what was good and what could be improved or altered. We did this so that we could make our production better while still in the production stage, we took all the criticism into account and used them to improve our final thriller opening sequence.
How would this feedback benefit your production and the industry?
The feedback that we had gained from our target audience helped out our group immensely when it came to improving our production, it gave us the opportunity to see the negatives of our film that needed improving. It allowed us to make our film the best we possibly could while making sure it appeals to the target audience and meets their wants from the production. As part of the industry, the ability to gain feedback and make improvements based on it makes it more appealing to the target audience since you are taking into account what they would like to see. This could lead to the film being much more successful and making more profit.
Good aspects of our thriller:
- Hannah Mahoney thought that our editing techniques used were conventional to the thriller genre and that they enhanced the experience as a whole.
- Joe Waugh said that the setting of our opening sequence was a great choice because it was a dark, isolated area which is conventional to the thriller genre.
- James Barry said that the portrayal of characters and actors in our production was good. It gave him and other members of our audience an opportunity to relate to the victim, making it scarier and more tense for them.
Bad aspects of our thriller to be improved:
- Shaun McFarlane said that our use of cinematography was very limited. Suggesting that we should use a wider variety of camera angles.
- Cara Gaffney criticised our production by saying that the low-key lighting used in the first half of the film was too dark, saying to us that we should make it brighter.
- Scott Arbuckle said that the length of the build up the shed scene was way too long, he said it wasn't creating much suspense and that we should get into the action a lot quicker without time-wasting.
Our group did well to follow the set task we was given of creating a two minute opening sequence to a thriller. The feedback we recieved played a key role in a allowing us to identify what could be improved so we did. We tried to make our production as professional as possible to ensure that it was as good as possible. This allowed us to make a professional sequence that included many micro-elements, met the set criteria well and that the group was proud of producing.
We was made to make a preliminary task to show our current camera skills and so we can get very basic knowledge of using the camera and using editing softwares. It also gave us experience with things such as the tripod which I had never used before and it taught me that using the tripod is essential to getting good quality footage that isn't shaky. Our preliminary task used the tripod throughout and we saw that it had an effect on our video quality for the better, so we stuck with using the tripod as much as possible for our final thriller sequence. This gave us vital experience and prepared us for making our final production the best we could.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evfuCwXWbcY
Since we didn't have a girl in our group to be our victim we had Cara Gaffney portray the role of a young vulnerable female which is very stereotypical, implying that being a female you are automatically vulnerable and a member of the inferior gender group. Since our killer is a masked man (Daniel Armstrong) it underpins the representation that a male killer is very intimidating and powerful which is conventional to thrillers, as well as making sure to be mysterious to conceal his identity. We chose to have the killer target their victim in a well-lit area and carry out the kidnapping there to show him as being ruthless and fearless, making him a more feared villain by the audience.
The victim's boyfriend is shown to be a commanding, bold, masculine character, when he is gone the killer strikes which emphasizes that the killer strikes when she is most vulnerable, walking home in the dark. This makes it relatable for the audience. We used a young, blonde female because it is conventional to the thriller genre and it is stereotypical for females to be vulnerable.
Our media product uses a range of generic conventions, we incorporated many such as the use of enigma through the killer wearing a mask, the use of a young blonde teenage girl and low-key lighting. An example of a real media product that uses such conventions as the ones we used would be the "Scream" films. In all of the "Scream" films the killer wears a mask which adds to the sense of enigma surrounding the film which creates tension.
The masked killer in our thriller opening sequence is never revealed since it is, after all, an opening sequence. This builds suspense and engages the audience to watch the rest of the film. The female victim in our production was blonde which is a common convention in the thriller genre, she was abducted by the masked villain and killed in the end of our sequence, similar to the "Scream" films where many young blonde females are killed throughout the number of films.
Through the uses of all the conventions incorporated into our finished product we have created suspense and tension while keeping the audience of the edge of their seats and keeping them engaged in the conventional yet interesting narrative. Although we made sure to follow and develop common forms and conventions of the thriller genre, we considered attempting to challenge some conventions but we decided it was in the best interest our opening scene's quality not to. We thought our agreed screenplay would be sufficient without challenging any conventions.
