Evaluation 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback.

An audience is one the most important things in television and cinema, so it is important that their opinions are listened to or at least taken on board. We created the trailer 'Avenue' aiming at a target audience of 16-25 year old's with a mixed gender. For case studies we used popular teen dramas such as 'Skins' as well as teenage soaps like Hollyoaks which also targets a similar audience to Avenue. We made the trailer as contemporary as we could to emphasize this by using younger cast for the majority as well as a homosexual couple, and contemporary problems of the stereotypical teen also such as young parents,alcoholism,drugs and the general love lives of teenagers as well.

As our trailer is aimed so heavily on teenagers it was important to find out what they thought of it so after making the trailer we published it to youtube, face book and made questionnaires for our fellow media classmates. This way we could ask a 16-25 year old audience if they would watch it and generally get their opinions on it, whether they thought it was good or bad etc. By asking media students also we can get to different audience opinions, an educated one with media studies knowledge and more plain and simple opinions.

Gathering our data in a variety of ways will also prove validity. Our questionnaires will provide quantitative data and Facebook and YouTube should provide more qualitative data. Web2.0 has been very effective in allowing us to gain feedback from our audience quickly, it has allowed us to attain clear feedback from our friends with minimal effort, rating systems like Facebook's 'like' button or YouTube's 'thumbs up' button have also been effective in giving us accurate easy to analyse findings.

Our first feedback came from friends and family, My mother and sister watched mine and they said they enjoyed it and was very realistic but of course this feedback is somewhat bias so we posted it on YouTube which allows comments from anyone viewing the video. We

Youtube Feedback:

Comments from YouTube users:

• "thaaats goooooood ;D"
• "Really good. It looks like skins or something :L"
• "Nice."
  
  Although not the most detailed or formal feedback it was still helpful as we saw these people from our age range enjoyed it and that we seem to have matched what we originally aimed for as dramas like 'skins' and soaps like 'Hollyoaks' are what we got our inspiration for in terms of characters and story- lines. The video itself also received 8 'thumbs up' which is YouTube's new rating system and acts as effective quantitative data.
  
  Facebook feedback:
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  This is the feedback we received from our Facebook friends (with irrelevant comments blacked out)  The feedback is very positive indeed with little criticism  in the slightest. The feedback suggests that the characters are well developed,the trailer has a fluid structure and overall positive feedback.

  
  

  Questionaire results

  
  

  

  
  

  We got a more mixed bag of feedback with our questionnaires to other media students but this was expected. We learned from the reactions of our teacher and the survey itself that the trailer (1 minute 57 was too long for a trailer and would begin to get boring. We were told that due to the music being quite dark we should again think about the timing as it may drag on and bore viewers. Another comment suggested channel 4 would of been more suitable for our soap. We disagreed stating that channel 4 has a lot of teenage dramas and the BBC needs something to rival soaps like Hollyoaks (like Avenue). The BBC have already been seen to do this with dramas such as 'Waterloo road' and other teen dramas such as 'The Fades' and 'Pramface' so there is evidence for our claim. It was also noted that some scenes dragged on too long. The main issue has been our longevity of the trailer, feedback for our narratives,characters,editing effects,music and camerawork have all been met with praise however, general opinion is that it is a conventional,realistic trailer with stereotypical characters and good camerawork.

  
  

  For the second draft we took the feedback on board and cut over 20 seconds of the trailer and made it more fluid. We felt that doing this will be enough to keep people's interest in the trailer and not to tire over the music as we felt that a 1 minute 30 second trailer was far more appropriate to be broadcast. The trailer itself could be shortened for TV however much like a film trailer which is usually 2 minutes is sometimes shortened to 20-40 seconds for television advertising.

  
  

  Overall audience feedback is very important as they are whom we are making the production for so we should take on board their critiques as much as possible, in this case we made the structure of the trailer swifter and shortened it's length while still incorporating the right amount of character development and everything else they liked about it.