What have you learned from your audience feedback ?

The process of collecting our audience feedback

During the planning process of producing our product, a couple of members from my group created online questionnaires on www.surveymonkey.com to send out to people from our target audience. As our target audience is 16-22 year olds we thought more people in that age group would carry out the survey if we posted it on various social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. We also used e-mail to send the surveys to people in our media class as we need as much feedback as possible. Additionally in order for us to gain an insight into the type of product the audience want, the questions we came up with were to ensure our final product was as appealing to the target audience as much as it can be. To ensure this we had to ask questions such as what time would you like the programme to be on? what kind of programmes do you like to watch? and so on. After we all felt we had enough feedback to go off we all looked over the results together so we were all aware of the type of product we would be best producing before starting our proposal.

This graph highlights that 40% of our audience like melodrama soaps however 40% do not. Despite a large sum of our target audience not liking Melodramas, we decided for the type of issues our soap deals with, we would really be able to enhance and evoke emotion from the audience through the use of melodrama conventions, such as dramatic, emotional music. Various other melodramas such as Skins have a similar target audience to us, therefore we felt it would be best to challenge our audience feedback and go for our initial idea of creating a gritty Melodrama.

This graph shows the feedback from when we asked what our the best current soaps for our target audience. From the feedback Skins seemed to be the most popular amongst that audience, as 30% said that this soap is the best type of soap for our age group. This is possibly because the characters in Skins are all 16-18 years of age, therefore the themes conveyed in the programme are relatable to people in the 15-22 age group. After receiving this feedback we began to look into various Skins trailers and the rest of their products as this is the type of brand iconography we need to aim for.

For this question we asked the audience how often would they want ANGST to air on TV. Once in the week and once at the weekend and Twice a week both had 40% of the votes. However we went against typical conventions of Melodramas and what the audience initially wanted and decided to show the soap on weekdays. Although Melodramas such as Skins and My Mad fat diary are shown only once a week we decided that as our soap still has a British Realism feel to it that perhaps we could have it on all week days like other soaps such as Hollyoaks.

Here is the feedback we had when we asked the audience what names they felt we most appropriate for the teenagers in our soap. Firstly we were initially going to call our main character Rosie, however this name wasnt very appealing to our target audience, so we changed the name to Layla. The audience favoured the names Liam, Poppy and Sophia, therefore we decided to keep these names. Additionally the name Coco wasnt very popular, however we felt that this name was best suited to the more unusual, confident character, so we decided to keep it. Finally again the name Jacob wasnt favoured by the audience by using it for the main male character, however as Jacob is the lead antagonist for the soap we decided it didnt matter as such if the audience disliked his name, as he isnt meant to be perceived as a very likeable character.

When asking the target audience their preferred location of the soap they chose City and Towns. As we were thinking of our soap being based on university students a city location would be the most appropriate for the type of iconography we want to connote to the viewer. Therefore we felt that the best place for us to get the majority of the footage for our soap was in Manchester city centre.

Initially we decided on calling our soap Fresher's. 90% of our target audience also agreed that Fresher's was a suitable name for our soap. However not long after creating the questionnaire my group realised that there was another programme that had recently been broadcasted called Fresher's. I then decided to do some further planning and through developing the storylines I felt could possibly be in the soap I began to see a theme of anxiety and mental illness in general, which is when I came up with the name ANGST which refers to a feeling of deep anxiety and dread. Now we have developed our storyline I feel that ANGST is much more suited to the themes conveyed in our soap.

When asking the audience what channel they watched the most, each channel got an equal 2 votes. Our group then decided that the most appropriate channel for our soap to be aired on is E4 as this is the same channel that Skins, My Mad Fat diary and other British Melodramas that have similar audiences are aired on. Whereas channels such as ITV and BBC1 mainly air British realism soaps which have a much different target audience.

For the next question we asked our target audience What would be the ideal time of day to broadcast your favourite soap? The vast majority of the audience chose between 8pm and 9pm. As Angst deals with issues such as rape and mental illness which as inappropriate for younger viewers, we felt that it would be best to broadcast Angst after the watershed and by airing Angst at this time we wont be limited to the type of content we want to use.

Audience feedback from our first draft trailer of Angst

We screened our first draft trailer for Angst to our Media class to gain some constructive audience feedback.

From the feedback we gathered that: the audience liked the slow intro and how the trailer gradually picked up pace as it went on. They liked the change of music half way through the trailer which contributed to the trailer picking up it's pace. This is a typical convention for a Melodrama trailer, as it emphasises and helps build up tension to create a dramatic effect. The audience also picked up that "The editing techniques worked well together and stick to melodrama conventions"
Additionally the use of flashbacks, transitions and editing techniques such as slow motion and fast motion created a dramatic effect. However it was noted that we can improve: Some of the sound levels, to make sure the dialogue is as clear as it can be. It could also be a bit shorter, as it is a bit too long for a typical soap trailer.

What we changed
After screening our first draft soap, me and Alice and the other members of our group look at both our individual trailers to decide what parts we like from each trailer and what parts we dislike. Additionally we cut our final trailer down to 1 minute and 46 seconds, to make it much snappier and only use the most important dialogue whilst not giving too much away. As well as this we altered the sound levels to make the dialogue as clear as possible.

What we challenged

We took on board all of the criticisms the audience gave us. Although we changed some of the things the audience initially liked. For example when watching our trailers back we all decided that the intro was far too long and by using a shorter intro we would more likely gain the audiences attention. Furthermore the other trailers me and my group looked at such as Skins and The OC all had much quicker intros, which made us recognise its a common Melodrama convention as it dramatises the trailer. Therefore the snappier the trailer is the more quick cuts of drama we would be able to include in the montage of shots. In effect this creates anticipation.

What we kept the same

I especially noted how the audience liked the change of music half way through the trailer which contributed to the trailer picking up it's pace. As this is a typical convention of Melodrama trailers, we decided to keep it in as it emphasises and helps build up tension to create a dramatic effect. Additionally we kept the range of transitions as again it is a typical trailer convention to use various transitions when transitioning to another storyline.

Audience feedback for my final trailer (click on the link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kjM0M44NMo
After making the changes to our trailer I asked one of the students in my media class to give me feedback about the final trailer as a whole. She said that she loved the overall product as a whole although she felt the second storyline wasnt as strong as the first storyline but she felt by having a secondary storyline we were conforming to typical soap conventions.

Poster feedback

For the first poster I created the feedback from my teacher and other media students who viewed it identified various flaws with the poster. -The strapline refers to one character (Layla) but the poster shows each cast member. If the poster was only of Layla this strapline would work but by using the strapline with the current layout, it just confuses the viewer. -The I-dent isnt very clear and part of the E4 logo is cut off. -The E4 I-dent should be in the bottom right of the page, as this is a classic convention of E4 posters. -The different fonts used make the poster look less professional. -There isnt really a House Style.

Poster feedback

For the second poster I created the feedback from my teacher and other media students who viewed it identified various flaws with the poster. -The strapline refers to one character (Layla) but the poster shows two cast members and the main focus of the poster looks like Jacob. -The I-dent isnt very clear and part of the E4 logo is cut off. -The E4 I-dent should be in the bottom right of the page, as this is a classic convention of E4 posters. -The different fonts used make the poster look less professional. -There isnt really a House Style.

Final Poster feedback

Here is my final poster. This poster received much more positive feedback from my teacher and other media students. -The E4 I-dent is in the bottom right of the poster which is a classic E4 poster convention. -The characters face is in the top third of the page which is also a typical E4 poster convention. -The gritty colours link in with the rest of my products. This creates a House Style. -The soaps name and scheduling times are in an American Typewriter font which is associated with the E4 brand.

Website feedback

The audience noted that my website conformed to the types of conventions used in a typical E4 soap website e.g. SKINS. -They liked my logo at the top of the page as they felt it fitted into the themes conveyed in the melodrama e.g. Mental illness -The layout of my soap website conforms to the same layout as the Skins website. -The consistent fonts and colour codes create a House Style -The extra content such as Bloopers and Character profiles are typical of soap websites and provide the viewer with extra content. -The link to the ANGST twitter account creates a professional look which also provides the audience with user generated content.