What have you learned from your audience feedback?

By Caitlin Robbins

Throughout my film making process I gathered audience research from a number of different people. At first I gathered it to see if people would be interested in my plot line and if they didn’t what do they suggest I change to direct it more towards my target audience. My first round of audience research came through my media class and my friends. When I pitched the idea for my film many people thought it would be amusing and thought the concept was original. However, most warned me how long the process would be. This original feedback helped me shape the whole idea of my film, originally it was a pretty abstract idea but with the feedback it helped me hone in what I actually wanted to come across in my film.

My audience feedback from my pitch of my idea to my class

The second round of audience feedback came after my rough cut was aired to my class, again I got a pretty positive response from my class. As when I aired my rough cut not all of my photos had been uploaded many commented on the fact that the film didn’t completely work as a whole as at this point there was a large portion on the film with only narration and no images with it. After receiving this feedback I found myself wanting to share my final film sooner so my vision could be fully understood. When I aired my final cut the audience feedback I received was on a whole extremely positive, I’d acted upon the feedback I’d received earlier and changed my film according. Without this feedback throughout my film making process I feel that my film would not have had the same impact as it did in the final cut.

I used many different mediums to get audience feedback; I have uploaded my final film to YouTube and I then posted links to it on both my Facebook page and Twitter. By having different forums for feedback it means that I also got a varied amount from numerous different sources. Some were more constructive than others as some were full reviews of my short film whilst others were one word responses. I have got audience feedback throughout making my film, so throughout the process of editing and filming I had constant feedback from different people whether it was my friends or others in my media class. Most of said feedback was positive, many of the people who watched my film found it amusing however, some did have to clarify that it was in fact supposed to be amusing.

Due to the nature of my film obviously it isn’t aimed at younger children so the age ranges for those who have seen my film vary from 16 year olds to 83 year olds. Even though the older age range was not my target audience those who were older seemed to enjoy my film as much as those in the demographic.