What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Question 3

I also asked 5 members of my target audience to view my final product and my two ancillary products. My target audience are teenagers 13-18 unisex, but predominately female as females tend to watch and follow soap operas more than males. I asked 4 females and 1 male. This activity surprised me by actually being a really helpful and insightful task, my target audience were much more honest than I thought they'd be. I didn't have any set questions but had set areas I wanted my focus group to talk about so tried to sway the conversation towards these areas: camera angles, sound, how believable the trailer is, whether that individual would watch Westview High and why. I got my 5 members of my focus group to watch in full the Westview High trailer twice.

My 5 members were silent and seemed very engrossed whilst watching it for the first time, after it had finished they gave a miniature round-of-applause, this demonstrated they enjoyed what they had just seen. Second time of viewing it they were a little less engrossed but this is to be expected as they knew what was coming throughout.

First I asked what they thought of the camera angles, most of the 5 said they didn't pay much attention to the camera angles and didn't notice anything strange about them. This is good as it demonstrates they ran smoothly with nothing negative sticking out to the focus group. One member of the focus group said they noticed there was a few times where the camera zoomed out/in from the where I wanted the attention to be drawn in the shot. Technically this was part of editing rather than camera angles as I did this through Ken Burns effect on iMovie. All 5 of them agreed they liked the music, they said it was similar to what is on other adverts and timed well in places with what was happening on screen. This, they said, made the advert seem more realistic of a trailer but they also did say they would be surprised to see it on TV just because it the title screens are a bit basic and the BBC One text at the end isn't very convincing. I am happy with this response and agree with them really, it is hard to compete with official BBC trailers when they have much better equipment and resources than me but am pleased my focus group were honest.

Lastly I asked whether they would watch Westview High. Five out of five said they would be likely to watch the first episode to see if it was any good. This is a good answer as the job of the trailer is to make people watch an episode, the episode's job is to make people watch the series. They all said they liked how it was teenage characters so they would be able to relate to them more when there's teenage storylines and school/sixth form scenes.

Focus group

To date 'Westview High' is had 78 views on Youtube. This shows how many people have watched it from start to finish, so doesn't show how many people haven't turned it off because they may have not liked it/found it boring. It has also had 1 like and 0 dislikes. The likes/dislikes aren't a very accurate way of telling whether people like it or not as at the moment it is only one person's opinion. The views counter, however, is helpful as it demonstrates people have watched it front start to finish so they were engaged enough to keep viewing and all watched it deliberately as if you clicked on it by mistake you wouldn't watch what you had clicked on until the end.

YouTube views, &

Online survey

To the left is a Slideshare presentation, incase you are unable to view the this here is what each slide says:

Below this text is all of the survey results charts, just click on each to see them in full.

Slide one:

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback? Survey results

Slide two:

Survey:

After finishing my trailer I conducted an online survey via Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey is an online survey development software as a service company, founded in 1999. This was interesting to do as I learnt many different people’s thoughts of my trailer and ancillary products. 50 people filled out my survey after I had put it on Twitter and Facebook. Only having this survey online does limit who would answer it as those who struggle to use computers or technology may be excluded but you can normally receive more answers and it’s easier and quicker to collate results online.

Slide three:

Question 1 in the survey: Out of 10 how would you rate the ‘Westview High’ trailer?

This was quite a positive, realistic response. All the views were above 5 out of 10, the majority of people answered 7/10 which I think is reasonable. I know I could have done better with this project if personal circumstances hadn’t have cropped up but what I did do I know I tried as hard as I could so I’m happy with most people thinking the Westview High trailer overall a 7 out of 10.

Slide four:

Question 2 in the survey: Based on the trailer you have just seen, would you want to watch ‘Westview High’?

There was also a positive response to whether the survey-ee would watch an actual episode of ‘Westview High’. As many people said they would definitely watch Westview High as who said Maybe and Unlikely. All of the rest of the people said ‘probably’ which is a really good response to a short, cheaply made trailer.

Slide five:

Question 3 in the survey: Did you understand the trailer was in reverse?

100% of people who watched the trailer and answered the survey understood the trailer was in reverse which is good because I was unsure it was actually that clear that all of it was in reverse, this is why I also gave the option of ‘I was briefly aware bits were reversed’, but nobody chose this which is good.

Slide six:

Question 4 in the survey: What did you like about the trailer?

These are the last 10 answers to this question:

•I thought it was very well thought through and it showed me a strong storyline which draws me in to watch and find out more.

•cinematic camera angles, general dark mood very interesting, reverse style was unique and cool

•The drama and westview high logo at the end

•how it was in reverse

•Interesting way things unfolded backwards, reversing the idea of cause and effect

•could easily follow what the TV show would entail and who the target audience was simple and straight forward, just enough was given away

•Simple premise but executed in an interesting and uncommon format, very memorable

•lined paper backing in title scenes

•The logo animation at the end

•the westview high animation at the end and generally how dramatic the trailer was

Slide seven:

Question 4 in the survey: What did you like about the trailer? (slide 2)

These show what parts people liked about the trailer. It is clear (and through the other answers beyond these ten) that some people liked the reverse format and two out of these ten people mentioned the Westview High emblem animation at the end. A few people mentioned how they liked how easy-to-follow the trailer was and how you can tell who the target audience is from the trailer. Two out of these random ten also mentioned how they enjoyed the drama of this trailer.

Slide eight:

Question 5 in the survey: What did you not like about the trailer?

These are the last 10 answers to this question:

•It should've been longer as I wanted more!!

•use of wording such as 'kids', potentially demeaning or unprofessional, also the don't and style of the wording not as cinematic/cool as the filming

•no speech

•didn't learn much about the characters apart from one is a druggy

•Seemed very rushed, not a lot of thought into mise en scène or camera angles, just seemed like you did what was convenient for you

•There was no speech Not enough characters

•No BBC one voice over at end

•toilet scene

•I didn't like the reversed sounds at the beginning

•how long the texting scene is when it's hard to follow

Slide nine:

Question 5 in the survey: What did you not like about the trailer? (slide 2)

These show what parts people did not like about the trailer. Two out of the ten random answers said they didn’t like that there was no speech and one person mentioned there was no BBC One voice over at the end, I chose not to use any speech in the end as as it was in reverse for the speech to make sense I would’ve had to ask my actors to learn scripts to mouth in reverse to then voice record them separately the right way round, and as my actors also have their A-Levels and other commitments I didn’t want to ask too much of them. Out of the ten a couple of people stated they didn’t learn much about the character and how few characters there are. One other person wrote they thought the trailer seems rushed, that I hadn’t given it much thought and how I only did what was convenient for me, I don’t agree with any of these as I know I put a huge amount of effort into my media product but understand that’s their opinion.

Slide ten:

Question 6 in the survey: Please click here do you think this cover of a TV listings magazine looks realistic?

I hyperlinked the ‘please click here’ of the question in the online survey to a picture of the TV listings magazine. From these results I am very pleased that the vast majority said they thought the TV listings magazine looked realistic, some said ‘kind of’ which is fair enough because I am very much an amateur at magazine design but overall am really happy nobody said ‘no’.

Slide eleven:

Question 7 in the survey: Please click here This is a poster to advertise ‘Westview High’, based on this, would you watch ‘Westview High’ / want to find out more about the show?

Nobody answered ‘unlikely’ or ‘definitely not’ which is a really positive response. I am also pleased everyone answered truthfully as I’m not sure I would answer ‘definitely’, I would probably be a ‘probably’ answerer too. This is also good as posters are quite uncommon when it comes to soap operas so to get such a positive response to this one is really good.

Slide twelve:

Question 8, 9 and 10 in the survey: I am… (gender, age & occupation)

These were just to find out a bit about my answerers. I found it surprising more males answered my survey than women, not sure why this was I just thought more females would be more willing to watch something soap opera genre-ed. I was unsurprised at the ages answered but also pleased with these as they are predominantly my target audience, the same with the occupation questions as most the answerers are at a sixth form/college.

Below are all the survey results charts (question 4 & 5 don't have charts as they were comment box answers). Just click on each to view them in full.

YouGov Profiles

YouGov is an international Internet-based market research firm, it was founded in the UK in May 2000. You can use the YouGov Profiles section to find out who consumes a product or service the most, this is data from thousands of people filling out surveys on themselves and what products/services they do/do not use. I used YouGov Profiles Lite to look at programmes I based mine on like Waterloo Road and Skins. This helped me choose my target audience by helping me identify gender, age and social grade. I chose unisex but predominately female, ages 13-18 and social grade C2DE.

Below is the Waterloo Road and Skins viewers YouGov Profiles pages, hover over towards the direction you would like to horizontally scroll and click on the image to see it larger.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.