What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Before producing the trailer, as a group we needed to brain storm the genre of our film and the budget. Once that was placed in order I used a research method called quantitative data where I interviewed 5 females and 5 male teenagers on the subject of their general interest in film and their budget. I sent out copies of questions with optional answers for them to select their best answers. I made sure not to miss lead them with the questions hence why every question was optional with ‘others’ at the bottom. Some of the questions were ‘what are your parent’s occupations?’ this way I was able to estimate their parents income. Moreover questions such as ‘how do you watch films?’ helped me to learn how my target audience consume movies. I was able to find out I had a niche market for horror films, and most of the teenagers were capable to attend the cinema every fort night from the pocket money they receive from their parents, some received EMA from the government and others had part time paid work. With the information I used, I turned them into graphs to help me understand my results and to work according to it. My aim was to give the audience a new experience from watching this horror film. I wanted it to be what they wanted but also with a twist to blow their mind so we decided to break some of the codes and conventions of horror films example by having a female killer rather than a typical sexual deprived male.

After showing our target market our trailer we had some positive feedback. The majority of the people would be glad to see it which boosted our confidence level. They corresponded well with the narrative and the broken codes and conventions of a horror film. They wanted something different and they got something different. Some people appreciated the make-up on Holly as she looked the part making the trailer realistic and interesting. After showing them the trailer I went about showing them my poster and front cover magazine. The feedback were encouraging as they said it was easy to recognise the trailer, poster and magazine belonged together as the combination was obvious by using Holly as the sale point of the media text. I asked them if they would see it and they said they would. I asked for any criticism the most I got was if we had some form of dialogue amongst the characters. The feedbacks were very useful and supportive as people were positive about the film in general. It’s a huge success to know all the hard work has not gone to waist and there are is an audience out there who are interested in watching our film.

Through this experience I have learned that film making is not as easy as it is when I sit down watching it. There is a lot more going on behind closed doors before paying for the tickets to watch it at the cinemas. Dedicated people, film lovers and the whole crew working on the set put all their time and energy to entertain the audience by film making. This experience has helped me to appreciate films a bit more than I did. It is now upsetting to know that people still illegally download movies off the internet when so many people put so much effort into making them for people to pay and watch. Not only is it time consuming making films, it is also costly; paying all the actors,  crew members and the crew members is not an easy job but it becomes worth it when people take the time to go to the cinema to appreciate it or rent a DVD. Making a 2 minute trailer was definitely difficult I personally cannot imagine even making a whole 2 hour film.

Moreover it would be upsetting if the audience did not appreciate it as the work went into pleasing them. However the audience of the film is limited as the rating of our film is a 15. We did not want to raise it to 18 as we might be losing some target audience paying for the film as they could not watch it in the cinemas and instead watching it online. However by having a 15 rating we were limited to the amount of explicit scenes we could add. We had to keep in mind with the hypodermic syringe model. This is a theory that explains the effect in which people have when they watch certain films which involve violence and sex encouraging them to commit crimes. An experiment by Bandura and Walters (1963) was taken out called the ‘Bobo Doll’ where children were left in a room on their own with a doll after just watching adults on the television screen violating it. The children did the same thing to the doll. Some critics dismissed this experiment and results as they believed the children reacted in such manner as they were trying to impress the experimenters. The assumption of the experiment was that children learn through conditioning. Good behaviour is rewarded, and this is reinforced by seeing positive adult role models. Marie Messenger Davies wrote a book called ‘Television is good for kids’ (1989). In her book she explains how television helps with literary skills, children are able to understand through visual narrative, editing conventions, etc; improved memory of events due to visual aids, which also stimulate imagination; involving social games and acquisition of knowledge. Moreover children’s response to the media varies according to social group membership such as family, race, class and gender.

The media in doubt is a very persuasive driving force in our society. From the very beginning of the First World War, propaganda served a right purpose in getting the audience interacting with politics. In our society now persuasion is through the media used by radio, posters, magazines, cinema, billboards and television. There is a great advantage as these are useful tools for my trailer to be noticed and recognised by the audience. Media should not be seen as an all power-full force working directly to isolate the audience. In 1960s there emerged the views that audience are active in the way they interpret media content. Audience interpret the media differently depending on their background, upbringing and social group. James Halloran’s (1970) “we must get away from the habit of thinking in terms of what the media do to people and substitute for it the idea of what people do with the media”. This suggests there should be more concentration on what meanings and interpretations are produced and in what way are the media received. This issue forms the concept of reception theory Katz and Blumer (1974) had a discussion with a group of people to find out why the audience consume the media. They came up with four main needs: diversion- a form of escape from the real world of pressure and life issues; personal identity- the ability to compare their lives and views with people in media; personal relationships- a way of interacting socially with their friends and a purpose of entertainment; surveillance- wanting to know more about the world and what is going on around us such as the news and documentary shows. This theory of reasons why audience consume media content was therefore developed by Richard Dyers (1977) in relation to cinema and television entertainment.

Encoding and decoding are useful in understanding how the encoder (producers) can send out a message to the decoder (audience) and receive a similar view point or completely out of content. Stuart Hall identifies three types of audience decoding. A dominant hegemonic- position is established when the audience takes the full meaning of the content without any question; an negotiated position where there is a mixture of understanding the encoder and taking up their own meaning and interpretation; moreover an oppositional position is when the audience completely ignores the encoders point and they carry their own values and attitudes.

It is interesting to view audience positioning when they encounter media content. In the cinema some films would have a voice over to guide the audience through the story. At times the audience tend to know more than the characters but not so much as there have to be a limit in order to draw the audience in the film and to create dramatic irony. This is similar with magazine and newspaper front covers as they both create a sense of identity with the potential reader. With women magazines the front cover is usually an image of a white woman, usually young, smooth skin, groomed and smiling and seductive. The most important factor in these women magazines is the model’s gaze on the front cover. The gaze holds ‘you’ the reader and viewer. The gaze is not all about sexual attractions between men and women; the gaze suggests a steady, self-contained and a calm look. “She is the woman who can manage her emotions and her life. The woman suggests that inside the magazine there is a personal life, of emotions and relationship. This is a woman’s territory; Janic Winship (1987). This is true to my magazine as it has an image of a pretty white girl/woman. Although her aim is not to look like the woman other women would aspire to, she is still attractive with the gaze and her red lips stick. Her skin is smooth and her posture demonstrates she is a strong woman in herself. However this is something that woman would like to read about; other strong women just like them.

“The unity of a text lies in its destination not its origin” Eco, 1981. This famous quote suggests the writer’s intention of a message may be received differently by the audience. An active reader is someone that would imagine themselves in the position presented. Morley (1978) investigated how different groups of audience decode information from television and magazine. However Hall’s encoding-decoding failed as there were additional social variables such as gender and ethnicity. Various studies has shown that men like to watch real life shows such as the news, documentaries and sports whilst women are driven by the emotional story lines and narrative films and soaps. With ‘A Kiss of Death’ I have combined action and emotion for both men and women to enjoy the film. Holly has a masculine built on body for men to identify with her although she is capable of being full on feminine. The narrative is emotional through the emotional childhood Holly had to endure; this is to draw the women in the film.

In horror films the first person to die is usually a blond sexually active girl and the monster is usually a man with a mask who is sexually deprived and determined to kill the final girl. The representation of the blond girl dying first suggest young girls should be more interested in their education rather than boys and partying or they will pay the consequences. The final girl usually has brown hair, masculine, shy and virginal and she survives suggesting this is the way young girls should behave and they will survive any evil out there. The monster trying to kill the final girl with the knife is an implication of a penis trying to penetrate in her. However he does not succeed and the final girl survives. However in A kiss of Death Holly is seen as the final girl at the beginning, all shy and virginal with dark hair and masculine breaking the codes and conventions. The unexpected happens and the final girl turns into the monster killing everyone that has done her wrong. She is also sexually deprived in order to get her own way. The ideology of breaking the codes and conventions are to show that it is not only men that can be sexually deprived and dangerous to the opposite sex, men too have to consider their virginity as much as the pressure is on the girls and their purity should also matter as girls can too be dangerous in many ways if not giving them sexual transmitted disease or distract them from their education. The text is definitely challenging and judging the roles of gender and age. Notice that Holly is still a school girl suggesting age does not matter in this case and anyone can lose it in their head through the struggles of the life. This also shows that young kids are sexually active which is dangerous for them as it takes them places they don’t want to go and see things they do not want to see as kids. Although Holly has not got a penis in theory her knife is an emphasis of castration. The film/ trailer is basically promoting the dangers of sexual active teenagers and fighting against bullying and how it can lead the victim into anger and depression some even suicidal.

Moreover we live in a hegemonic society where we settle down for issues of our society which we do not agree with. Such as when we watch teenagers in films getting drunk and having sex on television dramas such as Shameless, we tend to agree and accept as it is part of our society although those are not our general morals. As a producer I cannot be factual on how the audience will interpret my media text as every audience is different according to their social norms, cultural values, individual morals, ethnicity and gender. Some may understand the moral behind the story or purity and others may think it is normal for teenagers to be sexually active as ‘everyone does it anyway’. Some understanding may be different due to the understanding linked to the cultural experiences and the background of the audience.

                                                                                                  

THE TRAILER HAS BEEN PUT UP ON YOUTUBE TO GET FEEDBACK FROM YOUTUBE USERS . ALTHOUGH WE DO NOT HAVE ANY COMMENTS YET, WE ALREADY KNOW THAT OVER HUNDRED PEOPLE HAVE WATCHED THE TRAILER AND HAVE LIKED WHAT THEY HAVE SEEN GIVING US GREAT JOY AND SATISFACTION THAT THE AUDIENCE ARE HAPPY WITH THE HORROR TRAILER WE HAVE CREATED FROM SCRATCH. 

IN ORDER TO GET MORE YOUTHS AND OUR TARGET AUDIENCE INTERESTED IN THE FILM AND TO RECEIVE CRITICAL CRITICISM OF OUR ADVANCED MEDIA PRODUCT, WE ENCOURAGED THE MAJORITY OF THE STUDENTS IN OUR SIXTH FORM TO COME ALONG AND WATCH THE TRAILER ON A WIDE SCREEN TELEVISION IN THE COMMON ROOM VIA YOUTUBE. AS THE PICTURE SHOWS WE HAD A POSITIVE OUTBURST OF PEOPLE COMING INTO THE COMMON TO SUPPORT OUR HARD WORK. WE SAT EVERYONE DONE GIVING THEM A PIECE OF PAPER TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ON FROM THE A4 PAPER. THIS WAY WE WERE ABLE TO COLLECT OUR QUALITATIVE DATA.

THE PERSON THAT FILLED IN THESE QUESTIONS SEEM TO OF LIKED THE TRAILER  AS HE ENJOYED WATCHING THE TRAILER GIVING ME A CLOSE IDEA THAT IF IT WAS A FILM HE WOULD HAVE WANTED TO WATCH IT. HE LIKE THE 'EDITING' AND THE 'MUSIC' AS IT LIKED WELL WITH THE ACTIONS. HOWEVER HE WOULD LIKE US OF HAVE ADDED MORE GRAPHIC SCENE. THIS PERSON SOUNDS LIKE S REAL HORROR FANS AS HE SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT HE IS TALKING. AND FROM THIS PAGE I HAVE LEARNED THAT IF WE WERE TO MAKE ANOTHER HORROR FILM TRAILER, MORE ACTION OF DEATH, BLOOD AND GRAPHIC HORROR SHOULD BE ADDED TO DRAW IN THE AUDIENCE ATTENTION THROUGH OUT THE WHOLE TRAILER.

THE CANDIDATE FEELING IN THIS FORM ALSO SUGGESTED MORE HORRIFIC SCENES SUCH AS BLOOD SHOULD HAVE BEEN PORTRAYED IN THE FILM. AS MORE THEN ONE PERSON SEEMS TO BE SUGGESTING THIS VIEW, IT IS WISE TO PUT IT INTO CONSIDERATION FOR FUTURE REFERENCES. IT IS PLEASING TO KNOW THAT THEY TOO UNDERSTOOD THE PLOT AND STORY LINE OF THE FILM WHICH WOULD GIVE THEM A BETTER UNDERSTANDING IF THEY WERE TO WATCH IT IN THE CINEMAS OR ON DVD.

READING THESE ANSWERS TELLS ME THIS PERSON UNDERSTOOD THE STORY LINE AS HE WAS RIGHT IN SAYING IT IS ABOUT A GIRL WHO IS OUT SEEKING FOR 'REVENGE'. THIS PERSON ALSO STRESSES OUT THAT THE TEMPO OF THE MUSIC WAS TOO FAST FOR THE ACTIONS TAKING PLACE IN THE TRAILER. THIS IS EVIDENT WHEN ASKED WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED IN THE TRAILER AND S/HE SAYS "HIGHER TEMPO COULD HAVE BEEN DELAYED". ALTHOUGH I PERSONALLY DO NOT AGREE, IT IS WISE OF ME AS A PRODUCER TO GIVE THE AUDIENCE WHAT THEY WANT AS THEY ARE THE ONE PAYING FOR THE MERCHANDISE, DVD, AND CINEMA TICKETS.