1. Advanced Portfolio Film Promotion Package consisting of a film trailer, front cover of a film magazine and film poster What have you learned from your audience feedback? Max Ardron

2. Audience Throughout the production of our film trailer and artefacts we have received a lot of feedback from teachers. When we were in the process of creating our rough cut, we received feedback about the quality of our shots. We were informed that although the shots looked good it was very hard to hear the speech of the characters over the loud wind and were advised to record a voiceover. We were also given feedback on our title in the trailer ‘The Other Side’. Brand image was especially important when creating our products so aspects such as the title needed to stand out. That inspired us to add the flashbulb effect to our title to make it more effective and memorable. When I had finished my poster I received some helpful feedback. I was advised that my poster might be too cartoony and this might have an effect on how well it represents the genre. I was also told that the artefacts all needed to show the same brand image, this being aspects such as the font and characters. Unfortunately I had used a different font in my poster for my title ‘The Other Side’ and ratings, than in our trailer so this needed to be changed.

3. Audience When it came to exhibiting our final product to a range of different viewers within our target audience we received a wide range of feedback. On my own I started with four basic questions for a very basic questionnaire. I kept it rather loose and kept the questions vague so the viewer could speak more freely about the piece. I asked whether the trailer would make you want to see the film. I received the feedback that they would want to see the film because the trailer had some very interesting shots and they would want to see more shots like the fridge shots. Other, slightly less positive feedback informed me that although yes, the trailer did make them want to see the film, the trailer did not inform them enough about what the plot is about. They said that this lack of information means that they were not sure whether this is a film they would want to see or not.

4. Audience I then asked what the viewer believed the film was about. Of course Ben, Rob and I knew what the film was about because we continuously developed the story from day one. But I wanted to see if someone might be able to figure out what the narrative of our film was just by watching the film. My first piece of feedback said that the film is about a man who has a drinking problem, probably an alcoholic (who is also a business man) who talks to a homeless man and a friendship is sparked. This was exactly the kind of feedback I wanted. Here they watched it and thought it was about a spark of friendship, but the trailer did not give away the whole story. My second piece of feedback regarding my second question informed me that the film is about alienation and friendship, possibly a friendship between someone homeless and someone not. This piece of feedback was particularly interesting to me because although yes, our film is about friendship, I never thought for a second we were making a film about alienation. But then when I look back on the trailer I realise that alienation is in fact a major theme in our movie. Our two protagonists are very lonely characters and they are alienated, Joe has been alienated from his entire family and Charles (before he meets Joe) is currently in the process of alienating his family.

5. Audience In the next question I asked the viewer what the viewer liked/disliked about the characters. Since our characters were one of the most crucial aspects of our trailer of which we spent much time developing we wanted to know whether we had been successful. My first piece of feedback stated: ‘I would have liked to see more of the homeless man because for the most of it you only see the back of his head. I thought the business man had a unique and interesting back-story.’ This feedback was helpful because it taught me that perhaps in the trailer we do not see enough of Joe. In my second piece of feedback I was informed that it is easy to tell the characters apart due to the costume design. They believed TV shows and films etc work better if it is easier to tell the characters apart e.g. Sons of Anarchy and The Sopranos. But, it is not obvious to tell what will happen to the characters and I feel this is a good thing. This feedback was very positive and assured us that we had been successful when creating our characters. Character/costume design was very important to me when it came to planning our shoot. As a group Ben, Rob and I collectively came up with our characters adding details, some of which a small part of the story e.g. Charles’ drinking problem, and some details being quite a large part of the story e.g. Joe’s religious beliefs. It was my role to first draw the characters on the program Paint and then to pick out the costume design. I am glad we were successful in creating two distinctive protagonists.

6. Audience My final question asked the viewer to give their thoughts on the soundtrack. Ben pickled the soundtrack and we all collectively were very happy to use it in our trailer as we thought it worked very well and accurately presented the conventions of a social realism trailer. I was eager to hear feedback. My first piece of feedback informed me that the soundtrack was a bit distracting, and it was silent at times which they thought was a bit weird. So although a good piece of music, they did not think it was very fitting to the trailer. This was bad news because although we were fond of our soundtrack we definitely did not want it to distract the viewer from what was going on, on screen. But then my second piece of feedback was more positive. They said they liked the music and thought it was not too intrusive. So it does not tell you what to think which is a common problem in movies. I was very glad to hear this because it showed me that not everyone has the same views on the soundtrack. The fact that it does not tell you what to think was a very important part of making our trailer successful because although that sort of music might be common in bigger budget films, it is not a typical convention of a social realism film.

7. Audience In class, as a group, Rob Ben and I compared the feedback we received about our trailer. Then Rob wrote up a final questionnaire of which we gave to our fellow classmates to fill out. This questionnaire was more detailed, two pages in length. It needed to be more detailed so we could get specific points about our trailer that are good and specific points that weren't so successful. We asked the viewer to give three positive points about our trailer and three negative points. We also asked more specific questions such as how do the conventions in our trailer represent that of a social realism film trailer.