Creating our presentation on audience feedback made us realise how much we valued the feedback we had been given and how much it had helped us to progress. We realised that for us, its main value had been in confirming how an outside viewer saw our products, as we were unable to take up this stance for ourselves effectively or maintain it for long. We did not get much feedback that surprised us or pointed out things that we didn't know about - but it did help us see how much little things we had noticed mattered relatively to the outside audience.
Because we realised the value of the feedback, we arranged for the Year 12 classes who had given us our earliest feedback to look at our products again shortly before the final deadline. We thought they would be a good audience because they would be able to see the difference between the products as they first saw them and now, and we thought that might be quite motivating. We also thought having seen them so early, they might have some investment in them and want to give good quality feedback. We also knew they were under a similar deadline and were likely to be quite realistic in their ideas. Finally, we have recently given them some feedback in return.
Thinking this through made us realise how much we have learned about the contexts of audience feedback and how much this affects its value to you.
Reassuringly, the group proposed very few changes. The minor adjustments we have made reflect small things that they noticed and pointed out quite tentatively. However, it is useful to know that even an outside audience spot these small mistakes:
Trailer
The addition of the ident (as well as other formal features such as the credits at the end) received a lot of positive attention. We worked hard to make these as authentic as possible, and in the case of the ident, as a good and memorable product in its own right, so this was encouraging.
We re-voiced two sections where the sound wasn't good enough quality. The scene with the caretaker was difficult as we needed to add in ambient sound of sweeping as well, so this was tricky, but we feel both scenes have worked out well and you can't tell we re-recorded the sound afterwards, and the dialogue is certainly clearer with less distracting background sounds:
Poster
Three very small changes are made on the basis of the audience comments. They felt that the 'from the makers of...' might be hard to read so we added a drop shadow that helps it stand out (it is much clearer in the full size version anyway).
We also added small logos for e.g. sound editing to the billing block as we had on the trailer to maintain consistency and fulfil institutional requirements - this was picked out in feedback and we were surprised how much was noticed, so this was a good lesson.
Finally, we continued the blurring of the image of the hand / watch slightly further up the main character's back as we agreed with the feedback that this was necessary to make the direction of the reflection ambiguous.
Magazine Cover
Changes here were again very small. We slightly decreased the reflection on Gaby's face - in fact, we played around with this a lot as one person commented that they weren't sure if it was a reflection or of she had bad skin! We could see what they meant but felt that the presence of the water made it clear. We slightly reduced the opacity of the reflective layer and smudged some of the ripples further into her hair to try to iron out this problem.
We also changed the positioning of the bar code as we agreed the original positioning took away some of the impact of our image. We rely heavily in Gaby's facial expression to give this product power as there is not a lot of space to add other detail, so we agreed it was best to leave her as exposed as possible.
We also worked a little more on making the text stand out - we have a deliberately muted colour palette here but even so, the reader needs to be able to see the text clearly, so we added a similar drop shadow to the poster text and added a bolder font where needed.
Because we realised the value of the feedback, we arranged for the Year 12 classes who had given us our earliest feedback to look at our products again shortly before the final deadline. We thought they would be a good audience because they would be able to see the difference between the products as they first saw them and now, and we thought that might be quite motivating. We also thought having seen them so early, they might have some investment in them and want to give good quality feedback. We also knew they were under a similar deadline and were likely to be quite realistic in their ideas. Finally, we have recently given them some feedback in return.
Thinking this through made us realise how much we have learned about the contexts of audience feedback and how much this affects its value to you.
Reassuringly, the group proposed very few changes. The minor adjustments we have made reflect small things that they noticed and pointed out quite tentatively. However, it is useful to know that even an outside audience spot these small mistakes:
Trailer
The addition of the ident (as well as other formal features such as the credits at the end) received a lot of positive attention. We worked hard to make these as authentic as possible, and in the case of the ident, as a good and memorable product in its own right, so this was encouraging.
We re-voiced two sections where the sound wasn't good enough quality. The scene with the caretaker was difficult as we needed to add in ambient sound of sweeping as well, so this was tricky, but we feel both scenes have worked out well and you can't tell we re-recorded the sound afterwards, and the dialogue is certainly clearer with less distracting background sounds:
Poster
Three very small changes are made on the basis of the audience comments. They felt that the 'from the makers of...' might be hard to read so we added a drop shadow that helps it stand out (it is much clearer in the full size version anyway).
We also added small logos for e.g. sound editing to the billing block as we had on the trailer to maintain consistency and fulfil institutional requirements - this was picked out in feedback and we were surprised how much was noticed, so this was a good lesson.
Finally, we continued the blurring of the image of the hand / watch slightly further up the main character's back as we agreed with the feedback that this was necessary to make the direction of the reflection ambiguous.
Magazine Cover
Changes here were again very small. We slightly decreased the reflection on Gaby's face - in fact, we played around with this a lot as one person commented that they weren't sure if it was a reflection or of she had bad skin! We could see what they meant but felt that the presence of the water made it clear. We slightly reduced the opacity of the reflective layer and smudged some of the ripples further into her hair to try to iron out this problem.
We also changed the positioning of the bar code as we agreed the original positioning took away some of the impact of our image. We rely heavily in Gaby's facial expression to give this product power as there is not a lot of space to add other detail, so we agreed it was best to leave her as exposed as possible.
We also worked a little more on making the text stand out - we have a deliberately muted colour palette here but even so, the reader needs to be able to see the text clearly, so we added a similar drop shadow to the poster text and added a bolder font where needed.
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