Q3) What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Throughout the production of my coursework, I have come to realise that receiving audience feedback is one of the most important points to consider when researching, planning and constructing a product. Linking this idea to the 'Triangle of Dependency'- without my audience, the text and the institution are nothing, I must therefore adapt my text to meet the demands of what the audience want, so I have had to use this idea wisely whilst completing each stage of the production. Before production had even taken place I decided that I needed to go out, find a potential target audience for my upcoming production and gain some knowledge about what they would like to see next on the big screen. This was the basis for my research and from here I was able to gradually develop my ideas, attaining regular audience feedback along the way, until I was ready to start planning for my final piece. Throughout this stage I decided to conduct only primary research where I was receiving my answers from various research types first hand. I decided to take a semi-structured approach to this, as I wanted to reach a hypothesis at the end of my research so that my product will be totally influenced by my audience, yet I do not wish to create an idea of bias, as this could influence the thoughts of my audience and they could be led to say something they don't really believe in, and when I crate the product to match this idea, they won't really like it because they have been influenced into saying something they don't mean. The idea of getting regular feedback along the way is called the spiral effect- this is when you create a certain amount of your product, then get audience feedback, then edit your product to match the demands and ideas of what you have most recently found out from the feedback. I found this to be the best way to make sure, at regular intervals, that my product was still matching the needs and requirements expected of me by my audience. At first I interpreted anything negative quite offensively as it appeared that my audience totally dismissed my product, however I learnt to use what they said to adapt my text to match their needs- as after all, it will be them that is consuming the product after completion, so in order for it to sell, they must like it. Before production had started, I got together a focus group of people that fell within my desired target audience, and pitched my initial film idea to them. From them I realised that I had a few minor weaknesses, and that if i were to amend them I would firstly increase my audience pool by, secondly introducing a few more key themes into the narrative that would help to attract a slightly wider audience pool towards my products. I'd say that I have learnt a lot from my audience research- the biggest point being that without my audience, the production is worth nothing. I am glad that I realised this early on in the planning stage as I have been able to keep continuous communication with my audience as every time something was created I required their opinion in order to make it better and more appealing to them- which is ultimately the key requirement when constructing something or such importance.