Gaining audience feedback is so important because it helps to know what people are enjoying about my work. It also tells me what the audience doesn't like and this helps me know what to improve or do differently next time. It allows me to understand how my project is being recived by my audience and the genral public. This will give me the ability to change any parts that will need changing to make my audience happy and interested in my work/project. Although resources, especially time, are limited during the final stages of the projects, focusing some attention on feedback can help us share better information with the people who need it most.
The target audience for my project is aged 15+ (bbfc). This is because everyone who was in my group were aged 16-18, so we had to make something for our age range that wasn't for bbfc 18. We did research at the beginning so we knew who we were making it for and what we could add. This was apart of the primary researh I did. Because our project has a bbfc for 15s, there are certain things we can and can't add. An example of this would be 'dangerous behaviour'. Dangerous behaviour (i.e. suicide, self-harming, asphyxiation) should not reside on detail which could be copied. Whether the depiction of easily accessible weapons is acceptable will depend on factors such as realism, context and setting.
Audience:
Press Pack
This is some feedback I got from someone in my class (peer critique) on my final press pack. This feedback was given at the end over the whole unit so the could give the feedback about all of my work at one time.
Is the final production presented in context for the intended audience?
My final production is presented in context for the inteded audience as nothing in my project is meant for people under the age of 15 (Intended audiene). This is my fianl film trailer. I took insperation from sevearl different posters of different genres that relate to true crime/horror as they all have a dark theme to them. The poster is basic with the relevent text you would need to but on a poster for Netflix. I tried to make the text simple but effective and give the hint that it is a true crime/horror poster. In my opinion, I think my poster looks like poart of a Netflix film promotion, as said by some of my peers and teachers.
Based on feedback I have received from my teachers and peers, I believe that I have successfully fulfilled the required brief over the course of the unit. I have completed all of the work I needed to do in the time limit that it had to be done. This has helped me to improve my time management.
Planning/Research:
We all conducted initial idea storms into what would make a good film narrative. I was inspired by watching Youtube videos on the killer in question. I am a keen fictional reader so I am very creative in the written word and I often write my own stories with in a similar genre and narrative structure.
In the beginning, we set out to do a film trailer on a female killer (I chose a female killer to subvert stereotypes and to add a twist to the ususal genric convention of male killers in films) The main character claimed to be a vampire; (genric codes of a vampire are pale face, adverse to sunlight, offended by garlic and loves blood) and this is what we ended up producing. The image above is part of the proposal I wrote at the start of the project. We talked as a group about what we were going to create together before we started the main project and created notes that would be similar to each other. This is so we could all be on the same page when it comes to starting the actual project we would all know the basics of what we were going to create. This allowed us to gain experience with communication and verbalising our ideas to each other. We also gained great listening skills and sharing ideas. I then say what projects I will be doing on my own after the trailer.
Our planning was useful to us because it helped us to know what to do as we had planned most of the project in advanced so we knew what we had to do. The paperwork we completed was produced both individually and as a team and shared to each other. This allowed us to complete the essential paperwork on time and effectively. One of the things that were useful to us was the storyboard we had created inadvanced a few lessons before we had to do the shoot. We used postit notes and drew the frames on each slip. We then discussed as a team each frame and how the trailer would look all together. We moved the slips around before the proper storyboard was drawn. This is so we knew what we were going to be filming so that we didn't waste time figuring out what to do. A real skill on set is be organised and we suceeded in this as we were all really organised and worked great as a team off campus and without any teachers.
I worked well within the context of the project because I have managed to get most of my work done within a certain time limit. I used my time plan effectively and met every deadline set. This has helped me improve my time management and organisatonal skills as I have become more organised with remembering to put my work in the catagries it belongs in at the start so I don't forget to do it later.
Synopsis
Another useful thing I created was a synopsis for the trailer. This is useful because it helps us remember what we needed to film and the basic information in the case of the original news article. This was written before we had made the trailer because we needed to know what we were filming first so we could write the synopsis based of what were going to be filmed and it helps people to understand the basic plot of what happens in the trailer. This was important for us to create because It helps verbalising the idea of the paper and at the same time makes it more concrete. It is a tool for thinking the subject and argument of the paper through. It helps you to focus and structure the paper. A good synopsis can save you from reading source material that later turns out not to be of use to the paper.
Time Plan
This is the first part of my time plan I had created in class before I started doing my FMP. This was useful to me because I knew what I had to do each week and what resources I needed to use to help me throughout research and prouction. This was important to have because time management helped me prioritize the tasks I had so that I'd ensure we'd have enough time available to complete every project. The quality of my work increases when i'm not rushing to complete it ahead of a fast approaching deadline.
The peer critiques for my rough cut were very useful to me as they let me know what I should be adding to the trailer to make it better than it was.
Production Skills
How well do you believe your production followed the conventions of your production genre or style?
I believe the my production followed the code and conventions of the genres true crime and horror really well as I used dark lighting/colour palette in my trailer to make it more like a horror film. But I also used some brighter colours like red and blue in my main poster that I had created because it implies what is going to happen to the killer.
Other codes and conventions I used was a voiceover to create tension for the audience. But in the trailer, I used the voiceover to add a small understanding to the auidence so they'll have some knowledge of what is happening/going to happen. I had researched this in my planning at the start of the project so I would have a better understaning of what they really were and how to use them in the right context.
In the production process, I had faced some problems leading up to and after the filming of the trailer. One of these problems was the primary research I had to do about the murder case. This is because there is very little about this case on the internet. The majority of my research was from a 40+ minute long youtube video, a 40 minute podcast on spotify and minimum of 3 news articles I found online. Although there is very little about this case, I still managed to create a four page google document with the information I found. We didn't have any problems finding actors for the trailer as two people in our group nominated themselves to play the killer and the victim. I didn't have to many problems with the filming. This is because when it came to day to film, we knew where our location was and how to get there. The only problem we had when out filming was, we were filming in a public place where there were members of public walking round where we were, so we had to stop filming everytime someone came close so we wouldn't get them on camera. When it came to the editing process, I had no problems with this because all of the scenes we had filmed were uploaded to WeVideo for us by one of our teachers. This helped me because they had put in all of our clips in that we had recorded so when I was editing, I had options to chose from that I thought would look good in the trailer.
Development of Skills your project journey
Skills i've developed
During my time creating my final project, I have developed some more skills for future projects. I have done this by constantly practising using the softwares I knew I would be using the most which was photoshop. I practised this by creating a few posters, using different techniques and this helped my develop my skills using photoshop. These develpments are useful for future projects as I will have a better understanding on how to use photoshop and won't need to ask for help when using it. It is also going to be useful for when I eventually end on Lv3 media I will remember what practise I have done in my Lv2 media course and will apply these skills for the projects we will do in Lv3 media.
What would you do differently next time if you had the opportunity to produce the project again?
One of the main things I would do differently next time is to make sure I add as much deatil as I can. I would make sure people understood what the project is about in words but also in pictures and the trailer aswell. Another thing I would do differently would be the planningand that I would need to plan everyting in more detail and make sure I had more options to choose from. I believe that that I did my production some justice as I was able to tell the story of the murder pretty well through the different things I had created with small details of the case. The case is pretty clear in my marketing material/press pack as my peers who have looked at my work said it is clear what my project is about an understand what happens. One of the things that will help the audience understand what in have created is my synopsis. This is because I have it is a paragraph about the what happens in the trailer without giving away the whole plot or the ending. I have also made the storyline clear through the poster I did on my own and the photoshoot we did as a group of the killer/the victim. The things in my initial research that I had done that I thought were useful are the mindmap I had created online. This was useful as it allowed me to share it with the other people in my group and if they wanted to add anything, they could because it was a collaboration of all of the groups work. It was also useful because we could see what other had added to it and see what they wanted to see happen in the project further on. If I could developthis project again, there will be some things I might want to do differently. One of these are making sure I have uploaded all of my primary research. This is so I have something to refer back at a later date in my project if I need to.
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