Evaluation Question 4

eval 4

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

How we used our feedback on the rough cut to improve?:

After we created the rough cut we showed it to our audience, which was mainly our class, friends and family. We asked for feedback on our trailer and what we could do to improve, i found this helped us to adapt the trailer to suit our target audience and this would attract more of them to watch the soap opera.

The main feedback we received was to add non diegetic music to the trailer to make it more appealing and to make the protagonist look more powerful. This would also make her seem more sexy and would be making use of Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory. We had originally planned to have music on our trailer to give the powerful connotations and were glad that our target audience felt the same as this meant that we were addressing our target audience correctly. We were also told to add extra diegetic heel clicking sounds in time with Helen's walking to further connote her power, we had not thought of this originally as we had planned to begin the trailer with non diegetic music and we found that after adding the footsteps (which we recorded over the footage on I Movie), our attention was caught immediately by the footsteps and this added with the music was attention grabbing. We were also advised that the scene where the boys are laughing cuts off quite abruptly and for it to flow with the rest of the trailer we would have to elongate it. After doing this we found that the trailer flowed much better. Other feedback that we received was that the slap needed an over exaggerated extra diegetic sound to make the slap more dramatic to attract the audiences attention more. This would help to make our trailer a more conventional soap opera trailer. After doing this we found that it was really effective and dramatic, and this is in keeping with the over the top, melodramatic soap opera conventions makes the trailer attention grabbing.

We decided to change the narrator at the end of the trailer because we felt that it sounded too dramatic and our audience feedback regarding the narration was that it didn't really fit with the theme of the trailer and that we needed something to establish the time and date of the soaps launch. We also added a picture of the Helen How road sign to further establish the soap.

By showing our class and friends, who are mainly students, we have asked members of our target audience of 16-25 and by catering the needs of these members we are catering the needs of our target audience and creating our trailer to suit them. We particularly asked students who are in the Category E audience and these made up a large percentage of our target audience. We have tried to make use of Dennis McQuail's Uses and Gratifications Theory which enables our audience members to actively seek out our trailer because it is what they want it to be and also something they can relate to.

How I used the audience feedback on my magazine and poster to improve my final edits?:

Feedback on my magazine was very important to me as it would be my audience who are buying the magazine and by creating it to suit the needs of my audience i know that they like it and will buy it. By asking a few specific members of my target audience, particularly students aged 16-20, from Category E audience members, I was able to see what my audience liked and how i can create my ancillary task to be specifically what attracts them. I recognise the importance of my audience by what Tony Angelotti said when he said "it is the audience who tell you what they want" and by creating my magazine to be exactly what my audience wants I am increasing how many people will buy my magazine and also watch my soap opera. I also strongly appreciated my audiences feedback on my poster as my poster is a vital tool to attracting my audience members, if many had seen the trailer on the television or Internet then seeing posters displayed on the back of magazines or in the train station will remind them of the trailer and intrigue them to watch the soap opera. Audience feedback on how i should change the poster so that it attracted them more was vital as it meant i could change my poster to do its job effectively. Without the feedback from my audience I would not of been able to create an effective trailer which not only advertises our soap but attracts audience members to watch it. As well as an effective magazine and poster which further promote my soap and show more story lines.

Evaluation Question 2

Eval 2

Evaluation Question 1

Eval 1

Poster Final And Feedback

Poster Final

Poster Draft And Feedback

Poster Draft

Magazine Final And Feedback

Magazine Final

After altering my draft magazine to suit the needs and wants of my target audience, i created my final magazine and received more feedback:

• Much better than the draft, the white space is filled more and the title is now more eye catching and by moving the pictures it is more apparent that they relate to the title. - Class
• I like how you have moved the images for the other story lines to the bottom and used the colour block to make them stand out more, the cover looks busy and eye catching. - Friend
• Now that the title and main images is bigger, it is much more eye catching and the use of the blue and pink colours makes it easier for both a male and female audience to be attracted to it. - Family member
• There is still a lot of white space but it works because if you added new colours it wouldn't fit with the colour scheme and would make the blue and pink less powerful in attracting both males and females. - Family member.

Magazine Draft And Feedback

Magazine Draft

After creating a draft of a magazine i showed it to our class, friends and family and asked for feedback on the magazine and how i can improve, these were the comments:

• Looks very much like a real magazine, the colour scheme is eye catching and the font is easy to read, however there is a lot of white space that could be filled with colour. - Class
• I like how you've added the issue number and a website for the magazine as this is what can be found on a real magazine, maybe if you made the title bigger it would be more eye catching and fill more space. - Family member
• The pictures in the middle look more like they should be the center of attention and have the title about them, if these were moved somewhere else and the pictures of the possible dads are moved then it will be obvious what picture relates to what storyline. - Friend
• The words "Dad's the word" are all different sizes and i think this makes it seem less significant as the other headings under the other pictures are only slightly smaller, this makes the main title seem less significant. - Friend

I am very appreciative of this audience feedback and will alter my magazine to suit my audiences needs, it is the audience who will be buying the magazine and by changing my magazine to suit them i am making uses of Dennis McQuail's Uses and Gratifications theory (1984) because my audience will be actively seeking my magazine so they can read more into the soap opera they are watching.

Final Cut Of Trailer

2nd Cut Of Trailer

Rough Cut And Feedback

We created a rough cut of our trailer so that we could show friends and family and they could give us feedback on what we could do to improve the trailer, we feel that this will help us as it is thoughts from the audiences who will be watching our trailer.

See group blog: http://whodunnitproductions.blogspot.com/2010/12/rough-cut-of-trailer.html

After showing the trailer to our class, friends and family, this is the feedback we received:

• The trailer needs music to make it more attention grabbing and conventional - Class
• There needs to be heel clicking sounds to emphasise the main character walking to connote her power - Class
• Includes many conventions of a soap opera trailer and it is clear that the storyline is a new character - Class
• Some transitions are too much and it would be more effective to use simple transitions to make the trailer flow better - Class
• There needs to be some narration or some titles that explain what time and channel the soap opera episode will be broadcasted as well as a name of the soap - Family Member
• Very funny but it doesn't say when the trailer is on - Family Member

After receiving this feedback we will discuss as a group how we can alter our trailer to suit our target audiences needs.

Filming Day 4 26/11/2010

This was our final day in filming as we managed to film the rest of our soap trailer relatively quickly and efficiently. We filmed the final scene where everybody is surrounding the Hall family and we also re-filmed the Deano and Danielle reveal and the Hall children reveal as we felt it was too dark the other night when we filmed and if we used it our trailer would lack continuity.

I felt today was very successful as we manged to film alot more than we hoped and were able to finish our filming and begin editing.

Filming Day 3 22/11/2010

Today we filmed the pub scene with the boys leering at Helen, we had asked the pub owners for permission to film and it was granted. We shot this scene several times from many angles so that we had plenty of footage for when it came to editing. After this we began filming Helen walking around the corner from many different angles to show like long shots and shot reverse shot to show how she is a powerful woman. We then began to film the villagers being distracted by Helen walking past, Sophie and I each played a role of the villagers talking and we aim to use this narration over the extra-diegetic music we have planned for the trailer. We also filmed the Stephanie and Richard slap scene which we captured from 3 different cameras to provide us with plenty of footage to choose from when editing.

As we had filmed during the day, the village was quite empty and this meant footage was not obscured by passing cars and villagers. I feel this filming session was quite successful as we have gathered quite a lot of footage and only have a few shots left until we are complete.

Filming Day 2 19/11/2010

We had organised to film today but due to heavy fog we decided to cancel the filming session and reschedule with our actors as the conditions were so different to yesterdays filming. We aimed to filming the pub scene where the boys were leering at Helen but we have rescheduled this filming for another day.

Filming Day 1 18/11/2010

We began our filming with Jasmine, Tamer and Hannah who would be playing Helen, her son Deano and her daughter Courtney. Due to time constraints as it was getting dark, we already had our actors in costume and the cameras set up for when they arrived. We filmed for roughly 45 minutes as it was getting progressively darker, we started with the family walking around the corner and Helen's children are revealed for the first time. We also filmed the part where Deano looks at Danielle and it is revealed that she is pregnant, we had originally cast Jenny for this role but due to conflicting timetables, she was replaced with Jo.

I took part in filming and organising were and how the actors would walk down the street. I feel the filming session went well but i am slightly worried about how the lighting will affect the quality of the video.

Organisation Of Actors

We made sure that we were very organised with our actors and that they knew exactly when and where they would need to film, we mainly communicated with our actors at sixth form and through facebook when sending a mass message to all of our actors explaining how to get to the filming location. We also sent letters to each actor to let them know what they would need to bring with them in regards to costume, many of our actors drove and meant that we could also use all of our actors at the same time, those who couldn't drive or were unable to get a lift with the other actors were picked up by myself.

See group blog: http://whodunnitproductions.blogspot.com/2010/11/letters-to-our-actors.html And http://whodunnitproductions.blogspot.com/2010/11/organising-our-actors.html