Audience Feedback

As a means to retrieve audience feedback, we showed our piece to 12 people in our school, and we asked them to give us feedback on it. We created a survey on SurveyMonkey which we asked them to complete after watching the film. These were the questions that we asked, and some of the results that we got:

Question 1 - Did you enjoy the piece?

Every person that we showed our piece to said they found the piece enjoyable, as 100% of them answered 'Yes'. 

Question 2 - Did you understand the narrative? What did you think it was?

"Showing how jealousy can affect people deeply"

"Exploring the serious effect that jealousy can have on people and relationships"

"The girl on the floor had taken an overdose because she was jealous of another girl"

"From the pictures, I got the context that the characters grew up as close friends, perhaps both girls had an attraction to the boy, so there was always unspoken tension between the girls, especially when one was with the boy”

From these comments, I can see that as a whole, people understood that the narrative was based around jealousy, and of how that one of the girls was jealous of her two friends being in a relationship. However, the comment about Jazz having taken an overdose tells me that the enigma code that we intended to plant, as to whether Jazz had taken her own life, or whether she had been murdered and it staged to look like a suicide, was successful. I know it was successful as the audience were conflicted between what they thought had happened during our opening sequence.

Question 3 - Did you like the editing that we used? What did you like most?

"I loved it. It flowed very nicely and was used in a great way to create suspense"

"The shot of the pictures was a nice way to set context without a long winded backstory. The shot of the two eyes implicitly suggest a connection between the two characters without explanation, which was effective. The shot of the girl with drugs being allude set a presence over the main narrative which set tension for the piece well."

"I loved how it transitioned from one thing to another and I loved the opening!"

"Yeah, everything that was done editing wise fitted with the tone and helped the explanation of the narrative" 

These comments tell me that the audience generally thought that our editing in our piece was appropriate. It tells me that the photo montage at the start of the piece was one of the most successful elements about the piece, along with the editing of it. Additionally, these comments suggest that the editing we used had explanatory benefits for the narrative and helped to create 

tension in the audience effectively.

Question 4 - Did you feel that our use of sound was appropriate?

“Yes. It was haunting”

“The song was about jealousy which helped set the tone of the piece. The sound being one continuos track helped unify the piece. Personally thought the piece would have been better if it was all silent besides the music, as the added subjectivity would have added more tension”

“Yes - the music really helped to embed the theme of the piece into the mindset of the audience, so everything was shaped by it, which was really effective”

“Yes, however, there was a slight moment when the music stopped, and I thought it was a glitch”

From these comments, I can deduct that people generally thought that the wound we used was appropriate for our piece, and how that “Jealousy” helped to tie in the narrative of the piece. Someone pointed out how part of the music we used was ‘haunting’ which shows that we have effectively used music that is stereotypical of the thriller genre, that creates a sinister atmosphere. However, some interesting points were also raised. Someone mentioned that they thought that the dialogue should have been taken from the piece to build more suspense for the audience. Personally, I don’t think  this would have been effective as I think that the bit of dialogue we included helped to cement the basis of the narrative. Additionally, someone mentioned the slight pause in the music, which Hannah and I have previously reflected on in our video titled “Things We’d Change”, as they thought it was a glitch. As Hannah and I discussed, this was an error in fine editing in which we did not get the music to come in at exactly the right time, causing a very slight delay in sound.

Question 5 - What was your favourite part of our piece?

“The bit of dialogue in the middle, it was just enough and helped me to understand the piece a bit more”

“I like the ending when it got progressively closer to the eye and then backed out to the male”

“The way the pictures were used to set the context of the narrative”

“The scene with the pills and phone ringing, and when the camera was filming through the glasses lenses - very mysterious”

The answers to this question told me that people had varying opinions about what the best bit of our piece was. There was a divide between the photo montage, zooming in and out of the eyes, the shot inclusion of dialogue, and a different variety of shots. The photo montage was a popular favourite as people commented that it helped to tell the backstory of our narrative efficiently. The zooming in and out of the eyes were popular as people seemed to like how it was an unusual shot. The shots filming thought the glasses were favoured as people commented that they added mystery to the piece. A stand along comment talking about the use of dialogue surprised me. They mentioned how they thought we had included just enough to explain the narrative, and I felt that this meant that our decision to include dialogue was the right thing. 

Question 6 - If there was something you could change, what would it be?

“A total lack of dialogue would have built extra tension”

“I would maybe say a bit of the narrative in words on the screen, so people aren’t left to make their minds up and come up with the wrong scenario”

“Maybe experiment with locations where there is a clearer background”

“Maybe the shadow on the font credits at the start of the video to make it a little easier to read - but otherwise everything worked well! Really enjoyed it :)”

The comments that were made in response to this question raise some interesting points that people would change if they could. I do not personally agree with the comment about using no dialogue at all, as I feel that the little bit we did use helped to establish the narrative. Neither, personally, do I agree with stating part of the narrative in text on screen, because as this is only the opening to the film, we can’t give the entire plot away at the beginning. I understand the comment about experimenting with using locations with a more clear background, as the background in the garage is not very clear, but I feel that an unclear background of the shot adds more focus onto the main focus of the shot, in this case the body, and adds mystery as to wear the scene is set. I do agree with altering the shadow on the credits, as I agree that when they pass over certain photos, they are hard to read due to the colours that are in some of the photos in the montage. 

Question 7 - Do you have any other feedback comments?

“I like the idea, the editing and the video. It shows that you are creative and have much knowledge about filmmaking”

“It was a very good video, well done”

“Great work for an AS piece”

“Nice work”

I left answering this question as optional, as I simply wanted to leave a method in which people could add any extra thoughts they had that did not fall under any of the questions that I asked. The answers to this question were all extremely positive, and complimented our work. This leads me to believe that overall our piece is effective and enjoyable.