Evaluation Task 3

During this course I have altered all three of my product in line with feedback from others as well as through my own decisions.

We received substantial feedback for our trailer after out group presentation to the class, as well as throughout the process from our teachers. The most telling of the feedback was the fact that our trailer was too slow and needed to be cut more effectively. In order to create the tension we were searching for the trailer had to run at an extremely high pace. We had originally focused on having such a wide range of shots that our trailer had become too long and slow. Therefore we cut many shots entirely as well as trimming up some of the longer shots. Eventually, we were able to significantly increase the pace of the trailer, which was helped through the use of a montage. The other key feedback we received was for us to change the title of our film. The title was originally '18/02', representing the date our film's USP is based on. However, this was not clear enough and we received many comments suggesting that we find an improved title. Eventually we settled on the title of 'D.O.B' as it offered more connotations to our audience as well as making our USP more clear. We had a conversation with a media technician at our school who gave us some effective advice on our intertitles and how we could add some slight movement to them, as well as on some close ups. This draws the audiences attention subconsciously to the intertitle itself. Overall, we did not need too much feedback in order to ensure our film fitted our genre of Horror Thriller as this had been completed in the majority, however it was just minor tweaks that allowed for us to narrow down on our demographic and to ensure we had completed a piece of work of a high quality.

I also received significant feedback on my two ancillary tasks, the magazine cover and the poster. From my original draft of my magazine cover I was told I had too much glow around the images and that they were too small. I had added the glow in order to draw attention to the images however by making the images larger I was able to remove the need for this, drawing attention to them through their size instead. I was also told that it was not clear that the magazine was a special edition of D.O.B, the film I created. In order to ensure this was clear I had to alter the position and size of the text. This in turn made it clear that this film would be a key part of the magazine. The key issue with my first draft however, was that it was too busy in the wrong areas. In order to counter this I removed some unnecessary text and made an image of some stars I had created significantly smaller. This allowed for attention to be focused on the important features of the magazine and would not confuse my demographic. I agreed with this feedback and I believe it significantly helped my improve my final piece, I had become focused on squeezing all the conventions on to my magazine cover through different techniques, however this feedback allowed for me to see that I could do that without congesting the magazine cover.

 I had significantly less feedback for my poster however it was of equal importance due to the minimalistic nature of my poster. I had originally included a third image of a barn on the poster however it was not clear once shown on the full screen. To counter this I made the other two images more central and removed the image of the barn. Adding a effective simple theme to my poster as it allowed for a key focus on Sean's character. However I had also had to dull the glow on Sean I had added previously to draw attention to him as it was to bright, removing all attention from other areas of the poster. By doing this I was able to still draw attention to him however it was more subtle and natural. My tagline itself was also unreadable once on the big screen. In order to fix this I changed my font and increased its size. This, in parallel with the lowering of the glow on Sean made its importance much clearer to my demographic. Finally, it was also pointed out that my billing block was too small and that I needed to make it smaller as it was not needed as a key part of the poster. In order to do this I made the basic text smaller however I kept the actors names in bold. This allowed for the important information to be clear however the unnecessary text was now of a correct size. Through this feedback I was able to create a much more professional looking poster, whereas previously some basic conventions were misplaced.

In conclusion, the audience feedback I received was invaluable. Due to the fact that previously only I had seen my work I had become engrossed in it and I was unable to see an outsiders view. Once other people saw it they were able to make it clear how I could improve my work which then become obvious to me. It was particularly helpful to speak to media experts as they could give direct advice on what worked effectively rather than general advice on what to improve.