What Have You Learned From Your Audience

Feedback?

I have learned the media task needed to have good advertising in order to cater to its audience needs and expectations. By using social media to collect audience feedback, I understood what they wanted to see from a horror film. I researched conventions for trailers and the ancillary texts and later, a questionnaire sample of men and women from my audience group. From my research, I discovered that I would be selling my products towards male and female audiences over fifteen.

Once I had an understanding of my narrative, I planned a costume for the main character. This included a summer dressing gown and nightdress. The make up choice was Clinique mascara, minimal lipstick, pale foundation and a selection of smoky eye shadows.

I put some of the clips together and uploaded a number of drafts until the final version had been finished. A focus group from my target audience looked at my drafts and provided me with feedback results to relate my work its horror film genre.

My drafts were uploaded onto YouTube and Blogger as they are popular media platforms that allow my audience to access them, as a result of media convergence. Media convergence allowed me to receive feedback, also though using Facebook Messenger – a popular shortcut to message friends on Facebook.

Close friends and family members from my audience group listed pros and cons for the ancillary texts and horror trailer I had uploaded. Then I saved the comments of screenshots on my phone which made them easy to locate. Using screenshot images meant I could see what needed improving and meant avoiding having to find the messages in a conversation of private messages.

Additionally, I researched images of vengeful ghosts for appropriate costumes and props based around early research. My questionnaire helped to indicate horror themes which my audience like. The most popular horror type, for example was Psychological. 47% of my sample felt psychological horror was less predictable which kept my audience engaged by the narrative. One response I received was that some audience members like to “think more than see.” This means suspense is maintained.

(Researched in Google Images)

After I took several photographs of my actress, I came up with an idea for the horror magazine design. Some of the photographs, however, had features of them which didn’t work. Some of the natural lighting created flecks on my actress, making her look too natural and didn’t look supernatural and eerie enough to engage my audience and link to horror.

New design ideas