2. QUESTIONNAIRE
Firstly, once we had finished our teaser trailer, I constructed a
questionnaire for people to answer once they had finished watching
the trailer
I wanted to ask a variety of different people to watch my trailer and
answer my questionnaire because not only did I want to know what
my target audience thought about the trailer, but I also wanted to see
what older and younger people thought of it and also both males and
females too.
I distrubuted my questionnaires out to different classes in different
years in the school so that there was a variety of ages and sexes and
I also asked the teachers of those classes to do the same. I also
asked people outside of the school to complete the questionnaire too
so that I had a varied amount of people
When the questionnaires were completed, I had about 20/25
questionnaires returned to me and so I spent a couple of hours
looking through the questionnaires with my trailer in front of me too
so that I could read through the feedback and the constructive
criticism and then watch my trailer back and really emphasise on the
sections on my trailer that had been given feedback on, so I could
see what I had needed to improve.
3.
4. In the slide above are two images of my
questionnaire, the front page and the back.
On my questionnaire, the questions were
1) Are you male or female?
2) How old are you?
3) What is your favourite genre of film?
4) What would you rate the trailer out of 5?
5) Why?
6) What would you do to make this trailer better?
7) Would you go and watch this film in the cinema
after watching the trailer?
8) What do you think of the setting?
9) What do you think of the sound?
10) Who do you think will get the boy in the end?
5. The feedback from the questionnaires that I felt was most useful and that I needed to
act upon so that my trailer could be improved and have an overall more professional
affect were the following:
- Some people said that they felt the narrative needed to be straight away from the
beginnning of the film and that there needed to be more than an establishing shot of
the school to determine this.
- Also, they suggested that me and my partner re-film the end sequence where the two
girls run up to the castlist because in the original footage, you couldn‘t see the actual
cast list itself so they suggested that we re-film it and add more emphasis onto the
cast list itself so that the audience knows what the two girls are running up to
- They also suggested that we extend some of the footage we had used as they felt it
had been cut too short to the point where what was going on in the filming wasn‘t clear
to the audience and it didn‘t come across as it should
- Addittionally, they said that there was one clip in the trailer where the background
noise from the setting and the filming was louder than the actual music that is
supposed to be playing alongside the film
- Finally, the people completing my questionnaire suggested that Greg should be
encorporated more into the film so that the audience understands the sub-plot of the
two girls fighting over the boy, as well as the main plot of the two girls wanting the
main part in the show.
● Me and my partner then decided from this feedback that we were going to
act upon what the people filling out the questionnaire had suggested so that
our film would be understood more by target audience and to give the trailer
overall a more professional, polished final piece.
6. Here, I have written out
all the things I needed
to improve in my trailer.
I have done this so I can
keep on track with what
to improve and also so
that I can get my
improvements as close
to what people
suggested as possible.
This can also be used a
checklist so I can tick
each one off when I
have completed it and
improved it on my
trailer.
7. -Here is the first improvement of
my teaser trailer ticked off.
- To improve this, all I did was
open up the software in which
my film was embedded into and
then I just turned the volume
down on the clip where the
background noise was too loud
and I turned the volume up on
the music soundtrack that is
supposed to run alongside the
trailer.
8. -Here is the second imrpovement on my list being ticked off.
- To do this, I re-added the full length clips that I had saved in My
Documents that were uncut and then I added them into my film
and dragged them down to the timeline.
- Once I done this, I could then but the elongated clips into the
places where they should be in the trailer.
- I could then cut these clips however I wanted them to
be, which I did, but I didn‘t cut them as much as I had done
previously so that the clips were longer and were therefore able
to establish a storyline better.
- There were 4 scenes that I re-cut in the trailer. They were all
audition pieces for the school show and I chose to lengthen the
young girl who was really good, and Natalie, the really bad one
to emphasise the contrast between the two characters and to
get across the idea that the two of them are auditioning for a role
in the school show.
- I also elongated the clip of Greg auditioning for the show. I did
this because I felt his presence in the trailer was not as great as
it could be so I felt like the more he was in the film and the
longer he auditioned for, then the more noticeable it would be tell
that the two girls are fighting over him.
- Finally, I re-cut the clip of Kieran dancing and falling into the
camera. I did this because initially, I had cut it too far and the
audience didn‘t really understand what had gone on so the
second time round I only cut the clip a tiny bit at the start so that
the audience could see him begin his dance and then eventually
fall into the camera, whereas before he just fell into the camera
straight away.
9. -Here, I am showing that I have completed 3 improvements.
- In the third improvement, me and my partner decided to re-film the end
sequence of the trailer because the castlist wasn‘t visible the first time
we filmed it.
- To re-film, we gathered our two main characters and we also created a
cast list on Microsoft publisher so that it would be as believeable as
possible.
- We then recorded them running up to the cast list from the bottom of
the corridor. We also changed the setting from the time around we did to
a different corridor in a different part of the school because we thought
this would be more effective as you could see the look on their faces as
they are running up the castlist whereas the first time we filmed it you
couldn‘t see this as we filmed it from behind.
- Once we had recorded them running up to the castlist a couple of
times, we took a close up of the castlist itself because we knew we
wanted to cut from them running up to the castlist to the castlist itself.
- We then filmed a close up of their faces as they reached the castlist
and we wanted quite a similar facial expression on both of the
characters faces as we didn‘t want the audience to find out who will get
the main part. In the trailer, after there has been a close up of the castlist
itself, the camera will cut to this close up of the girls faces and will end
on this so that the audience are curious to know who gets the main part
in the show and who gets the boy in the end, therefore wanting to go
and watch the film.
- Finally, we had to edit the still of the castlist on photoshop before
putting it into the film software and onto the trailer because you could
see names on it and that would give the whole ending of the film away
so we had to blur out the names on the castlist so that the audience
would be pursuaded to go and watch the film at the cinema.
10. In this image, I have ticked off another
improvement.
This time, I wanted to improve the fact that one of
the main characters, Greg isn‘t in the trailer as
much as he should be considering he is important
in the plot of the trailer and the whole film itself.
To make this improvement, I extended a few clips
that Greg is in in the trailer to emphasise his
importance in the trailer and to show that he is the
most popular boy in school and the subplot that is
also occuring, in which the two girls are fighting
over him. The clips that I extended were the ones
where he is auditioning for the school show with
his guitar. I extended this because the feedback I
got was that they didn‘t really understand what
Greg‘s role was in the trailer and so by extending
his audition clips and the amount of time he is in
the trailer for, I think it will emphasise his
importance and allow his character to evolve in the
trailer.
11. -Here is my final improvement ticked off, letting myself
know that I have improved on all of the audience
feedback that I was given from my questionnaires.
- In this improvement, I decided that the narrative and
the storyline needed to be established from the
beginning of the trailer and that this establishment
needed to be more substantial than just an establishing
shot of the school from afar. To do this, I created an
auditions poster on Microsoft Publisher advertising the
auditions that would be taking place with the date and
time and where they were taking place. I then put this up
on the wall outside our Media room, which is on the
main corridor where everyone in the school would see it.
I took a still of this poster with the video camera and
then transferred it to the software that my film was on. I
then uploaded it to software and dragged it to the start of
the trailer. I decided to put it after the establishing shot of
the school but before the auditions actually start so it lets
the audience know that there are auditions being
advertisied and therefore they hopefully will then
understand why there are auditions in my trailer and why
the 2 girls are so competitive against each other which
may not have been understood before.
12. WHAT HAVE I LEARNT?
From my audience feedback, I have learnt that it is never too late to
make changes to improve my trailer.
I have learnt that I can really listen to constructive criticism and turn it
into a positive in which I am able to improve my teaser trailer and
make it a finished overall production.
From the audience feedback recieved, I feel I have acted on this
accordingly and have really improved my media trailer from what is
was before to what it is today and I am very appreciative of the
audience feedback and the people who took the time out to give me
feedback on my film as it has allowed me to strengthen my media
skills but also has opened my eyes to how I could have improved my
trailer and now hopefully I have improved it and made it look more
professional and a much more highly polished and well constructed
teaser trailer.
The newly filmed scenes can be seen on the re-filming post on my
blog.
