What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For the research, we gave the audience a questionnaire based on our genre. The audience responded to what aspects within the genre they find appealing which our target audience finds that gore/blood and death are the most appealing with the audience finding adventure, meaningful violence and sustained fear the least appealing.

These responses are what me and my group expected due to the responses matching the profiles of the life matrix audience as they are fun/atics, rugged traditionalists and tribe-wired. For rugged traditionalists, I and my group hypothesised that they would like meaningless violence and adventure due to rugged traditionalists' 'love of the outdoors'. So for the positive responses received, we decided to include conventions that they find appealing within the theatrical trailer as we want the theatrical trailer to appeal as much as possible to the audience.

The audience responded to what they think is the most important convention used within a zombie apocalyptic trailer which the highest response was action scenes in which me and my group predicted as our target audience's life matrix profile is rugged traditionalists in which they love the outdoors in which they tend to love action scenes as it shows elements of survival in which relates to the outdoors as rugged traditionalists like survival as it tests their strengths in which they can experience a simulated pleasure of survival by watching action scenes which creates the semantic experience of visceral pleasure (Altman) of survival and action. So we decided to include conventions of action scenes and fast paced editing as we want the theatrical trailer to appeal to the audience as much as possible.

I exhibited my final work to a theatre of 40 students within my target audience range.

I have learned that the audience feedback has a positive correlation with the audience profiles that is expected for our target audience which is rugged traditionalists, tribe wired, fun/Atics which me and my group used this psychographic method to profile my audience as the target audience for my genre is of rugged traditionalists, tribe wired and fun/atics. We found that the responses for question 2 for our questionnaire is that the majority of males where outgoing, outdoorsy and fun which is what we expected from our target audience to be like that enjoyed the trailer. Our target audience are described as rugged traditionalists, funatics, and tribe wired which the majority of males from our target audience has those characteristics. For the females, the majority of them also responded with similar results as they too said they were outgoing, outdoorsy, and fun but also fashionable. This suggests they also are put of our target audience as they too share characteristics of rugged traditionalists, tribe wired and funatics. The females also responded to like all three ancillary texts by saying they were good or very good and no one (including the males) said they did not like any of the ancillary texts which shows that the three ancillary texts contains multiple conventions of a zombie apocalyptic film that suits the taste of the target audience which has the characteristics of rugged traditionalists, funatics, and tribe wired which in theory these audience profiles will only like this genre of texts.

For planning and research for the film trailer, we used audience feedback from the preliminary video (teaser trailer) in which we displayed some main conventions of the zombie apocalyptic horror genre within the 10-15 second video in which we asked the audience for their feedback. The audience feedback helped us decide what conventions to include and what conventions not include within the theatrical trailer. The whole audience said they liked the title font that it fits in well within the genre of zombie apocalyptic horror as similar title fonts from the genre of zombie apocalypse horror such as Shaun Of The Dead and Virus which displays conventions of blood/gore, zombies, darkness and isolation which the title font used within the preliminary video conforms to the same conventions.

Due to the audience’s positive feedback for these convention used, we chose to use the convention used and keep the title font similar within the theatrical film trailer. The whole audience also said that the main protagonist within the preliminary video intrigued them as the main protagonist was represented as mysterious due to the costume and performance of the main protagonist. We decided to focus this convention used within the preliminary video for the theatrical film trailer as we want to appeal to the target audience as much as possible.

Most of the audience said that the location used fitted in well with the genre of the film as the location (woods) connotes conventional theme of isolation which creates more suspense, mystery (creates more intellectual puzzles (Altman) for the audience, which will keep them engaged within the text) and vulnerability for the protagonist as the convention used ‘the fear of the unknown’ as the audience does not know what is lurking within the woods. But some of the audience did not think this location was suitable with the genre as they expect to see more urban environments than rural environments which maybe to do with how modern society is as more people in modern society are exposed to urban environments rather than rural environments and when they imagine an apocalyptic scenario, they will see dystopic environments rather than isolated areas such as the woods, fields, farms and the countryside.

We decided to keep the convention of the woods to suit the tastes of the majority of the audience that said the woods fitted in well with the genre as well as adding more locations to suit the rest of the audience that did not agree with the location of the woods, which we add locations such as streets, buildings and shots of urban areas to suit the other audience’s taste as well as we want the theatrical trailer to appeal as much to the audience as much as possible.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Media Evaluation question 3

We also learned from our audience what conventions where found/ associated with the film trailer. The males that responded with this question mostly said that they identified the conventions of isolation and survival. This fits into the main genre of this text as it includes conventional themes of isolation and survival which is commonly found in other films of the same genre, which suggests that the text made was successfully made and fits in well within the genre as this is supported by the large number of responses from male respondents that answered that question.

For the question that describes how suitable the ancillary text of the magazine cover is to the genre of the zombie apocalypse , the male respondents all said it was suitable to the genre which suggests that the magazine covers has all the conventions of the genre and the conventions of a magazine cover. These conventions can be identified by the target audience and by other audiences to who may not like this genre but are able to identify the conventions seen within the text which suggests that this text is successful and fits in well with the genre of the zombie apocalypse. These conventions within the text can be seen within other magazine covers such as Total Film Magazine that displayed Shaun Of The Dead and mainly focused on the film which shared similar conventions with the magazine cover and also with the film magazine Fangoria which displayed the film Zombie on the front cover.

For the females, they responded by identifying conventions of death, isolation and survival. Again these conventions are included within the film trailer which tells us that this film trailer is successful and fits in within the zombie apocalyptic genre well as these conventions can also be identified within other film trailers of this genre such as 28 Days Later (2002) , Resident Evil (2002), and Zombieland(2009), just to name a few.

For the other ancillary text (film poster) the male respondents answered the question that describes how well does the film poster fit the conventions of the zombie apocalyptic genre in which they all said it was quite well and very well with the majority saying it was very well. This tells us the convention used within the film poster suits the conventions that are expected within a film poster of this genre which describes the film well but gives nothing away and creates hype and excitement. The female respondents responded by saying the film poster was quite well and very well which the majority of the female respondents saying the film poster was very well which also suggests that from both perspectives that the film poster possesses conventions that is expected within a film poster of this genre. This tells us that it is successful and fits in well within the genre as these conventions can be seen within other film posters of this genre such as 28 Days Later, World War Z and REC.