Evaluation Question 3 - What Have You Learned from your Audience Feedback?

What Have You Learned from your Audience Feedback?

http://jameswestonisthebeston.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/short-film-bernard-bird-audience.html

In order to gather audience feedback, I used Survey monkey to get opinions and ratings on my products. This consisted of a questionnaire, which was distributed to a few people which cover a wide audience range. The age group that was used is around the 17-19 area, as that is the intended audience for the film. The film was shown to all of these, which then were given the survey to complete. The results shows the two most common groups that these people fell into.

 This is the survey's first question, filled with the two most popular answers. Both of these are very good reflections on my film, as they give good ratings for the film. Given that this is immediately after viewing, this is good, as it leaves an impression upon the viewer. The other questions reflect this, as they will have been answered slightly after seeing the film, and they remain positive results. Using this information, I have learned that my film is popular with my target audience, and that it as therefore been successful.

Overall, the Feedback that I have received from the popular answers to the questionnaire are mostly positive. Within question one, both groups gave good ratings, with one being 4 stars and one being 5. Due to one of these being lower then the other, this shows that there is still room for improvement. Question 2 was similarly well received, with answers relating to the level of detail and effects being the most common. alongside this, comments were also made about the animation quality, as well as the characters and narrative developed.

On Question 3, both groups found that the film was effective in it's narrative and visual style, long with the music. This also leaves room or improvement, but is a good starting point, and shows the film, as being popular with these groups. For Question 4, both groups answered highly, with one giving an 8 and the other giving a 9. However, these ratings could be improved, and therefore the method through which the narrative is explained requires improvement in order to be the best that it can be.

For Question 5, both groups had comments to write about the film, both being good. The first group answered with a shorter answer, mentioning the robot's eyes and faces being more effective due to their mobility, allowing for a greater range of emotions to be expressed, which the group notes allows the audience to empathize better. The second group's responses are far larger and much more detailed, mentioning about how there are small visual cues that help to tell the story, to which they then go on to examples from the short film, such as the day/night modes, the eyes on the robots along with the small device that directs them to the battery. They also go on to mention the cinematography of the film, mentioning that they liked the use of camera shots and angles.

Within Question 6, the question asks for dislikes about the film, but the responses do not list much that they didn't like. The first group mentions the ending, saying that it seemed somewhat sudden, which is a complaint that I agree with. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints of the video, a more elaborate ending was not able to be added, but it should be something that could be tweaked should the beginning be shortened or simplified. As for the second group, they had no dislikes that they commented on in the film.

Overall, with these responses being very positive, The reviews reflect that the audience likes the film. However, this does not mean that it is without flaws. Within the 'What Improvements Would You Recommend?', the common responses were that the scenes earlier on in the film should be shortened down in order to focus more on the ending. Following this advice would allow for more time to focus on the ending, as suggested, and make more of the finale. This could make the ending more satisfying for the viewer, leaving the film with a better and more memorable final scene which is longer and more plot-related.

The other comment on this question is that the sound effects could have been better utilized. They point out specifically the robot's 'voices', saying that they should be used more within the film, as well as that more ambient sounds and noises could have been used. This is something that I agree with, and on reflection more sounds could have been added. From this feedback, I have learnt that the audience would like the pacing of the film to be altered, as well as sound and dialogue effects.

Evaluation Question 4 - How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

How Did You Use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Throughout the development of my short film, I had primarily used different software and hardware in order to make it, as the CGI required a large amount of technological involvement in order to work. One of the two most important programs in the making of the film was Unity3D, the 3D graphical engine that I created my animation in. To give demonstrations of how this has been used, along with the 3D modelling tool Blender, an interactive guide to the assets used throughout the film is given in the demo below.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByeAkfBNgEqsUkFUdFZyTFFuMGc

Ancillary Text 1: Draft Poster

Using the minimalist styling shown in the research for my poster, along with the posing demonstrated by the short film posters, I have began to draft a poster using a combination of these features.

Ancillary Text 1: Poster for the Film - Research

There are few short film posters that feature similar themes to my film, but i have managed to find a few to take inspiration and ideas from. I would like to create a pastiche of these posters using my protagonists as the centerpiece, and then put them together in the form of a bricolage to create something new. there are a few posters that i will be taking inspiration from, all of which revolve around the sci-fi theme to keep consistency and genre throughout the poster. some of the ideas that i am currently thinking about including would be the use of shadows and silhouettes, minimalist two-colour styles and a use of negative space.

Some of the posters that I am considering taking inspiration from would be from various short films that focus around similar subjects, i.e. sci-fi, robots, machinery and the cold winter themes that run throughout the setting. for the poses and object arrangement within the poster, I will take a look at the following posters:

These give a large range of ideas for inspiration in terms of how the poster should be structured, but for the styling of the poster, I will be taking a different route. A style that makes for a very simple but eye-catching poster is using minimalist styles to represent the film, with basic colours and shapes. Alongside this, a large amount of minimalistic posters make a use of negative space to represent an image within the image, while not directly depicting said image. This is done more through the lack of imagery within a certain area (such as the posters demonstrated below).

Using a combination of these styles, I believe that the poster will conform to the conventions of object arrangement within the poster, but that the styling of the poster will help to set it apart from other short film posters.

Media Short Film - First Full Draft

The first draft of my media short film is finished! This contains all of the scenes that are in the final film.

New Hardware!

Recently, I purchased a new £200 graphics card for my computer. In terms of my animation, this gives me the potential to create a far better end product, as more camera effects, bigger and more expansive sets and more ambitious particle and lighting effects can be achieved. Alongside this, I may be able to complete my original intention of filming the entire short film in 60 frames per second, giving the finished result a much smoother look and finish.

With this in mind, I am altering the original story that I had in mind slightly to incorporate some of the initial ideas that I had but was at the time unable to use, such as multiple antagonists and a larger scale fight at the end. This larger scale fight will use some of the models I initially made for this project, but scrapped due to their high-requirements. Some of those are as follows:

The large areal fort that the antagonists will reside in, and the protagonists will have to infiltrate

Small Drone used by the antagonists as a smaller form of henchmen (Note: This model got as far as having it's colours textured before being scrapped)

Along with various other scenery objects (walls, platforms etc), these are some of the previous ideas that can be now incorporated into the short film, either taking on similar roles to their original intention or being changed to fit the more up to date narrative. The narrative changes effect little of the story, but are largely just a few shots placed into the pre-existing scenes in order to set up the antagonist more, as well as introducing a new plot point that will be used in the finale (a small Ipod-like device that will play a song and it's music video when one of the protagonists accidentally activates it). This will, of course, lead to changes being placed within the finale, as it will be done on a much grander scale then previously planned to be.

Media Mock Edit

The media mock edit of a sequence from my short film.