3 )-What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is crucial in the post-production stage, as without the audiences response and input my product would be unsuccessful. This is affirmed in ‘Audience reception theory’ Janet Stagier states “...(reception theory) is a complex matter, since the way one reacts to a film or interprets it depends upon a number of different factors, such as type of film, marketing strategies, mode of exhibition, nature of the viewer, make up of the audiences, aesthetic consideration and ideological perspective.”

Audience reception has allowed me to reflect and realise how imperative it is for the audience to like your product. Having being hampered at the last moment with a request from my main protagonist who did not wish for the products to be uploaded on social networking sites such as Facebook, Tagged, Myspace and Bebo. I decided to overcome my obstacle by consulting other media students, who had previously done a similar task. Confronted with differing solutions, I asked ‘if given the opportunity to carry out their audience feedback what would they do differently?” The vast majority indicated, although it was efficient and easy to collate; the result through social networking sites was not appropriate as they found the input given was not detailed. Furthermore, as the interviewer was not there the questions were closed- ended and the interviewer was not there to probe and extend answers where necessary. I decided to resolve my problem through arranging a ‘film night’. I invited a group of 20 people ranging from 12-40 years at my house to view my teaser trailer and ancillary texts along with popcorn and refreshments to create the cinematic (womb like) experience.

The make up of the audience was predominantly an Asian audience with five white viewers- although the racial mix was not intentional it added critical, knowledgeable and indifferent feedback; this allowed some of them to identify with the characters and the plot whilst others could not see themselves in the shoes of my protagonists.

This was followed with a debate on British Asian identity and representation in the media; comparing my teaser trailer with other British Asian cinematic texts such as Britz, Baji on the beach and East is East (films that attempt to locate the Asian experience), as well as other Asian film makers working in Britain such as Ismail Merchant, Waris Hussian- who have been accused of not presenting the Asian experience. It was even suggested by a media studies graduate that film makers- like the above mentioned confirmed the West’s obsession “with the Orient and the Exotic” where by films such as ‘Gandhi, A Passage to India and Jewel in the Crown in which the nostalgia of the British Raj is revised and celebrated’.



From the posed question asked about my teaser trailer the pie chart indicates my teaser trailer does reflect a real media product- they added this was through the obvious conventions I used for example the length of no longer than one minute thirty seconds, snippets of the narrative compacted in the trailer, the music, the voice over, the tagline, the typography.

The bar chart shows the audience wanted the voice over to be improved, this however was something unavoidable due to the fact that I recorded it through a camera and not a professional audio software due to lack of resources-If I were to reproduce this work I would use a microphone as this would prevent and block out any other non-digetic sound. In addition the audience also suggested the pace of the teaser trailer was too slow for what the narrative was; this again was a result and restraint due to lack of resources as the software used and available did not have adequate fast pace editing.

The bar graph depicting the audience wish to see the film demonstrates my teaser trailer is successful; people that said they were intrigued were Asian and wanted to see whether I had successfully located the Asian experience in my narrative. Some of the viewers were knowledgeable of the media representation of Islam and liked the way in which my trailer stereotyped the media ideological perspective of an Islamic extremist yet my narrative does not condone this and so the audience wanted to see how I addressed and deconstructed this stereotype in my movie. The people that were not too sure as to whether they would watch it were film goers who give ‘aesthetic importance to a films technique’ rather than the plot.


Sixteen out of twenty said my film poster was very effective and would entice them to see the film as they were all avid viewers of Bollywood. The only white person who was impressed by the poster said it reminded her of well known Bollywood film posters and so by making this connection her expectation of my film would be on par with those films. The other fifteen were all Asian people so related the poster with something they could relate to and were sure the film would locate their Asian experience. The other four were impressed with my Photoshop skills and wanted to see the movie and judge it on film technique merit.



The magazine did not gain a positive response from the audience as they felt it did not give the message that the other two products did. For example it lacked the semiotic message of love, melodrama, tragedy and action the other texts give. This made the audience feel cheated and they felt it was a more appropriate picture for a lifestyle/ home magazine. I agree with the audience but I was forced to use this image due to deadline restraints as my original images were accidentally deleted by a fellow student. I understand the disappointment the audience felt as there was no correlation between the messages the two previous texts suggested.