3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

My group and I have achieved the engagement of the target audience as every volunteer, apart from one, who filled out the questionnaire said they would watch the soap. The questionnaire was filled out by several different age groups so this means not only have we attracted the interest of our target audience but other audiences too. The one volunteer who said they would not watch the soap was male, therefore, this means that our soap would maybe attract more male attention than female.

Volunteers have all identified at least three of the five themes/life events in the trailer which means the narratives have been conveyed well and people can understand the meaning of the text. This has been supported by the text before the clips explaining the narrative. 

However, one of the life events; pregnancy, was not presented as well. This is because several volunteers wrote on the questionnaire that they were unsure what was going on in that part of the trailer and it was not identified by many. During the planning and filming stage we were unaware of this problem because we knew what the narratives were so could not see that it was unclear. This implies that not everyone reads the text as you would expect them to. To make all narratives clear the clip with the character sitting on the floor should be made more apparent that she is looking at a pregnancy test with maybe a zoomed in shot of the actual pregnancy stick.

All volunteers identified the stock characters and created a relationship with these. This is an achievement because we wanted to gain this from the trailer as it would engage the audience and want them to watch it. Most said that the ending of the trailer, with the protagonist laying on the floor unconscious, created a relationship between the viewer and the character with an element of sympathy. This enticed the audience to want to know what happens next, becoming eager to see the soap.

Each person that filled out the questionnaire said that the pace of the trailer suited the themes because the themes included drugs and alcohol which are both hard hitting and frightening. Frightening things usually happen quickly and are out of the individual’s control, therefore, the short clips and different camera angles created more of an experience and made the audience feel more involved in the themes. Also, the music made an impact with its fast beat, creating a faster moving atmosphere.

Finally, the peer evaluations when the text was at a draft stage helped to notice any areas for development. The peer evaluation alerted us to the idea that we needed to include text before the clips to make the narratives more clear. This has improved our overall achievement of the trailer as the audience understood what was going on and what the soap was about which was our aim.