Dress Rehearsal
The lighting looks slightly better than previously due to the purple being toned down and it creates an outline on David that looks cool. The presenters look more confident and don't look away at the script much anymore. I can't hear it but from context clues it looks like the outro for the live gameplay looks much better, the presenter has the time to introduce the next topic
The lighting is very blue which doesn't look terrible but I think it could look better. The opening graphic still takes too long which leaves the screen completely black for a few seconds. The zoom on the presenter during the outro of the live gameplay section looks a little off
Live Show
The live show went fairly well, there's a noticeable improvement with the presenters. Since we finally had the guest interviewers there were a lot less moments where it looked like the presenter was just reading off script. Its clear they practiced their lines a lot for this
Because this was the second time we were doing rehearsals with the quiz round guests, that part was the most messy. I could've cut a lot better for it as I sometimes cut to the wrong contestant, the camera shots sometimes became very unfocused and for some reason one of the camera shots suddenly started drifting off to the right
Daily Diary 07/12
Today we did the live show, we don't need to edit it so we'll be writing the evaluation tomorrow. We were also able to do one more rehearsal before the dress rehearsal
Everything recorded today (including the live show) has no sound so we can't use it for audience feedback. It feels a bit ironic since we didn't have any major sound issues today, so of course this had to happen. We've had issues with audio this entire time, I'm not even the person who operates sound and I'm tired of it. I was told this might not matter too much though since we were graded during the live show
For how it went, for me personally I think that was one of my worst performances. I felt the video transition from the retro gaming interview to the related video was poor, I didn't cut to cameras well during the quiz and I was a little late for the social media graphic at the beginning of the show (although the last isn't too bad as I made the graphic appear while the presenters were still listing off the shows social medias)
During the show someone audibly sneezed into their microphone and the camera shots were unfocused at times, but other than these problems I thought the presenters did a lot better for the live show. Its a shame the audio is gone because there were some funny parts in the episode. I think I finally found the perfect settings and placements for all the lights in time for the live show too
Audience Feedback
Because there's no sound on the dress rehearsal or live show, we decided to get audience feedback from one of our previous rehearsals. We only sent it to the level 2 media students (who would be part of our primary target audience) since this was just a rehearsal and they could provide a lot of insight since they're media students too
The first question is actually completely split, which for me I think is a first. This is perfect as the primary target audience wasn't targeted at a specific gender, so this means the responses will be completely even in this regard
This was another general question asked since if our primary target audience liked the rehearsal they'd be likely to like the actual live show too. The overwhelming yes to this question means that our show was successful with interesting our primary target audience, as only one respondent said no
Since there aren't many responses, I've decided I'll just show every single one. Many responses cite the show as being entertaining, fun to watch yet also informative. In the proposal I wrote I said the show aimed to entertain the audience and this questionnaire proves that it is still entertaining, even though they only watched a rehearsal. A few answers also mention how the presenters are fun and upbeat as well, also mentioning that the pacing of the show was good
One answer says that the show is too long and not that interesting but didn't elaborate too much on it, which is fair. The show is very niche and if the viewer isn't into games then it most likely wouldn't interest them, however we had a set time of one hour so there's nothing we could've done about that
The previous question talked about what they personally enjoyed, but I wanted to know what they think their age range (our primary target audience) in general would enjoy about the show. Most responses are about how the games mentioned are people their age range would play or be interested in, gaming is also a big interest for the age range as well. Two responses say that seeing someone else play the game made them feel like playing them themselves. One response mentions how the casts are in their age range as well and that the presenters informal language appeals to them as well. Someone also tried to guess what the age range of the show was and was wrong, but I think I understand how they came to that conclusion. If I had to guess it might've been because of the plushies, I was also slightly worried that the amount of plushies might've made our set look a bit childlike
Having all of these responses will help me justify how we successfully hit our target audience in my evaluation, since we've already finished recording the show at this point
The responses this are slightly more positive as 7 said yes and 5 said no, but I still consider this a very positive result. During the research process I read about our primary target audience being very difficult to successfully target since they're very fickle, but if most of the audience would follow the show's social medias and take part in the show's discussions then that means they'd be much more likely to continue watching. I think a part of the reason why people would be interested was because of the controversy talk where the presenters read out comments from their social medias, in the show & rehearsals they read a comment from their Discord server
The presenters are a very important part of the show for obvious reasons and they only got better as we continued doing more rehearsals. Majority of the responses say that they were entertaining for different reasons but most say it was they had enthusiasm & passion, spoke clearly and had good chemistry with each other
Since this was a rehearsal, in my previous logs I've noted that there were still some issues in the rehearsal. Some responses said they broke character a few times which they did, I assume they mean any moments when they suddenly went silent because they spoke too quickly. Another response said they seemed bored and unconfident, it may have been because we had so many rehearsals that they started sounding a bit robotic. Overall I think these issues were fixed when it came to them finally doing the live show, but they're still valid concerns
In the next question I give them a way to elaborate on their choices, but a whopping majority of them really liked the set design. This was a checkbox question which meant respondents could choose multiple answers as well. When going back to rewatch rehearsal 3 I also noted that the set looked really good. The graphics and topics were also very well liked as well. The least liked was the music which was understandable as it was a remix of a video game track, meaning that it made our show have less of an identity. It could be argued that it'd fit since the episode was about the new Sonic game but I think that argument is flimsy at best since professional TV show's music for the graphics usually wouldn't be changed unless it was for a seasonal holiday. There was also no music in the actual show due to that not being a code & convention of live TV anyway
These responses are actually quite varied. The set design was called creative, a response saying it was clear that a lot of effort went into the set which makes it look detailed. They also said the podiums for the quiz round even look official. Some say the presenters were confident and likeable, this is interesting as majority of the responses also said they seemed confident previously but one response said the opposite. Others said the graphics had a good colour scheme and that it and the music matched the genre of the show. The topics were also interesting and covered games that they were interested in. If this was all true for them, then that likely means they would be the same to more of our primary target audience as well
For the answers that are too long: "The cuts and messing up the dialogue but im not sure if thats just because it was a rehearsal" & "one of the presenters keeps darting their eyes to the side off of the set"
I asked the inverse for that question too as I wanted to see what the more worse aspects of the rehearsals are. Camera angles were agreed to be the worst part, trailers being a close second, while the lighting wasn't an issue
There are also reasons given to why people disliked various things in the show as well, it seems just because something was the most highly rated didn't mean it was the responders least favourite part. The camera angles didn't fully show the person who was playing the game which meant the audience couldn't fully see their face and in that shot you can also see the camera equipment behind him. The camera operator in shot was told to try and move away, but in the live show this couldn't really be avoided
The presenters not looking straight at the camera was an issue for awhile during the rehearsals as they had to look at the script on the board, this was ironically also a problem for game show. This quickly got better before the actual live show, but it was an issue throughout most of the rehearsals so it was important to mention. They were also criticised for moving around too much
One response mentioned the volume being very quiet, saying they had to turn their airpods on maximum and could still barely hear. I don't know if this was fixed before the live show for obvious reasons, but we do ask a question about it later on
Someone said the set design looked bland, which was again interesting as that was the most popular part of the show in the previous questions and was praised for being creative and detailed
We asked this due to us knowing about this issue already, some said no while others said yes and gave time stamps to when this happened. I remember in one of the interviews someone's phone did go off which caused the presenters to laugh, but this didn't happen again so it's not super notable. To me the pauses were most noticeable during transitions from topics and for pre-recorded items, which the responses do talk about
A lot of responses says that the sound was too quiet and inconsistent. I thought it felt inconsistent during one of the ad breaks, specifically the Amazon Prime ad was very loud compared to everything else. In general it seemed the sound was very quiet and that it was hard to hear people talk during some parts
We asked this question as we thought this was a problem with the show as well, but a lot of responses said no. The most obvious was definitely during the quiz round when the camera focuses on the Nintendo Switch, which some pointed out. Others give more specific times like during the interviews. I unfortunately don't think this issue really got fixed much before the live show either, especially during the quiz round
A lot of people said they really liked the set, saying they liked the consoles together the most. Some responses say that more should've been added like more posters, others say they wished the curtains were more straightened and had different coloured backgrounds. While dressing the set we also wanted the curtains to be straightened, but we literally couldn't have done anything about them and the only other choice for colours was a green curtain that was honestly worse. One response mentions how the lighting could've been brighter and when looking back at those rehearsals, I think the lighting could've still been brighter as well. They also mention that we could've interviewed real people for those rehearsals instead, but that likely would've caused issues. We most likely wouldn't be able to have the actual interviewed guests for most of the rehearsals as they're teachers, we'd most likely run into a similar issue if we got a random person to do it and everyone in our class was already doing something so it couldn't be any of us
Almost every respondent said they liked the name and graphics of the show, saying it fit with the gaming theme of the show. During the production meeting when we were talking about a name for the show, I was always slightly worried with the name of the show being too generic (especially since there is another show with that name already) and two responses seem to agree by saying it wasn't a very memorable name. I do think the graphics do fit with the show very well though
All of the respondents said the advertisements were appropriate which is very good as its meant to target the primary target audience, which all of them are a part of. I agree that the advertisements do work with who we're aiming for
The last question was if the rehearsals made them interested in any upcoming games, we asked this mainly because of the trailers and the live gameplay sections. 9 of them said yes while 3 said no, which isn't too bad. The trailer talk was meant to make the audience interested in upcoming games, the live gameplay section wasn't meant to but could possibly do that also
Overall the answers to this questionnaire was very interesting and will help me when justifying my points for my evaluation. There were some that surprised me like the set design getting a lot of praise yet also a bit of negative comments to it. It almost makes me wish I did audience feedback on the rehearsals before the live show
Evaluation
Daily Diary 08/12
Today I had to write my evaluation and finish anything off my checklist
Even though I'm proud of the end product I'm also very glad that this unit is over too, the constant sound problems were really annoying and I'm not even the one in charge of sound. There were a lot of technical difficulties in general but the issues with the sound were easily the worst
Overall I think I found this unit more fun than I expected it'd be, I feel much better about this show than I did about the game show. The episode (and even rehearsals) felt much more professional and enjoyable to watch, even with all of the problems that happened