Group: Evaluation Q4 and Q5:
Who would be the audience
for your film? How did you attract/address your audience?
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In our production we set out to appeal to
our target audience. In order to appeal to them we first had to recognise their
demographic information and interests. Our target audience’s demographics were
young male adults, aged 15-25 who earns an average salary and lives in urban
and rural areas. It is also important to distinguish the psychographics of our
audience, our target audience, being young; would dress in casual wear and
enjoy various popular forms of media in modern society, including films, music,
television and radio. Our target audience would also fall into two
psychographic categories being ‘opinion leaders’ and ‘early adopters’ who would
help distribute the popularity of our film.
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In our production, we have used stock
characters of an antagonist and a protagonist to appeal to our target audience.
Our protagonist especially does so, an example of this being the protagonists
demographics as in our production the protagonist is a young male adult aged 17
whom dresses in casual clothes being jeans, a t-shirt, and a jumper. The use of
matching the character exposition to our target audience demographics allows
the target audience to relate to the characters in our film; in addition to
this it helps position the audience on the side of our protagonist.
Furthermore, we used the psychographics of our target audience to determine the
interests of our protagonist. An example of this is our protagonist’s interest
in modern technologies such as the shot at the start of our opening which
consists of a close up of the protagonist calling his mum on a mobile phone.
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To find out which aspects of our ideas
appealed to the audience we carried out audience research using web 2.0 through
‘Survey Monkey’. Our
choice of questions influenced the audience impact on our production, as a
result we needed 10 questions that would identify the audience and then review
our ideas against the opinions of our
target audience. In order to identify
our target audience, our survey included two closed questions which referenced
the age and gender of each person that took the survey. This then showed us
which ideas our target audience preferred. To test our concept on the target
audience there then had to be questions highlighting the key areas in our
production. These areas included
location, music, characters, plot, and props. There was a question for each
area as well as a question defining which area is the most important for a
horror film. The answers to these questions included typical horror
locations, characters and props such as an abandoned house, a psycho and a
knife respectively. Resulting in a quantitative result highlighting the most
effective aspect of each area in a horror film.
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| Example result from my audience research (Question 4) |
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To collect results survey monkey gives
the user a URL which links the participant to the survey. I used this as well as web 2.0's most successful social
networking site Facebook to distribute my survey
digitally among people whom qualify for our target audience.
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The
results from our audience research proved our ideas for a horror opening to be
effective. In most of the questions asked we received a positive result towards
a certain aspect of our film, an example of this being the result from question
4. Question 4 asks which location out of a selection would be most effective in a
horror film. When put to the target audience the majority agree that an abandoned house would definitely be most effective with 38% of people voting for it out of the 30 recipients. Another result which showed the success
of our ideas among the target audience was from question 6. To find out whether or not our plot would be
appealing to the target audience we devised question six to ask which out of a
selection of plots they found most interesting. The plot selection consisted of
a chase between a killer and their prey, a ghost story, and our chosen plot -
the abduction of a boy by a psychopath. The
results from this question proved useful as the majority of the sample being 41% opted for our chosen plot idea as
the most interesting and effective
plot.
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In
response to our audience research most of our ideas remained the same as the
audience seemed to favour all of them. On enhancement we could have made to our
production was the inclusion of a knife to add a sinister mood, however, due to
constraints we deemed it wise not to include a knife during the filming because
of health and safety.
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We
also tested our film opening concept through a pitch to a group of our target
audience. The pitch included the use of technology through a Power Point and
reviewed different areas of our chosen ideas against the audiences’ opinions.
Our power point gave a treatment evaluating the main plot of how the
protagonist is controlled by a voodoo/ psychopath; in addition to this the Power Point presented our plans for key shots such as the pull focus used at the
beginning of our film opening. Also in our pitch we explored our ideas for
moving titles, similar to that of Zombieland; which we would create in Adobe
After Effects including the bold ‘Riot’ font and colour from ‘www.dafont.com’.
Finally in our pitch we presented what props we would use and the difficulties
we would face on the days of filming, for example the risk of rain and the
variety of terrains to film in.
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Following the pitch we gave, the
rest of the class gave feedback on what they thought about our ideas. The
overall response was that we had a good idea but it needed to be clearer to the
audience what was going on. A number of people commented saying the pen idea was a great, unique
idea which would make our film stand out from others. A suggestion was made
that during the shot where a curve is drawn and the camera cuts to Desmond
following that curve, we fade
both shots over the top of each other. We took this advice appreciatively as we
think it would clear any doubt as to what is going on and would also be a nice
change to the standard cuts we'd be using throughout the rest of the shoot to
help focus the audience's attention to the storyline. In response to the
feedback from the pitch we decided to take on board the suggestion of a
cross-fade during a shot in our real production by changing the opacity of two
shots, this elaborated the aim of our plot to the audience a lot better
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In
addition to the research and the pitch, we tested our rough idea through the
screening of an unfinished version of our film opening being the ‘Rough Cut’.
We screened this a week before the production deadline to receive audience
advice before finishing our production. After screening our ‘Rough Cut’ of the opening to our target audience,
we received many positive remarks regarding the footage. This included the
variety of shots, the camera movements, the pull focus and slow motion shot and
that the concept was good. However, we also received constructive criticism in
order to improve our film. The criticism included, the sharpness of the
shots, could include a faster cutting rate in order to create tension and a
build up for a climax and finally our film could include more shots of writing.
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| Screenshot of one pen movement we added |
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In response to the
rough cut, the main criticism appeared to be the confusion of the plot and the
amount of shots of walking. In response to this during post-production we
re-arranged the shots into a more sensible order and then continued to add more
shots of the pen controlling the protagonist. We also did this by adding in the
suggestion for a cross-fade shot over a long shot of our protagonist walking
towards the camera. In response to the criticism against the amount of walking
we decided to cut down and remove many shots of the protagonist walking and
instead added in more key shots for title which in my opinion enhanced the
attraction of our plot for the audience.
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The weekend after the
production deadline, we screened the final cut to our target audience to review
our finished products to see if we have earned their appeal. After the
screening had finished I handed out 8 questionnaires to the target audience
asking open and closed questions to produce quantitative and qualitative
results which highlighted how we had appealed to the target audience.
- For the first question we wanted to find out whether or not we made the plot clear enough for the target audience to understand. The respondents found the production to be relatively easy to understand having 68% finding it easy, which was the challenge as we predicted one flaw with our plot was attempting to convey it on screen, however these results show our success.
- Next we wanted to find out whether or not the soundtrack we had chosen matched the visuals as in our audience research we found out that a good soundtrack is very effective in a horror film. The results from this question are very pleasing as the whole of our respondents believed that the soundtrack matched our visuals which we were pleased with as we spent a long time editing the soundtrack in post-production.
- Questions 3,5,6, 7 and 8 all received the same results as 100% of our sample responded yes. From this we received results that our film was completely effective in conveying the genre (Question 5), The villain in our film was very effective through the careful choice of mise-en-scene and costume, the 3D titles we created in after-effects were effective and enhanced our films appearance and finally the climax we created at the end was particularly effective to resolve the tension yet also leaving a loose end of which would be resolved in the film.
- In question 4 we used a rating scale to find out which aspect of our film was particularly effective. We predicted that the soundtrack would prove most effective due to our audience research, however, our results showed that our simple yet effective costume choice of a plain white mask and a leather cloak were most effective at creating an eerie mood in our production.
- Question 9 asked the question which ultimately proved whether or not our film opening was a success in general and from the graph it shows that 100% of our respondents would continue to watch this film. Which we were pleased with.
- Our final question was an open question asking whether or not the target audience would wish to change anything in the production, and luckily all of our recipients answered nothing which was brilliant to our delight.
- All in all when it came down to producing our film, we made most of our ideas based on our target audiences opinions and preferences, because of this we find the audience feedback extremely helpful and valuable as it evaluates whether or not our ideas match the preferences of the audiences in which we have essentially set out to do. Without the ethos of pleasing the target audience then in all I believe there is no momentum into making a good film, hence why we were pleased with the results we had gathered from our target audience being white, male teenagers after the final screening.
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