Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We recently held an audience screening which you can see below. In this screening questionnaires were given out asking both quantitative and qualitative questions concerning our trailer and their film watching habits. An example filled out questionnaire can also be seen below.

In our sample we had 17 responses all within our target audience of 15-24. 65% of the sample were female, as previously we had imagined our main target audience as male, it was important that we got a large female input. In order to gain an insight into what kind of films our participants enjoy we asked several questions before the viewing of the trailer. All the participants regularly watch films with nobody stating they on average don't watch a film per week, 53% of responses stated they watch 1. When asked about there favourite genre, there were two clear leaders, thriller (42%) and comedy (33%). These are great responses as this shows that theses people are all within our target audience, as they are all young and enjoy watching films with a strong interest towards thrillers.

When questioned about their habits when watching trailers, their answers were also encouraging with the majority of people stating they regularly watch trailers, and everyone stating that they don't try and avoid them and feel they are helpful in encouraging them to see a film. Therefore they should all be well equipped to advise us about our film. When asked what films they had seen of our key influences, unsurprising The Dark Knight came out ahead, with 14/17 people having seen it, followed by Reservoir Dogs with 9/17. Although many of them hadn't seen these films it isn't a issue because they have previously stated that they enjoy thriller films and therefore should be open to watching ours.

After the viewing we asked questions about their reactions and feelings to the trailer. Everyone correctly identified thriller as the genre, with several people adding in additional genres. One response was particularly interesting having described our genre as 'Action/Thriller/Romance'. The romance angle wasn't one that we deliberately encoded however I can understand how someone would possibly decode this element, particularly as our key influence 'The Disappearance of Alice Creed' goes down this route.

We also asked what they think the target age range and genre of the film is. 76% of the participants though that the film is targeting both genders with the rest all leaning towards it being a male targeted film. This was very informative and shows us that we should target both genders as both genders enjoy this style of film and therefore only one shouldn't be targeted specifically. A broader response was received for the age range question. However the majority were inside the our preconceived range of 15-21. A large number of participants also widened the range with one going as high as 50. Unfortunately due we didn't receive any responses from this age range which is unfortunate as we are therefore unable to come to any conclusion about this age range. This also shows us that many people follow our understanding of what the certification our our film should be.

The question regarding the narrative was also positively answered with 65% of participants thinking the right amount of the narrative was shown, with 24% thinking less should be shown. This ties into the question asking if any section of the trailer wasn't clear. Only 2 people thought that parts weren't clear stating: 'How did the girl get to the woods?' and 'Whats the story behind the kidnap? Why kidnap just to rescue her again?'. Both of these responses are helpful however the second response is incorrect and shows a misunderstanding of the plot, meaning perhaps there is a larger problem with the overall narrative being unclear however as everyone else seemingly understood the plot. I feel this response should be taken as an outlier rather than the standard. The first response is also an important one, though we felt that we had already shown a large proportion of the narrative and therefore  we didn't wish to show any more, this is supported by 65% of the participants when they said the right amount was shown.

In regards qualitative research we posed a question regarding their favourite parts of the trailer. All the responses can be seen below:

The acting, it brought the trailer together

The suspense as it was a cliff-hanger

Title at the end/Car chase with gun/Shooting Robbie as it was realistic/Eliza

The death scene

The acting it made me smile/Background music was cool

The ending I liked that it didn't give too much away

The title/The first shot of the hands tied up as it gets your attention

The pace of transition between scenes

The ending with the victim crying with a bag over the head as it was believable

When the girl was tied up good acting/Cutting between scenes

Didn’t reveal too much plot

The chase part, liked the ending because the suspense built up/The music was good too

Music was really suiting/Loved the filming from a variety of angles

The shot where 3 guys were stood around the captured girl, very dramatic

I liked the kidnap scene

Eliza crying with the bag on her face/good acting/setting

Running through woods as it was tense

Ending with the blood

I have chosen to ignore the responses surrounding the acting as this is non-important to us. Several participants highlighted the emotions that they were feeling in certain moments with words such as 'suspense', 'tense', 'dramatic'. These are encouraging signs for us as those were exactly the emotions that we were attempting to recreate, seeming successfully. The music was also highlighted as a fantastic which is great news as the music ties the whole trailer up and often can make or break a trailer. It was also pleasing to see one participant recognising that the ink behind the title represents blood, this is helpful for my poster feedback as well.

We also asked 'What their least favourite part of the trailer was':

Sitting round table, didn't seem serious

Too many scenes in house/sitting around a table

The running sequence

The scene in the house where the men discuss the girl

Started off slow/Lots of the storyline given away eg "There’s two choices" Really? We see Robbie dead…where’s the suspense?

The actors smiling when the guns where by their faces

Robbie’s acting

The scene where they are deciding what to do

The music in the background was too loud

The weird blue shot of the house

Background music slightly too loud

Some of the shots eg. House one/POV

Too much of the beginning was given away

It gave away a lot of beginning of the film

Again I have chosen to ignore answers surrounding the acting. From this section we have discovered that many people though that the scene of them discussing what to do with the girl didn't work. This is imporant to note and hopefully in a later edit we may be able to cut this down, however I feel that this section not working is due to the acting ability, which we can't change. Several people also felt that the start of the trailer was too slow and gave too much away, I feel this however is essential as we needed the introduction to the characters and I see no way in which we can fix this. Another helpful piece of feedback was surrounding the music and it being too loud, this is an element that we can easily change and hopefully we will be able to do so. One person talked about one of the characters death, this was also an answer to the last question, showing how unreliable in places the feedback can be as it differs from person to person. This response however is slightly unusual as it was never our intention for that shot to be of the character dying, as I would have felt that including that in a trailer would show too much. It seems however that it isn't a major issue as many people didn't seem to think it was a shot of him dying, though that shot is perhaps something we may want to change in the future.

The final question that was asked was 'Does the trailer make you want to watch the film?'. 100% responded Yes. This is extremely encouraging also due to the fact that all the participants were of our target audience and all enjoy films this shows us that this group is perfect and we are targeting the right audience. Overall the responses were extremely positive with helpful feedback in every question. From this survey I have also learnt however how unreliable many people can be, as in several instances the question clearly states 'Please Circle' or 'Please Tick' and a large percentage of people just didn't read the question and didn't do what was asked. This shows a clear unreliability in the overall answers and a major problem with questionnaires overall.

In order to get a more focused analysis of our ancillary tasks, I took some vox pops which can be seen below for each the Magazine and the Poster. I asked a few people who are inside my target audience what they think about them.



Although these were helpful, overall they didn't offer much useful insight into what needed to be changed as many people were unhelpful in giving constructive criticism. It was also a fairly time-consuming method of gathering feedback, especially when a large majority of the answers are unhelpful.

Everyone was praising various aspects of the products, such as in the Poster most people noted that they like the ink and font for the title. This was extremely relieving for myself to hear as it is unusual feature for a poster to have and therefore it was great to hear that people liked it. The reviews seemed to be the most divisive with one person saying how they like it and another saying they thought it was 'clichéd'. This is frustrating and shows the problem of using vox pops for our audience feedback as the sample size is fairly small meaning that it is difficult to get a enough data to come to any meaningful conclusions. One comment noted how it looked like a 'French film poster', although this wasn't the style that I was attempting as I haven't done any research into this type of poster. It was extremely relieving to hear someone say that they think it looks like a real film poster, which was my main aim. For the magazine everyone thought that it looks professional which was my overall goal and the most important piece of feedback for me. One person noted how they didn't like the font for the capture text, this feedback was very important as I too was unsure of this font, in order to address this I have slightly changed the dimensions of the font making it appear slightly taller, this I hope improves it. The central image was consistently stated as one of the great parts of the magazine, this is great news as a good central image is essential to the success of a magazine. Many people also said good things about the overall structure of the magazines, with the puff and layout common elements that people liked. Overall these vox-pops where useful to learn what elements people liked however weren't very helpful to learn what elements aren't as successful.

YouTube also allows users who view the video to comment on it, as our video was uploaded via YouTube this was another way to grasp an idea of the interest for the film. Obviously this is the worst kind of audience feedback as we have no knowledge amount the people who are commenting and it is a very small sample size. However it is still pleasing to see that people are liking the trailer.

AF