Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During production and planning

My target audience played a pivotal role in the production of my film. Before any of the production began, I used various different means to ensure that I was creating suitable things for my audience. I began using my target audience after our pitch, handing out questionnaires requesting some responses to things they liked and disliked that we could act on. I took these responses on board when it came to the production and tried my best to create the film that would satisfy the audience.

Around halfway through the production of our film, we exported the final cut document and watched it back and seen what we thought. When we had gathered our own feelings towards it, I put together a focus group of four eighteen year old women to ask some questions about what they thought. The main thing they said is that to enhance the twist ending we should involve more interaction between the two characters, which was something we had all thought too - making us realise that this was the target audience we should have been aiming for. At this point the only interaction we had was the initial office scenes, so our group suggested adding a scene between the them coinciding with the part of the montage that says "Maintaining a professional relationship is hard enough" which we felt truly enhanced the relationship between the two and was an excellent and effective suggestion.

When our film was completed, we again requested some feedback from our target audience to see what small improvements could be made to improve viewing experience - these improvements were listed on a blog post recently and truly made a difference to our film. The target audience in this sense were not only a group we had to please, but they were also very helpful. 

I personally used my target audience when conducting research for my film poster. As this was going to be the poster that was advertising the film that I wanted my target audience to see, I saw it fit to email them a selection of typefaces for them to choose which they would like to see on the front of the poster. It was a unanimous choice that despite my best intentions I did have to change. It was not that I was ignoring audience feedback, but the type of poster I initially intended on creating changed due to some research into 'cinema verite' - which is basically observational or truthful camera. Our handheld camera effect was regularly in play when using subjective shots from the stalker, which began to categorise our film into more niche and arthouse production areas. So the initial, sketched away font I intended on using was changed to a more simplistic font (Futura) to fit in with the art house theme of my poster, however I did seek some acceptance and advice from friends before hand, some of who are part of my target audience. 

After production and planning

Following the production of my entire film and ancillary tasks, I created a series of questions to ask the target audience I have been referring to throughout my portfolio. These questions were produced to assess the effectiveness of audience research and to get an insight into what I would change if I were to produce a film in the future, to meet and satisfy the needs of my target audience.

Here are the list of questions I produced:

 

Focus group video

My responses:

1. What have you learned from audience feedback? I have learnt that audience research is absolutely essential in creating the ideal product. Although our film did not follow all the pre-production plans or necessarily work the way we wanted it to in places all of the things I wanted to addressed were addressed according to the focus group. I have also learnt that some things do not need to be explained, when Megan, one of the focus group members, made the comment that she did not like the 'Shakey camera at the beginning', after filming was done one of the members said that she liked that bit cause the subjectivity seemed very raw and realistic, so the audience effectively understood 'cinema verite' which was brilliant to hear. The points of climax such as the stairs scene which we understood young females enjoyed, which was the main reason we aimed our film at the female market (the thriller aspect) were commended by the focus group as the main point they liked in the film, they liked the tension, which placed some faith in our decision to target this audience.
2. Do you agree/disagree with the comments? I did agree with most of the comments that were made, both negative and positive. I feel that the focus group perceived the film in the same way as I and appreciated the certain parts that I did. I too agree with Beth's comment that there should have been more speech to enhance the idea that Sarah was in trouble, and was something I would have done differently if I were to film 'AWAY' again, however this also emphasised just how well we targeted our film, 16-35 women appear to truly enjoy tension in films. With regard to the film poster however, I did not agree with Beth when commenting that the 'bottom part' of the poster was 'too cluttered'. A lot of billing blocks are extremely cluttered as they have a lot of people to address and credit whereas our cast and editing team were limited, therefore placing things like sponsors and logos was the only way to fill up the block. In comparison to feature films, my billing block looked relatively empty. I also agreed with Kate that I should have listed the actors names however I wanted to leave the radio trailer as simplistic and basic as possible to create enigmas.
3. What would you change if you could do the project again? If I were to create my film again I believe I would have involved much more movement into my film. Although this is something my focus group didn't address, I feel it looked very jumpy in places purely because when looking at actual comparative examples the transitions between shots and made a lot smoother through the use of panning or tracking. I definitely agree with Beth on the front of more speech, I feel that after I watched the film back it was lacking something and this is definitely it. In order to truly satisfy my target audience I should have achieved the one thing that we mainly targeted them for - building tension. I feel like in some ways the twist ending consumed the whole film in ways so the tension was not as clear throughout. I would also change the various things I addressed in the above questions, name in the radio trailer etc. I feel as though my poster was the only product that I was particularly pleased with, it was relevant to the audience, the project and the genre of the film itself.
4. Have you targeted your audience effectively? From audience feedback I do feel that we target our audience effectively. They all seemed to appreciate the narrative style and ancillary tasks the way I would have hoped. I feel that their main issues with the overall product were the same as mine, merely some cinematography issues that could have been easily avoided. However, I do not feel there are any other audience we could have targeted that would have appreciated the product the way they did. The story line was what we hoped would be appreciated by 16-35 year old women as it featured the various narrative conventions that this demographic typically appreciate, however I feel the various camera styles we used would have been more suited to a niche audiences not something so widespread, which was something I addressed during the production of the project. 

I believe however that I referred to audience feedback and used them to my advantage throughout the process and the product would not have been what it was without their guidance. Using applications such as email, twitter, things like focus groups and paper questionnaires truly benefited me and was hugely helpful in creating the ancillary tasks after the production of the film - as at this point I had a clearer idea of what our audience liked and didn't like.