Q3. Evaluation

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

In the pre-production we discussed the various ranges of demographics we could target. We all concluded that a target audience of 18-25 would be the appropriate and the most realistic foundation for our film. prior to finalising our decision on what genre to proceed with, we researched the various statistics on different genres. Thrillers are predominately watched by males, for example action thrillers or espionage thrillers. However there are still a significant amount of females who do enjoy and consistently observe all types of thrillers. This was also supported in the audience feedback

Audience Feedback

For our audience feedback we wanted to ask a variety of questions that would be beneficial for our end product. We needed to know what would work and wether people would agree with our initial ideas and if not remap our approach to gain the best results we can produce. Here is what we found:

Arguably one of the hardest tasks in the pre-production research and planning was coming up with a suitable title for the film, after a few sessions of discussion we all decided on the title 'Advance To Go'. The influence for this film title was based on the highly successful board game Monopoly. There is a certain square on the board that is significant during gameplay, which is 'Advance To Go'. Another obvious reason we chose Advance To Go is Monopoly's relevance to our short film, our short film follows the story of four young individuals that discover a supernatural board game and the board (prop) used in the sequence is an actual monopoly board as it would have been too challenging to craft our own original board with the time allowed for the examination, also it contributes to the recognition for the audience. Above you can see the first question we asked on online survey service. The results revealed that mass majority believed it was a good choice for a short film title at (44%) and only (22%) of the surveyors believed otherwise. The remaining (33%) were those who were unsure and believed it 'could be' a good choice. All in all the results were predominately positive and so we therefore went ahead with the idea.

Another task we set ourselves in the pre-production research and planning was what aspects we could include that were challenging and unique and therefore produce and original and striking final outcome. One of the aspects was an editing technique called a time-lapse. A time-lapse is a post-production technique for speeding up a situation in order to connote a fast forward effect that makes a certain mundane scene more easy to watch. As you can see from the results above the idea was just popular among our team but turns out to be very popular amongst potential viewers. (77%) of the people who answered the question believe it was good idea, with only (11%) believing it was a negative approach. Again with this information it gave us the reassurance that the risk was worth taking and will prove to be a benefit for the final outcome.

Another factor we wanted to take into account before moving forward was the narrative its self. For example do we side with a linear narrative or chose a more challenging but arguably more stereotypically thriller style approach and chose a circular narrative for the sequence. For those of you who haven't viewed the Jumanji film, it is a linear narrative that holds a lot of influence of our film 'Advance To Go'. Jumanji is based a set of characters that uncover a supernatural original board game that has extremely drastic consequences for those who underestimate it. Looking back on the survey question it is very clear that the audience would enjoy a narrative similar to Jumanji, one of the reason I believe is the lack of films based around supernatural board games following Jumanji's release. The survey Shows an impressive (66%) thought it was a good idea and (22%) believed it was a really good idea with only a remaining (11%) feeling it was a negative narrative. However this could be due to individual tastes and admirations, our concept is unorthodox and not extremely common and is fairly specific. Overall the results were highly positive and we made the decision to roll with the concept.

This next section of audience feedback was submitted by Joe Blissett, he managed to receive valuable feedback on the social networking site Face Book, that offers a reliable and informative reflection of our final product. Here are some of the examples:

Here is a very good example of effective balanced criticism. Although we don't necessarily get marked on the quality of acting we do get marked on our ability to delegate and direct efficiently, which I believe we did to the best of our abilities. However it is clear that there are improvements that can be made moving forward and something I would personally take into my next moving image project in the foreseeable future. To address the second point, although we solely used sound recording equipment separate to the camera itself it is evident that this was not made clear enough in some parts of the film. A overhead boom mic would have significantly rose the quality of sound however the equipment that was available was limited and therefore restricting, but it is defiantly another factor to take into account moving forward.

 

Another important point to take from this section of the feedback is the visibility of the text message when one of the characters receives both a positive and a negative message it is not very clear in the frame from the audiences point of view. A way of preventing this next time an Extreme Close Up (ECU) of the phone allowing the message on the phone to be clearly visible and possibly creating more enigma and excitement as it is more up close and personal for the viewers.