Original Brief
We began the process by each creating multiple story-lines
that we shared with the group. We discussed what we liked about each story-line
before trying to incorporate ideas from each person into one idea. We all
agreed on the idea of showing the struggle of a female soldier suffering with
post-traumatic stress disorder. We also decided that the characters girlfriend
should have also died in the war but appears to the main character as the
personification of the PTSD. This original ideas stayed the same for the most
part throughout the process but was changed based on feedback as we went along.
Video Questionnaire
We created a video questionnaire to gather opinions on our
original idea and got five people to answer it. We started the questionnaire by
asking questions about them to get more of a picture of who is answering the
questions in comparison to our target audience.
Most of the people we asked were between the ages of 15 and
17 and most were male. We also asked what types of films they usually watch to
get an idea of what we could do to appeal to this audience. We found that the
most popular genre was comedy closely followed by action, with drama coming
third. This was a good sign as we wanted to create a war based drama, however
comedy coming first made us decide to put hints of dark humour throughout the
film.
We also asked were people preferred to watch films, it became clear that even though online wasn’t the most popular it was the most accessible so we decided to go ahead with plans to distribute via YouTube.
We then read out the plot to our film and asked them
questions based on this. We asked what genre they thought our film would be and
the majority said drama or war drama meaning that we had managed to meet our
preferred genre and that we would appeal to fans of those genres. We asked
questions about what settings would be expected in the film and we were
suggested home and therapy which we listened to and went on to include in our
film. We also asked about what music would be expected in our film. The main
answer was dramatic music followed by sad music as those are common in the
drama genre, we believed this would fit into our film well so kept that in mind
when selecting music.Linking back to where people like to watch films we asked
where they would expect to see our film, most said the cinema but streaming
services such as YouTube were also mentioned meaning that our path of
distribution could work. The next question was what certificate should our film have,
4 out of the 5 people suggested 15 due to the dark themes and hints of war,
which we agreed with and so set this as our certificate age.
All of the people taking the questionnaire said that they
found our story-line interesting and intriguing and they also said they liked
the title “Aftermath”. Because of this we decided to keep our story-line mostly
the same and to keep the title. When we asked for anything that could improve
the film the only comment we got was “good musical cues” so again we made sure
to focus on music during the process to help make the film have an emotional
impact.
Rough Cut Questionnaire
To create our Rough Cut questionnaire we used Google Forms
as we could get more responses in a shorter amount of time than the video
questionnaire as this could be shared online. We got respondents to watch the
rough cut of our film. We did this so that we could make the necessary changes
to our film before the final cut to make sure that it made sense and was
enjoyable. This also allowed us to get a fresh pair of eyes on the film that
didn’t know any background information, as we all knew the plot so everything
made sense to us and this caused some tunnel vision. This questionnaire made us realise that some of the
things we tried to put into the film weren’t coming across as well as we had
hoped. For instance we had tried to hint at Charlotte’s death by showing a gun
to her head just before the gunshot, and the fact she moves from room to room
instantly. However this didn’t seem to be as effective as we thought as one of
the comments said that “the ending was too sudden and we should subtly hint it
beforehand”. To counteract this we made another scene in the house to highlight
the apparent teleportation of Charlotte. Another thing was we put a sound that
was supposed to reflect the ringing in Georgies ears after the gunshot however
this was said to be distracting so we removed it as it wasn’t necessary to our
film.
We
received 8 responses on this questionnaire. This time the majority of
respondents were female, allowing us to see another perspective than the video
questionnaire, the respondents were also older as 75% were in between 18 and 20
and 25% were 15-17 meaning that all respondents were within our target
audience.
Our
first question about the film was about the enjoyment of the film on a scale of
1 to 10 (ten being the best answer) the majority said 8/10 and all answers were
between 6 and 9 indicating that no-one disliked the film, which was a good sign
and gave us the motivation to continue and finish the film.
All but one person said they understood the film which made us realise that even though most people got it, we might have to make some things a little more explicit.
The feedback indicated that the music we used worked well with the film however there wasn’t enough of it, because of this we added more music that was similar to the first track we had added to help deliver the emotional impact we wanted. We were also advised that the ticking clock in the therapy scene took made the actors hard to hear, this was harder to remedy as the clock was in the room we filmed in so we couldn’t just remove the sound. However we needed to fix it as this was an emotional scene, because of this (and another bit of feedback that stated the room looked too big) we decided to re-shoot this scene in a different room without a clock. Overall we were much happier with the re-shot scene and felt that it worked better than the old scene, especially as we added more close up based on another piece of feedback saying that the camera was too far away to fell connected to the characters. We were also told that the film had too much walking in it and that this as boring, because of this we edited out a substantial chunk of the walking and shot a new scene that explained the letterbox moment as many people said that they didn’t understand the moment.
All but one person said they understood the film which made us realise that even though most people got it, we might have to make some things a little more explicit.
The feedback indicated that the music we used worked well with the film however there wasn’t enough of it, because of this we added more music that was similar to the first track we had added to help deliver the emotional impact we wanted. We were also advised that the ticking clock in the therapy scene took made the actors hard to hear, this was harder to remedy as the clock was in the room we filmed in so we couldn’t just remove the sound. However we needed to fix it as this was an emotional scene, because of this (and another bit of feedback that stated the room looked too big) we decided to re-shoot this scene in a different room without a clock. Overall we were much happier with the re-shot scene and felt that it worked better than the old scene, especially as we added more close up based on another piece of feedback saying that the camera was too far away to fell connected to the characters. We were also told that the film had too much walking in it and that this as boring, because of this we edited out a substantial chunk of the walking and shot a new scene that explained the letterbox moment as many people said that they didn’t understand the moment.
Final Questionnaire
For
our final questionnaire we used Google Forms again for the same reasons stated
above. After making the changes based on the rough cut questionnaire, we put
the final cut onto a questionnaire and shared it on social media. At this point
we had also added the new scenes, the new music, and the title sequences all of
which we hadn't yet received feedback on. Even though we were happy with the
film this made us nervous as so much had changed since the last questionnaire
that we weren’t sure what the response would be. We decided that the opening
titles should give an incite into the characters personal lives and place it
just after Georgie opens her eyes to make it seem that she has been awake for a
long time before the alarm rings, and we weren’t sure how this would translate
to an audience. However luckily the audience feedback was overwhelmingly
positively.
The
questionnaire was answered by 5 people in our target audience, mostly female
but with some males still, between the ages of 15 and 20. This indicated that
we had succeeding in attracting both female and male audiences, however the
fact that there were more females could be due to the fact that the cast was
fully female and therefore it might attract more females than males. The
questions were similar to the rough cut so that we could actively see the
changes between the two cuts.
The first question again was about their enjoyment of the film on a scale of 1 to 10. This time round the answers were much more concentrated, being split between 8 and 9, suggesting that the changes we made payed off and made the film more enjoyable, this was also reflected in the fact that 100% of people said they understood the film showing that the new scenes cleared up any previous confusion. We asked what certificate they would give the film and the majority said 15 which matches the certificate we gave it meaning that we showed our understanding of the certificate system and how it applied to our film, however two people said that it could be given a 12A which is understandable as there is no explicit violence in our film but the inclusion of swearing does raise the certificate. We then asked where they would expect to see our film and the majority said YouTube again showing that our intentions for distributing on YouTube were realistic, however Cinema and TV were also answered showing that the film could be displayed to a wider audience. When asked what genre they believed the film to be 80% said drama whilst 20% said action, this coincides with our intentions of creating a War-Drama as it includes conventions from the action genre whilst mainly using conventions from the drama genre. When asked about if the music fitted the film 100% of people said that it did and some comments included that the “melancholy tone of the music fit the tone of the film” and that the music “built tension at the appropriate points”.
The final question was what they found successful in the film and what could be improved. Thankfully the suggestions for improvement were limited to audio issues that could have only been fixed by giving the actors microphones which we did not have access to and therefore was out of our control. Things that people found successful included the opening credits, the performances, the narrative being well displayed, and the style being consistent throughout. This shows that the final cut of the film was much more successful than the rough cut as the rough cut questionnaire had many more suggestions for improvement.
The first question again was about their enjoyment of the film on a scale of 1 to 10. This time round the answers were much more concentrated, being split between 8 and 9, suggesting that the changes we made payed off and made the film more enjoyable, this was also reflected in the fact that 100% of people said they understood the film showing that the new scenes cleared up any previous confusion. We asked what certificate they would give the film and the majority said 15 which matches the certificate we gave it meaning that we showed our understanding of the certificate system and how it applied to our film, however two people said that it could be given a 12A which is understandable as there is no explicit violence in our film but the inclusion of swearing does raise the certificate. We then asked where they would expect to see our film and the majority said YouTube again showing that our intentions for distributing on YouTube were realistic, however Cinema and TV were also answered showing that the film could be displayed to a wider audience. When asked what genre they believed the film to be 80% said drama whilst 20% said action, this coincides with our intentions of creating a War-Drama as it includes conventions from the action genre whilst mainly using conventions from the drama genre. When asked about if the music fitted the film 100% of people said that it did and some comments included that the “melancholy tone of the music fit the tone of the film” and that the music “built tension at the appropriate points”.
The final question was what they found successful in the film and what could be improved. Thankfully the suggestions for improvement were limited to audio issues that could have only been fixed by giving the actors microphones which we did not have access to and therefore was out of our control. Things that people found successful included the opening credits, the performances, the narrative being well displayed, and the style being consistent throughout. This shows that the final cut of the film was much more successful than the rough cut as the rough cut questionnaire had many more suggestions for improvement.
Overall
I think that the audience feedback helped shape our film and helped it to
become a success, as we listened to the comments and acted on them to improve.
I feel that we asked a range of questions that helped us to understand the
audience and would definitely use audience feedback to improve future projects.
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