Evaluation Question 3

Max Smith 206E - Contamination

Audience Feedback

Establishing Our Target Audience.

Firstly, before we could receive audience feedback we had to establish a target audience. In our production pitch we talked about our target audience being predominantly males aged 15-25 who enjoy going to the cinema on a regular basis. They enjoy film not just to see the production but to appreciate the way it has been constructed. Their favourite films are the ones that they enjoy micro elements such as camera-work, sound and editing as well as the narrative and characters. This target audience is a niche group of spectators who prefer independent cinema over mainstream productions.

Gathering Audience Feedback.

We then began to gather audience feedback with a questionnaire that we handed out to students within our target age bracket studying subjects where film production was part of their course. We felt this was an appropriate method of collecting feedback data as these are the type of people who most accurately match our target audience’s criteria.

However we also uploaded our trailer online to YouTube. With the availability of Web 2.0 people can comment and respond to our production. This will also help u to gather audience feedback data.

Questionnaire Questions Asked.

Firstly we had to build a questionnaire. We decided the following questions would be sufficient to gather a good amount of feedback, we printed them on A4 paper and handed them out to the students:

• What film certification do you think is appropriate for our production?

• How would you rate the film?

• How would you rate the narrative?

• How would you rate the soundtrack?

• How would you rate the camera-work?

• How would you rate the editing?

For each of these questions, graded answers from poor to very good where available for selection. Also additional comments could be added for each question. Once we had handed out the questionnaires and collected the data, we made charts and graphs out of our audience feedback. The next slides show the data in graph and chart form with any additional comments.

We are pleased to understand that 55% of people thought that the age certification of our production was within our target audience bracket. This means that for this question are target audience is fitting and appropriate for the production.

Similarly the results for how the film was rated where of a high standard this helps us to know that these type of people have enjoyed our trailer.

This data shows that the audience for the questionnaire did not find the narrative or the soundtrack for the trailer confusing or unsuitable. This meant that our target audience would have similar opinions and gave us an understanding of which micro elements work well in our production. Here are some additional comments made about the narrative and soundtrack:

“The piece has an original concept.”

“The soundtrack was really eerie, sounded quite gentle and calm yet uncomfortable.”

“I found that the narrative was Very concise and clear.”

“It has Interesting and unusual music that fits the genre of the film.”

This data collected tells us that the audience for the questionnaire found the camerawork and editing mainly exciting and clever. This is useful because they are two of the features our target audience seek to enjoy during seeing a film. Additional comments provided key information on what was particularly good about our trailer:

“There were lots of different angles and playing with the focus.”

“The editing was very clever, I enjoyed the iconography and visual

metaphors of the water – very haunting.”

“The camera work and editing works well for the dystopian genre.”

Overall the audience feedback questionnaire was a good exercise that helped us to gain knowledge of what impact our production has on people relative to our target audience. We can now understand that our target audience was a good target that we can effectively reach out to in our marketing campaign.

This research has taught us that the interesting and original narrative seems to be our main strength of our production that people enjoyed the most. And while still strong the camerawork is the area that if we where to improve an area this would be the section in need of adjustments.

The feedback has also told us that the age group we have certificated the film for is not only appropriate to our target audience but also seen as correct in the eyes of the audience in terms of content.

I would say that this exercise was a success.