Personal Audience Feedback

Outside of the groups organised feedback session, I decided to ask a few people some questions to determine whether or not they understood the plot of the opening and whether they enjoyed it. The feedback is also useful to determine whether or not as a group we fulfilled our brief. Below is a summary of some of the feedback:

I asked what genre they felt the opening was and everybody asked said that they felt the genre is either Thriller or Mystery. I also asked them what led them to this decision and some of the responses were- 'due to the cliffhanger' and 'dark, sinister feel'.

I asked them what they thought the suitable target audience would be and was given an age range of 15-25, with the audience being of both genders, which is what we were aiming for.

Next I asked whether they thought the film was made by a commercial production company or an independent production company. Some of the responses I got were - 'commercial due to the themes being professionally carried out' and 'it seems quite a simple set so is low budget and independent'.

I then asked whether they could identify the different characters and the relationships between them. This is quite a crucial question because our characters were quite complex, along with the storyline. So if the audience didn't understand then our opening would not be successful. A lot of people believed the man to be stalking the girl, which is true and everyone identified both characters. However the role of the female was quite varied in their answers. Some believed her to be unknown to him, and some for them to know each other in some way.

Everyone successfully managed to outline the sequences events which is good as it means it was clearly shown through the shots.

The themes that the sequence contained were also identified correctly with stalking, revenge and murder being highlighted. Some also believed there to be themes of drugs, which may be due to the girls seemingly party lifestyle.

They were asked what they thought worked well within the sequence and everyone seemed to think different things worked well. Here are some of the responses -'there was a lot of variety in the camera work which was effectively carried out' , 'the music fits the action perfectly' and 'the flash of the man when he enters the house works to create tension'.

I then asked them what they thought didn't work well within the sequence and people again seemed to have a variety of answers. Here are some of the responses - 'you don't get too much of a feel for the characters and the story' (this may be due to the lack of background information on them) , 'the cliff-hanger was a bit of an anti-climax' (I agree with this, however it does then create a sense of tension and make the audience want to watch on) and 'the lighting is quite inconsistent making it dark'.

I finally asked them to rate the opening sequence out of ten and whether they would want to watch the rest of the film. The average rating was eight out of ten and the vast majority wanted to watch the rest of the film.

Copy of one of the questionnaires: