Evaluation Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

How did you respond to the original brief with the audience in mind?

Our brief was the create a 5 minute film of any genre that we wanted. My group chose a horror/psychological horror, as it was similar to what we created last year. This meant we already had an idea of who our audience would be and what we needed to include to satisfy them. We thought that because our story line was fairly dark, its certificate would either be a 12 or 15, but we would have to conduct further research. Once choosing a story line, we did some research, and developed some questionnaires for our audience, for us to gather some feedback.

Our story line - The film begins with the protagonist (Agnes) being killed at the beginning of the film, but it is portrayed as a nightmare. Throughout, Agnes lives in her house believing that it is haunted as she keep on seeing ghostly figures and things move from places i.e. the mug in the kitchen scene. Agnes also experiences strange flashbacks of her parents abusing her, but is unsure why. We used a black and white effect for the flashback's to represent that the events really happened, and to also create a creepy atmosphere to scare the audience. As the plot progresses, it is said that Agnes' parents killed her which is later shown as the protagonist confronts her parents about their drug abuse problems. To finish, we see the new homeowners moving the final boxes into the house but noticing a ghostly figure at the window and the bottom of the stairs. Agnes sees them and tries to confront them to leave, however they do not appear to acknowledge her, and she suddenly realises that her parents killed her and she was in fact a ghost. We understood that this story line could be quite confusing to accomplish without giving away too many spoilers early on which was why we found that it was important to get audience feedback through our online questionnaires to see what they thought/were getting from our film.

Audience Research:

We created a treatment on Blogger which helped us to identify our target audience. As we were touching upon serious issues like drug abuse and murder, we knew that we would be looking at a certificate of a 12 or a 15. To make sure we were correct, we did some research on the BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) website to look at the regulations needed for our film, and what age rating our product would be. We found that for a 12, the film can include mild swearing, sex references and drug use but in a very discreet way. Whereas in a 15, there can be strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, nudity and drug taking. Although there is no strong language or portrayals of nudity or sexual activity in our film, several serious issues are encountered such as child abuse, drug abuse and murder. We decided as a group after undergoing research on the BBFC website, that our film should be a 15 so that we could send out the messages that we wanted, and we would be able to target a specific audience. We made sure that we identified our target audience from the early stages of planning so that everything we did that effected our film would suit our audience and make them intrigued.

Why identifying our audience was important:

We knew that targeting our audience from an early stage was important as we could plan and research around them and their needs. We wanted to create a horror film so our main aim was to scare the audience, but we wanted them to include the issues of drug and child abuse so that the audience would be able to take those serious matters away with them.

During the filming and editing process we knew that we had to make sure the meaning of our film would be apparent to our audience. We created a script to help us when filming and so that the storyline would develop and flow. However, when we shared our rough cut and our online questionnaire, we got feedback from our target audience stating that our storyline was a bit confusing to follow and they hadn't completely grasped the concept that we were wanting to express. Our target audience had not understood that the protagonist was actually a ghost in her house as we had not given them enough clues; from this feedback, we knew that we needed to re-shoot some scenes, amend the script and make sure that the audience would be able to understand the meaning of our film and be able to follow the plot. To achieve this, we added flashback scenes in such as Agnes being dragged down the hall by her father which gave the audience clues that she had been abused so they killed her. We added a black and white affect as well as a vignette around the edges to make it appear like a flashback, which hinted to the audience that everything that had happened to Agnes was true, and she didn't dream it. Also, during the scene at the bottom of the stairs, the new home owner is holding a mug which links into the kitchen scene as Agnes' mug moves by itself. Finally, also on the stairs scene, Agnes has some dialogue which helps the plot develop and ties together the loose ends of the film. All of these factors give the audience vital clues throughout our film so that they will be able to understand the meaning and ending and will not become confused.

Online Questionnaire:

We created an online questionnaire on Google drive to get some feedback about our intended story line. We also did a video questionnaire to see the type of people who could be our target audience, but we thought that an online questionnaire would be beneficial also as it would allow people to think about their answers and possibly be more descriptive. The main answers we received showed us that they understood the genre we were aiming for, but they stated that the story line could be a little confusing to follow. This allowed us to prepare to write our script, and we had to try and avoid making our plot too confusing.

Video Questionnaire:

When we came up with our story line, we wanted to get some feedback from people to understand what they thought of our plot, what genre it was, if they had any improvements for us etc. This was helpful to us as we were able to see what people thought of our story line and how we could improve certain aspects. It also gave us an idea of who our potential audience was and what they would expect to see.

Rough Cut:

Before we had completely finished editing our film, we wanted to share a rough cut on YouTube and then through the social media site Facebook to see what they thought of our progress so far. We obtained some really helpful feedback as we discovered that our story line didn't make complete sense and they had not understood the meaning that we were hoping to give off. Our audience hadn't understood what the plot of our film was which allowed us to re-shoot some scenes and amend the script so that it would work. This was helpful as we could give the audience clues throughout our film and then at the end reveal the ending. As we hadn't added music or effects either, we could ask them what music they could suggest for us to create a horrific atmosphere. 

We knew that we wanted to scare our audience as well as promote serious issues of drug and child abuse. We used audio and music to create our desired effect, as well as create a sickening atmosphere. An example of this is the tree snapping sound used in the hanging scene for the added sickening effect. We also used creepy music to build up the tension which is vital in horror films. After we added our music, we noticed that our film looked and appeared to be a lot more creepier. We used freesound.org  to gather our music, which was really beneficial in the overall result of our film.

Creative decisions we made that were influenced by our senses of audience:

We used certain effects and shots in our film to make the audience think specific things and feel different emotions. We used slow editing to build the tension which is important in horror films, and we did this initially to scare the audience. The music we used, was included to also add tension and to make our audience afraid. From the feedback we received we knew that our audience thought that our film would be a horror and that it would most likely be a 15.

Finished Film:

This is our finished film. We took on board the feedback that we gathered through our online and video questionnaires to make our film fit the horror genre, make the story line make sense and also to scare or creep out the audience.

Online Questionnaire for film:

We created another online questionnaire once we had completed our film to get some audience feedback and to see if our hard work and research had paid off by our film achieving what we wanted.

Audience Feedback: Questionnaire Responses

The feedback we received from a wide age gap from 17 - 41. This was helpful to us as we could see what different age groups thought of our film. The genre that our audience assumed it to be was mainly, horror, psychological horror and thriller. This told us that we had succeeded in representing our genre through the use of mise-en scene, shots, story line and music. The certificate that they chose was mainly 15 but there was one 18. This showed us that we had created a scary/creepy film which people believed to be disturbing, so we achieved our aim. Also, the main emotion that people experienced was shock, which is another positive as our aim was to shock as well as scare the audience. We discovered from our rough cut that our plot could be a little confusing to follow; we took the feedback into consideration and made the story line more simple and included more clues throughout. This paid off as every one who took our questionnaire stated that they understood the plot easily. Finally, we asked if there were any improvements that they could suggest to us. A lot of people couldn't think of anything, but someone said that maybe having an effect at the end to make Agnes transparent and really show that she is a ghost. If we were to create this film again, we would definitely look into including this effect. 

What we wanted the audience to take away from our film:
As the genre of our film is horror we wanted to scare the audience and make them feel uncomfortable. However, the serious issues included in our film such as drug and child abuse create a horrific and shocking effect so we wanted our audience to go away from our film thinking about it.

Film poster and radio trailer:

We created a film poster for our film along with a radio trailer for advertising products. We wanted to express the films genre through these mediums and give away some detail about our story line without revealing any major plot points. From the feedback we received, we understood that they represented the films genre well as they were scary. They achieved their task, as when we asked a member of our target audience if they would go to see the film after looking at and listening to our advertising products, they said they would be encouraged to go.

Similar films:
By intriguing our audience, we did some research into similar films to gain a similar group of people. Our film was like, The Others and The woman in black. We used similar shots and music to represent our genre and engage with the audience. However, we wanted our film to look scary also, therefore we looked at Sweeney Todd and took make up ideas from that film as the character's looked creepy and ghoul like. I believe that this factor really added to the mise-en scene and suspension of disbelief.