Key Findings- Audience Feedback
- 1. Key Findings Target Audience Feedback
- 2. Introduction After the completion of gathering feedback from our target audience, it was then important to analyse our key findings from this process. This is highly significant to the success of the overall evaluation of our piece. This is because these findings will allow the evaluation of the overall appeal that our production possesses in regards to our target audience, as well as allowing us to fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of the encoded connotations throughout the piece. This is important as this will allow us to identify, which areas of editing, camerawork, sound and mise en scene were successfully communicated to our audience, as well as allowing us to discover whether the effects we wished to create and the arise within our audience were successful.
- 3. What genre do you think this is and why? Thriller- Dark themes, suspenseful music and sounds added to the tension built, momentary pauses (e.g. reflection of a hand within the phone, point of view shots from the antagonist- gives the impression of being watched), slightly frightening Horror- Some gore moments (however not heavy), frightening antagonist Supernatural- Presence of a spiritual being/spectre/ghost as the antagonist Action- fast paced, murder
- 4. What type of production do you think this is? Opening sequence- came across as a continual piece of media, seemed to be an extract from a film (the beginning- as opening credits were used) Not a trailer, as it was not spliced with different clips, flowed as though one continually, undisturbed piece
- 5. How were the characters represented? Slight tension between the characters, all seemed to play different roles Variation of character personalities. Excitable/energetic, bored/apathetic, withdrawn, trying to mend the slowly breaking bonds between the characters Confliction of personalities- Ellie and Grace The victim character- misunderstood, not believed/doubted, and eventually killed
- 6. What did you think of our use of setting and why? Eerie, enhanced idea of isolation and danger, reflected the intent of the antagonist Good choice of setting, first setting: peaceful/formed sense of normality, second setting challenged the first, darker atmosphere-created confusion, caught slightly off-guard, reflective of the protagonists situation in the face of the killer
- 7. What key themes were presented within this production? Danger, peril, normality Conflict-characters, friendship, art (students- schoolwork) Murder, death, mystery- unsure of the dangers within the woods or the identity of the antagonist
- 8. Does this piece appeal to you, if so how? Yes, the camerawork used was effective Varying use of shots made it interesting and engaging The settings matched what the characters were going through, created an atmosphere and an increase in tension
- 9. What are the strengths of this production? Camerawork, creative various angles, interesting Transition from the newspaper into the woodlands, coming alive, linked well to narrative
- 10. What are the weaknesses of this production? The sound, background noise, fluctuating, distracting Some wind noise heard, could hear dialogue, sometimes wind/static was too much
- 11. What did you think of our sound quality? Background noise was distracting, however could hear the dialogue Choice of music helped to create atmosphere Reinforced the idea of thriller, built up suspense Also use of typical thriller sounds, built tension, brought across air of mystery, idea hat something is wrong
- 12. Who do you believe is the target audience of this production and why? Anyone who likes the thriller genre Age group- teens- reflective of the age of the characters, can relate to the audience Content not appropriate for younger ages, due to dark themes of death, gore, potential murder
- 13. What do you think the narrative is? A girl went missing, protagonists unaware, travel top the woods Suspense of being followed Argument, break up of the group, Grace finds phone (could belong to the missing girl), rushes back to friends, do not believe her, storms off and is attacked by the mysterious presence, The two remaining character hear her scream, runs to the scene, finds Grace dead, drops the camera, and finishes upon the strange figure found (presumably the killer)
- 14. Did you like the narrative, if so why? Yes, creative and unique definitely fit the genre Intriguing and interesting made you want to see more
- 15. Do you think our titles are appropriate in correspondence with the genre? Well made, made the opening more professional Limited colours, big contrast between the two colours/ harsh reality Effects/ flicker- effect of sudden disappearance, links well to the narrative
- 16. How would you rate the camerawork? A lot of different shots, kept it interesting Camera peering around the tree, hiding, mystery Foot shots- showed the journey Attention pulled form one thing to another- close ups The camera focused on the image and transitioned to the location Good acting, music and sound effect worked well in collaboration
- 17. However, along with the strengths of this piece, we also discovered that a main weakness was featured within our piece. This being that of sound, as some fluctuating natural ambience (often wind noise) which affected the flow of the piece to a certain extent, could be found in areas of the piece. These were described as somewhat of a “distraction”. Never the less the choice of soundtrack was praised highly, as it was described to have set the scene well, creating a sense of unease as well as helping each piece of footage to flow from one scene into the next. In order to improve the quality of our final piece, the ambience should be reconsidered and perhaps sound bridged within each piece of footage in order to remove the more obvious areas of fluctuating sound. Therefore ensuring the overall quality of our piece. Never the less, from this overly positive feedback, it can be concluded that in regards to the overall audience appeal this has been well accepted by our interviewed audience members, revealing the high level of success of our thriller opening sequence.
- 18. In Conclusion After analysing the key findings of my audience feedback I have discovered that our opening sequence was well received by our target audience. Revealing the particular strengths to have been our application of mise en scene, which helped to create a feeling of dark unease (in particular within our wooded location, which was said to have been effective in setting the story as well as believably concealing the killer/antagonist). Also we discovered that the narrative was fully understood by the audience, and any uncertainty within the footage were upon clips intentionally kept ambiguous, which also allowed for us to successfully incite enigma codes into the audience. This was seen to be successful as it was said that our audience became “intrigued” and “interested” witness the narrative unfold. Also we found that our varied use of shots and camerawork, as well as out use of a transition from and image to a location, to be a particularly striking and captivating technique. Therefore, revealing the overall success of our thriller opening piece.