Audience Research Part VI

AUDIENCE RESEARCH PART VIO L I V E R W O O L L A R D

FOCUS GROUP | #1

I gathered my first focus group together. They were comprised of Teenagers aged between 16 and 17. This is a key market of my film, due to their universal interest in films of the Thriller genre, character representation (many of my characters are teenagers) and their critical age group (under 18, above 15). This awkward age sits between two age ratings issued by the BBFC and will allow me to identify where my film lies based on its content.

The focus group were shown my trailer twice, before being given time to complete a survey. They were then invited to verbally discuss any changes, thoughts and ideas with me.

QUESTION 1 & 2

38.5% of the focus group were Male and 64.5% were Female. Unfortunately the opportunity to organise this focus group meant that I was unable to have an equal number of both genders. However gender doesn’t necessarily mean anything in relation to opinion on film.

33.33% of the answers given were Action, followed by Thriller with 30.70% and Sci-Fi with 23.07%. The rest of the answers given were either Adventure, Mystery, Drama or Crime. I am thrilled that the audience were able to identify with my target genre. Whilst the crime score is slightly lower than I expected, I’m not surprised it isn’t high, as I didn’t include as many crime elements as previously planned. I was quite confused with Adventure being identified, as there are no signifiers of the genre within my trailer.

What is your gender? Which three genres do you associate ‘Wired’ with after watching the trailer?

QUESTION 3 & 4

10 people commented that the voiceover is too quiet. This majority opinion is one I cannot ignore, and in retrospect the audio could use some further editing to improve quality. 2 people commented that they think adding effects to the voiceover would make it more effective to the audience, which I think is a good idea.

2 people commented that the shot in which Red says “we share the same battle”, could use some brightening to make it clearer. In verbal research one girl suggested that draining colour would add to the representation of her character better. 1 person said that they found the writing hard to read, however due to the lack of any writing and the volume of the complaint, I don’t think there is anything that needs to be changed. The rest of the survey sheets left this question free indicating there was nothing wrong with the Visuals.

Please identify any problems you have with the Visuals of the trailer.

Please identify any problems you have with the Audio of the trailer.

QUESTION 5 & 6

8 people were able to indentify the social media links in the trailer (hashtags). 1 person commented that they were clear, whilst 1 person claimed they didn’t see any. The rest of the focus group left this question blank, probably due to the confusing nature of the question.

10 people correctly indentified The Puppeteers from the trailer. Meanwhile the rest of the focus group could not. The portion who couldn’t identify were less that a quarter, which I think is an acceptable amount. Because of this I will investigate the issue no further.

Did you see any social media links. If so were they effective?

What was the name of the secret organisation mentioned in the trailer?

QUESTION 7 & 8

People responded well to the tunnels locations, meaning that my scrupulous search for the right setting has been successful.

The results of my survey are very high again, I will seek no further action on this matter.

7 8 9 100

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

How effective was the Black Room location?

1 2 3 4 50

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

How effective was the Tunnels location

QUESTION 9 & 10

Only one person surveyed was unable to identify Marius from the trailer, therefore I am not worried about the clarity of my trailer.

5 people of the surveyed audience were unable to identify Dana from the trailer, therefore I will investigate this further by surveying another group and comparing results.

Identification of Marius

Yes No

Identification of Dana

Yes No