Audience Feedback - Connor Hilton

Audience Feedback

We asked people within our target audience to take a look at our overall story idea and answer some quick questions, giving their opinion.

General Story Idea:

• There are two male characters who are best friends
• One of the characters has been depressed for a while but is hiding it from his friend
• The depressed friend commits suicide
• The other friend becomes frustrated and sad while dealing with his friends loss
• The other friend eventually tries to meet new people and gets stood up 
• The other friend considers committing suicide because of how sad, frustrated and lonely he has become

Questions We Asked:

1. Would you be interested in watching this short film?
2. Do you think the message of this film is realistic?
3. Is the story relatable in any way?
4. What improvements do you think could be made to the story idea?

Feedback:

Fraser(17):

1. Yes, the story sounds interesting but it's a bit dark.
2. In some ways yes, however the reaction seems a bit extreme.
3. Not for me personally, but I could understand why some people might see themselves in the characters position.
4. I think that there should be some background into why the friend commits suicide in the first place. Like, explain why the character is depressed.

Matt(16):

1. It seems like an interesting idea, but it's not for me.
2. It seems a bit far fetched, without any knowledge of why the character commits suicide in the first place.
3. As I mentioned, I think it's unlikely to happen. It would seem more relatable if your friend died in an accident.
4. I think the death of the character that commits suicide should be an accident as that seems more realistic to me.

James(18):

1. Yes, it seems intriguing
2. I think it is somewhat realistic, it's hard to say without knowing the whole situation surrounding the death of the first character.
3. Somewhat, in a real life situation it's not normally your friend dying  but usually moving on. Or you might get separated by going to different schools.
4. I think the idea is good, but maybe add some more detail to show the reason the character was depressed in the first place and why he chose to commit suicide instead of talking to his friend.

Summary:

I think that the feedback that we received was useful moving forward. I think that the points that have been made about improving the story are important and we will have a discussion about this as a group. It seems like most people think that the overall idea is good, but they need more information about the death of the friend at the start of the film. This was a sacrifice we made for the length of the film otherwise the film would end up being too long. We will look into a way of telling the audience more information about the characters death.