Inital Audience Feedback - Post-Production

Initial Audience Feedback - Post-Production

Here are some samples of the piece. There are rushes which means that they have not been edited yet and they are just the raw footage that we shot. We will show these rushes to the audience and then ask for some initial feedback to make sure that they get that same ideas as we had planned for them to get.

                                      

What we did:

We set up a group chat on Facebook with 10 members of the target audience in it. Then we showed them the clips above and we explained to them that these were all of the shots that we shot during filming and that none of the clips has been edited. The reason that we did this was get some initial feedback on our short film. We wanted to see from the target audience what they thought about the story, characters and the atmosphere at certain points with in key scene of the short film. We wanted to know if the views that the audience were giving up were the same as what we intended it to be.

The Feedback

Below is the feedback that we got from the sample group that we showed the clips to.

Scene 1:

• They felt that the character in the blue trousers (the protagonist) was very happy. This is how we wanted the character to come across in this scene.
• We had to explain to the sample audience that this scene was supposed to be a montage and once we told them that then they all understood that it was supposed to show the protagonist being happy with his friend.
• Also, they said that the friend appears to be sad which is made more apparent by the happiness of the protagonist. This is good because the audience will be shocked by what happens in the next scene, however, they will then be able to understand why the friend looked so and maybe they will be able to connect the dots to realise that the friend killed himself.

Scene 6:

• They understood that this was the part of the story where the protagonist is trying to fix his loneliness by connecting with other people and trying to make new friends.
• They felt sympathy with the character as he is trying to fix the problem he is having. This is good because it helps the audience connect with the character on an emotional level because loneliness and depression is something that can affect people within the target audience of the short film.
• On top of this, we explained to them that this scene was originally planned to happen on a computer, however, we changed it to a phone because we thought is would be more relate able. They agreed with us because they said most of the time people use Facebook on their phones to talk to other people which meant the target audience could relate to it more than if we had used a computer.
• They did have one negative about this scene which was because the atmosphere of the scene is happy they felt that the costume of the character was very dark and sad. They said that the costume should have been lighter to match the happy atmosphere. We do agree with this, however, at the start of the scene even though the character is determined to find a new friend he is still grieving over his dead friend.
• Finally, they said that the characters facial expression showed that he is determined which is good because we want the audience to know that the protagonist is determined to overcome his problem.

Scene 8:

• When we showed this scene to the sample they said that the character appears to be happy with what he is doing.
• Also, they said that it is very clear what he is going to try and do, additionally, they said that they really like the cliff hanger ending because to makes them question whether he will actually kill himself. They said that is is effective because it makes them think back to the other parts of the short film and think whether he would go through with the act of killing himself.
• They did say that it looked good with the fog in the background of the shots which helped the scene seem more mysterious, however, they said it was very light out which gave the scene a happier feel than we wanted it to.

Overall, the feedback that we go from this initial audience research was good. This is because the audience understood the main effects that we tried to portray with the key scenes of the short film. This means that they understood the atmosphere of the scene, how it affected the story and they connected with the characters in the scene.