The target audience for our media product, according to the research we've done both before and after creating our film, is likely to be predominantly female and within our own age range (15 to 21). This mostly lines up with our initial target demographic, which we anticipated due to our two leads being female and the unusual, youth-oriented genre combination of the film. However, we found that our post-viewing audience was mostly male as opposed to female. The fact that indie sci-fi thrillers aren't common in the industry meant we had to be particularly specific about the types of people who may be willing to
Of course, the above is also dictated by the certification of our film; 15, meaning we would be able to include any theme, "providing the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds." (Source: BBFC) Rather than limiting our work, however, I believe the above criteria makes the production of the film itself more interesting and challenging. Instead of blindly, callously and often gratuitously revelling in dubious themes like a lot of 18-rated products do, this certification would allows us to explore a greater morally complex and directional take on anything we include. Additionally, a younger age of certification broadens our demographic to 3 years below what it would be had we gone for a higher one, meaning our revenues are likely to be equally higher due to this expansion; a fact that is very important for independent studios like ours. The typical cinema which would take us on - most likely an art house-oriented chain like Picture House - would be another limit on our audience outreach, focussing mostly on people who don't have enough time or money to consistently go to multiplex cinemas. A set-up like this is perfect in terms of reaching students of all ages, especially, as well as anyone else oriented around indie productions such as ours.
The survey we conducted after our screening roughly followed the pattern of the findings from our previous online poll and vox pops. It was constructed of two parts (one on the individual's general film preferences and the other on their opinion of the film). It contained the following questions:
PART 1
1) Please circle your gender.
Male Female Other
2) What are your 3 favourite/most watched film genres?
Action
Adventure
Comedy
Crime
Drama
Historical
Horror
Indie
Romance
Sci-Fi
Thriller
War
Western
3) When was the last time you watched a film? (Please
circle most appropriate timeframe.)
A year ago 6 months ago 1 month ago 1
week ago
3 days ago Yesterday
4) Where was the last time you watched a film?
Cinema TV DVD Legally online Illegally online Other
5) What was the film’s name?
_________________________________________________________________
6) Did you enjoy it? Why/Why not?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PART 2
1) Do you have any criticisms of the ident? (e.g. too
short, too difficult to read)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2) Could you clearly understand the dialogue throughout
the feature? If not, what was the
problem? (e.g. too loud, too quiet)
_________________________________________________________________
3) What was the best/your favourite part of the film?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4) What was the worst/your least favourite part of the
film?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5) Do you want to know what happens next? If so, what do
you think does happen?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*~That completes the questionnaire. Thank you for watching and participating!~*
We received 11 responses, although not every question contains a full set of answers due to people refusing or forgetting to answer certain questions. The first half of this information was fairly easy to process into graphs, as most of it was quantitative, but the answers to the second half had to be compiled and assessed in separate paragraphs in order to decide our precise demographic and draw out exactly the type of audience who would be likely to not only watch out film, but enjoy it, too.
According to the graphs Adam created, our demographic remained predominantly male (54.5%), and our target age range of 15-21 remained partial to the Action, Horror and Comedy genres. They were all fairly avid consumers of film, with no one watching a film longer ago than around the 1 month mark, and most seeing one within the last 3 days - an encouraging sign, as this means our target audience was well-chosen for our type of product. The significantly less encouraging result was that of the mode of consumption: most people, 36.4%, said they watched their last film illegally, which isn't fantastic news for a low-budget independent film such as ours. However, there's little to be done about this fact; it's simply a factor to take into consideration should we have reached the marketing stage of our film, as we would have to make the campaign appealing enough for people to want to watch our product in the cinema as soon as it came out as opposed to waiting for an illegal torrent to surface. The fact that our audience's enjoyment of our work averaged at 4 out of 5 stars indicates that this shouldn't have been particularly difficult to achieve.
The qualitative results of our survey gave us more of an indication of the tastes of our average viewer, meaning we could appeal to these more successfully both within the remainder of the film itself and within its promotion. The results (in a randomised order) were as follows:
1) “Super
Troopers” – Yes, because it was hilarious.
1) Too
short.
1) The
raccoon hat.
The qualitative results of our survey gave us more of an indication of the tastes of our average viewer, meaning we could appeal to these more successfully both within the remainder of the film itself and within its promotion. The results (in a randomised order) were as follows:
What was the name of the last film you watched? Did you enjoy it? Why/why not?
1) “Super
Troopers” – Yes, because it was hilarious.
2) “Home”
– Sort of; it was childish but had some good moments.
3) “Incredibles”
– Hell yes; this is my favourite animated film. It’s got great characters,
a great story and a cool animation style.
4) “Ex
Machina” – Yes, it was a very interesting story with a great cast.
5) “21”
– Yes, a great, fast-paced, realistic film with a great plot.
6) “Treasure
Planet” – Yes; this was my favourite film when I was younger.
7) “Theory
of Everything” – Yes. It was very moving; an interesting perspective on a
fascinating life.
8) “Theory
of Everything” – Yes, as it was poignant and moving (although a little too
romanticised).
9) “Fifty
Shades of Grey” – No, it had no plot.
10) “Say
Anything” – Yes, because I love 80s movies and it has a great premise.
11) “Fight
Club” – …It was alright.
Do you have any criticisms of the ident?
1) Too
short.
2) Too
short.
3) Too
short.
4) Too
short, but what I managed to see was cool.
5) Too
fast and quite blurred.
6) The
text could have been brighter or a little clearer.
7) Eh.
8) Clear.
9) Great.
10) It
was good.
11) (One
person neither knew nor asked what an ident is.)
Could you clearly understand the dialogue throughout the
feature? If not, what was the problem?
1) Uneven
volumes.
2) Slightly
too quiet.
3) Too
quiet.
4) Too
quiet.
5) Yes.
6) It
was good.
7) Very
clear.
8) Yep,
all good.
9) Yes.
10) Yes,
‘twas great.
11) Yes.
What was the best/your favourite part of the film?
1) The
raccoon hat.
2) The
businessman colliding with homeless girl.
3) The
typeface.
4) The
pan scene.
5) Good
cinematography and other shots, transitions, etc.
6) The
reflection part.
7) The
titles were really good. Also, the intense ending that built up against
the wall, plus the window reflection shots.
8) The
colours.
9) The
“Hello, mother!” scene.
10) The
repeated movement through the gates and the mother scene.
11) The
beginning was really good. I liked the close ups.
What was the worst/your least favourite part of the film?
1) Flawless.
Or maybe not very smooth transitions for the music.
2) Actor’s
eye contact with camera.
3) Difficult
to understand storyline.
4) Storyline
too hard to understand.
5) The
transition of the title was a bit amateurish.
6) All
the standing around.
7) The
weird-looking girl in the raccoon hat. (A comment by the actress who
played said weird-looking girl.)
8) (Blank)
9) (Blank)
10) (Blank)
11) I
have no idea!
Do you want to know what happens next? If so, what do you
think does happen?
1) Not
really.
2) Yes.
I would guess that the following persists, but I’m unsure of what the
outcome of this would be.
3) Yes;
I hope there is a thrilling CHASE between the two characters or maybe an
interaction.
4) No.
Bad things.
5) Yes…
I think one girl confronts the other :)
6) Yes,
they save the world!
7) Not
really. But I think the girl in the racoon hat follows the other one,
Terminator-style.
8) Yes.
One girl murders the other in an attempt to put more action into her life.
9) Yeah.
She probably escapes.
10) Yes!
I think the girl in the racoon hat wants love and will find it in
unexpected places.
11) (Blank)
The above information makes the kinds of people we can expect to watch our film fairly obvious. The answers to the first question indicate a wish for emotional experiences in films. The adoration of animation, especially, exhibits a sentimentality likely owed to the child-to-adult transnational age of our target audience. Similarly, plot was clearly important, as it was mentioned in at least 3 of the 11 responses. This is good for our film, as it contains its fair share of poignant scenes centred around character development, as well as a cohesive, original take on an admittedly fairly cliché overarching plot.
The massive variety of responses we received in terms of what what good about our film is interesting in terms of showing that, as long as we hit the correct demographic, different people are likely to find different things to enjoy about our work, which is an encouraging thought. The humour of the "Hello, mother!" dialogue was appreciated a little more commonly however, correlating with our audience's interest in comedy films.
The fact that many of the answers on what our audience enjoyed the least were left blank is similarly pleasing in terms of showing that our film succeeds in grasping this demographic's attention successfully, furthering our confidence that we picked the correct market for our piece. The fact that 2 of 11 people found the plot confusing would ordinarily be a negative sign, but I personally maintain the confidence that, if we were allowed to shoot more footage, the premise would become one hundred percent clear fairly quickly due to the standard cues and conventions the rest of the film would exhibit to establish it as a sci-fi thriller.
The overwhelming positive response we received in terms of whether the audience wanted to continue watching our film (7 out of 11) is the deciding piece of evidence which proves that the demographic of an almost even 50:50 gender split within the older teen/young adult range is right for "De(i)fied". The fact that most of our audience members couldn't guess what would happen next is also perfectly in line with the thriller genre we worked in; after all, if the audience is sure about what will happen next at all times, the film has failed as a thriller! (The deleted final scene of our opening can be seen in our second rough cut, showing that despite a wide range of responses on what could occur next, our hints throughout the opening were sufficient to allow 3 of the 11 people to guess the next scene at least roughly, we had secured a decent level of continuity in terms of plot.)
Aside from researching our target audience, we also used this questionnaire to unveil any problem areas our audience found in our work. The criticisms we received of our ident were, sadly, impossible to remedy, as the most common response we got was that it was too short (5 of 11), but we had already gone over the 2 minute time limit by around 3 seconds. The fact that it was also found to be somewhat difficult to read (2 of 11) was also essentially out of our hands, as despite all our practice on Motion, we couldn't find a way to space the letters of the afterglow any further apart without having the text go out of frame. The presence of positive responses (3 of 11), however, assured us that we would just have to write all this off to experience. However, the volume of the dialogue, which 5 of 11 people commented was too low, was something we went back and adjusted slightly, hopefully heightening the quality of our work somewhat.
In conclusion, the above information not only confirms our previous assumptions about the audience of our film, but also makes it clear what we would have to alter or do better in order to cater to a larger audience in future projects.
DY
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