As a final addition to the development of this project, we decided that holding an Audience Feedback session would be useful in order to see whether our product has accomplished its goals, and get a general response as to the quality of our film. We assembled a classroom full of peers to showcase our film. We compiled five questions to pose my fellow students;
- Do you like it and why?
- What don't you like?
- What could be improved?
- What do you think the story is about?
- Who do you think the target audience is?
We received a wide and collective response from the group. Admittedly this was largely positive, but we did strongly encourage honesty from the group so we could receive a accurate feedback. After asking the first question, all 18 of the 18 students said that they did 'like' the sequence. Many agreed on how they thought that "it was extremely well cast, the performances of the bullies were very strong." One person spoke of how they "thought the use of costume was really effective. It helped us understand the plot more and get a sense of the characters." The majority of the praise was owed to the fight scene. One person described how they "liked the way the girl crossed over the shot out of nowhere, it let us know that the mood was taking a turn." Another exclaimed "I loved the shaky camera work, it worked really well." This comment was particularly pleasing as I was responsible for the camera work in this scene.
In answering question two, many people put forward how they saw Ethan, the protagonist, smile at one point during his interrogation by the bullies. This was interesting to me as it was something I had never noticed during the editing of the thriller, yet a resounding number of the group identified it despite the moment only lasting a second. However Adam (teacher) defended the moment saying that he actually liked it as a "nervous laughter in situations like this is actually quite common and realistic." As an improvement to the piece one person intimated that they thought that "the composition is a bit light considering the mood of the piece." This is something that had also not occurred to me thus far, but it is a fair point. Unfortunately, our on our shoot day the weather happened to be rather optimistic as opposed to dreary which would have been more suitable for our piece.
We then asked if people understood the plot. This is an important as although it is only a title sequence, one would hope an audience could achieve a preferred reading and therefore have an inkling as to the direction the plot will go. Everyone in the room could easily establish that Ethan was from a different school and social group to those who victimised him. However, only a handful intimated that they got the impression that Ethan had stayed behind at school on purpose due to the bullying situation and his poor home life. If you were to re-shoot this perhaps something we would try and put more emphasis on possibly with an extra scene that included Ethan's father.
Finally, we asked the group what they believed would be the target audience for the product we have created. After a short period of discussion they agreed on 16-35, with no particular emphasis on either sex. This was good news as it coincided with what we ourselves projected through our surveying. The only portion that was neglected in this response was the 40+. We deciphered that the class thought that some elder audience members may be put off by the rude language featured in the film and the fact that it is a prodominantly adolescent cast. However, this is not something we would change if given the chance as we feel the swearing in context is appropriate and justified due to the nature of the character and the social realism of the piece.
In conclusion, I am glad we held this feedback session as it communicates to us as a group that for the most part we have managed to succeed in achieving our goals with the project. This has resulted in a product that we are happy with and know can entertain others which on reflection is a primary target for any filmmaker.
