Every single response to this said that the film must be a romance, implying that I successfully kept to the genre specific conventions of romance. A few said it also had a sub genre of tragedy or drama. It is interesting that although none of them picked up on the less common genre of social realism, these were the other two sub-genres that I toyed with in the planning on of my film.
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I used this question in order to see if my trailer was successful in engaging my focus group and/or if they felt it would engage another demographic. My actual target audience was people aged 15+ mostly girls, however, I did want to attempt to break down the stereotype that romance is only enjoyed by girls. I feel that this aim was not achieved as all of the responses said "teenagers" mostly adding "girls". A few said that they believe 12-25 year olds would enjoy it, however, due to the BBFC certification system, I certified it a 15 due to the content of suicide and death. Some of the respondents acknowledged this saying that the primary target audience must be aged 16+, yet one said that it would engage girls as young as 8 (this participant obviously missed the certification at the beginning of the trailer and misunderstood some of the plot). On the whole, I am confident that the trailer would engage the right target audience, yet would possibly not stretch to a male audience unfortunately.
There was a massive variety of answers for this question, giving me faith and confidence in many areas of my trailer. Most of the participants agreed that one area that was working was the short clip lengths and a lot saying the voice-overs, sound effects and soundtrack. Mise-en-scene elements such as locations, costume and props were also highlighted as well as the structure ending with a cliffhanger and the credits, These were interestingly all areas which I focused on in my deconstructions and more widely in my genre specific research, indicating it's success and how it does actually fit within the conventions of trailers.
All but one of the responses to this question stated that the trailer was simply too long, consolidating my ideas of what already planned to improve anyway. A few of the responses elaborated saying that the plot revealed too much, which was picked up again by the same respondents in question 7, yet oppositionally two also said that the ending was confusing. The only mise-en-scene mishap that was brought u by one participant was that the lighting kept changing, which I will check with scrutiny but may actually have been done on purpose in post-production as I am unsure where the participant is referring to. Finally, the voice-overs were commented on for needing redubbing, again picked up on in question 5.
The response to this question was mostly positive, saying that sound created mood and atmosphere which fitted to the action and that the voice-overs cleared up any confusion (progression from the rough cut which this participant had seen). The only negative feedback was two comments on the syncing of the audio with the moving image which already planned to re-record anyway.
This was another mixed response where most of the participants said that "yes" they understood the plot or "yes a bit", where a lot of them said that the ending was confusing. There was one response expressing confusion at why the male protagonist was depressed. This, I feel, actually provides evidence of an uneducated society which calls for films such as the one I planned here. Where awareness of depression is spread and and understanding is created, particularly that there isn't necessarily always a reason for people to be depressed. In response to participants saying that they didn't understand the ending, I am going to get some other audience members who have no prior knowledge of the plot and get some informal feedback on their understanding and will base my decision on any corrections on this. There were a few people who said they didn't understand the narrative, however they were outweighed by those who did and would therefore either be engaged by lack of understanding or would be the complete opposite and alternatively not engage at all possibly due to lack of engagement with the genre.
This was again a mixed response and was a question relating to the purpose and conventions of trailers. The majority of my participants responded "no", that it didn't give too much away. This obviously being what I aimed to provide as a convention of trailers and in response to my first questionnaire from my focus group who claimed to not want trailers to reveal too much. There were a few responses which oppositionally said "yes", that it did reveal too much and two saying "a little bit" at the end. I can see both sides to this question, however, I feel that due to the purpose of trailers to create engagement, I will follow the responses saying "no" as otherwise I feel that the wrong audience would be engaged and there would be too little understanding of the plot for the audience to be left on a cliff anger and want to come and see the film.
This question was pretty much a yes or no question, and the focus group mostly answered it as such. I had almost 100% of the focus group in favour of the text, with one response saying it worked well, "especially on the beach". The only response that was not as supportive simply said "not at the end". I personally agree with this participant as I was unhappy with the text at the end whilst editing and planned to go back and see if I could fit it in elsewhere.
There was a large variety of answers to this question which will make it difficult to understand which parts are valuable to keep and which need cutting down. A handful of responses claimed that when the male protagonist died, it captured their attention. However, one also said that the beginning caught their attention and the end was too long. This was backed up by a few general responses claiming that the romantic relationship caught their attention but the longer clips made it confusing and were unneeded. Some of the answers gave specific scenes which were too long e.g. the beach scene and the field scene. Finally, two of the participants were really enthusiastic in favour of the childhood video clips which they felt were effective and captured their attention right at the beginning, a key purpose of trailers. I believe that, although a lot of the responses from this question are conflicting, combined they will ultimately help me to cut down my trailer in the right places, still enabling a degree of understanding and engagement.
This question was added at the end in order for my focus group to add any extra points that were not addressed in answers to the previous questions and to sum up any ideas from before. There were three main points addressed here: that the trailer needs to be shorter, the voice-overs need to be of better quality and synced better, and that the second half of the trailer wasn't as understandable.
The first two points I was already aware of and planned to address before the initial viewing but failed to do due to time constraints. I am currently planning to have my actors re-record the first half of their script as this is where I feel the audio is most noticeably lacking, likely due to the lack of experience and because we moved the microphone closer about half way through. Based on the answers given earlier in the questionnaire, I now have a clearer idea of which areas dragged and which grabbed attention which will hopefully make it easier to go back and cut down the clips to make the trailer shorter whilst still effective. As for the third point, I plan on going back and getting a few other audience members to watch the trailer with me to see if they understand the basic plot. However, I am aware that it is conventional for trailers to leave audiences confused in order to engage them to want to watch the film. This is the main reason why I am hesitant to make this more cohesive and clear as well as conflicting answers from previous questions where a handful of my focus group participants claimed that there was actuallly too much given away. |
Draft 1 questionnaireMy focus group watched my first draft of the trailer and completed a questionnaire giving constructive criticism for me to reflect on and improve my trailer ArchivesCategories |