1. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
Evaluation: Question 3
2. Target Audience
The target audience for my short horror
was young people, teenagers especially
due to the fact that they are going to be the
age group who are going to be more likely
to hold an interest in this genre of film
rather than a younger or an older audience.
Therefore, catering for the needs of your
target audience is vitally important as
ensuring that they are watching something
that they are going to enjoy as they will
continue to watch it again and again.
3. Who were our Audience?
Due to the fact that we needed to find out the
thoughts and suggestions of people in a
specific age range; 13-18 year olds. We
decided that it would be best suited to our
production to conduct our audience research
with people in our year group who do not
currently study media. Most of our audience
was made up of people who had partaken in
the subject at either AS or GCSE level,
therefore they knew what sort of feedback
would be useful to us as a group.
4. How did we engage with the
audience?
We engaged with our audience by
getting them to fill out questionnaires
and we also gained some video footage
from them revealing their feedback on
our short film production. From the
feedback we were able to act upon their
recommendations in order to create a
film that would suit the needs and
expectations of our target audience
5. My questionnaire
These are the questions which I asked my target audience to find out what
they thought about our short film production.
6. Strengths
The strengths of my research was that is
allowed me and my group to identify
exactly what our audience’s preference's
were regarding certain aspects of the
film. This enabled us to act upon their
feedback so that our film so that it could
be adapted and improved so that our
product was best suited to our target
market.
7. Weaknesses
The weaknesses of our audience testing
was that we only received feedback
from a small amount of people, if we had
conducted research on a wider scale,
then it may have resulted in us getting
more of a variety in feedback and
suggestions. We could have also
conducted more research as a whole
with a mixture of secondary and primary
research used in our audience testing.
8. Questionnaire Results
1. Were you able to tell that this short film
was within the horror genre?
Yes
No
This question’s results suggests that we were successful in replicating the
conventions that other films in the horror genre generate in their films.
This is very positive as it meant that the audience were certain when they
watched this film of what genre it belonged in.
9. 2. If so, what aspects of the film did you
feel were conventional of horror?
For this question, most of the audience
put down that the conventional aspects
consisted of the location, with it being
isolated and surrounded by wooded
area. Along with the traditional things
you would expect from a horror film such
as the slow build up of music to create
tension.
10. 3. Did you feel as though the use of sound
was effective?
Yes
No
This question suggests that we were effective with our use of sound as
the majority of our audience felt in the same way.
11. 4. What type of sound did you feel was used
most effectively?
Diegetic
Non-diegetic
For this question, it was a 50/50 split between which sounds
were used most effectively. This is good as it suggests that we
used both aspects of sound effectively throughout the film.
12. 5. Overall did you feel that the film was
successful in creating a tense atmosphere?
Yes
No
The predominant vote for this question was that the film was successful in
creating a tense atmosphere. This is good as it means that we as a group
were successful in creating a media product that created tension and
therefore scared the audience.
13. 6. If so, what aspects of the film did you feel
helped to create this tense atmosphere
Mise en scene
Camera
Editing
Sound
From this question, the results suggest that the majority of people felt that the
mise en scene that was used throughout the film was the most influential
aspect that contributed towards creating the tense atmosphere. They also felt
that the sound had a big part to play, with editing and sound having less of an
impact.
14. Focus Group
The focus group that we
carried out during the editing
process of our media
production was very useful, as
it allowed us to receive first
hand feedback from people
who had either taken the
subject the previous year at
AS, or had studied the subject
at GCSE level. The feedback
that we received that day had
a massive impact on our final
production as we acted upon
the feedback that they gave
us.
15. 7. What do you think could have been
improved in this short horror film?
For this question, the most frequently
suggested improvement would be the
lighting during the film. As sometimes it
was a bit difficult to visualise what was
actually going on in the film as it was a
bit too dark to be able to see what was
going on.
16. How did the feedback change your
project?
This feedback helped me to change my
product as I could act upon the
improvements and suggestions that my
audience gave back to me. The
combination of both the video verbal
feedback, alongside the questionnaire
results together helped us to create a
product which suited the needs and
expectations of our target audience.
17. Why is feedback important?
Feedback is very important, especially in
media. This is because having different
people being able to share their thoughts
and opinions on a product brings fresh
ideas and a brings a different mindset in
that needs to be considered. It is also
vitally important that you receive feedback
from your target audience as their thoughts
and opinions are going to be the ones that
matter when the product is released.