Evaluation - Question (5)

5) How did you attract/address your audience? - Evaluation

Now we understood what was requested and expected from our audience, we now needed to put this into practice. I provided a survey, which was handed out in various places to understand what the audience was expecting. I created over twenty questionnaires and handed them out in school, the workplace and also on the streets to strangers. This would give me a broad basis on which to our film on. In the survey certain heading included, lighting, sound, and storyline. But ultimately I left the questionnaire very open so people are not put off about answering it, and are also more keen to offer their own suggestions, rather than just answering what was placed in front of them. The part of the survey was:

This picture is one made on the computer rather than the original which I did by hand and then photocopied.

As you can clearly see by the image, only a few headings were offered and then the rest was open for suggestions. A large box was placed for suggestions and this was because I already knew in general terms about what people expected from a thriller film, but what I really wanted to know was personal opinions rather than forced ones from the questionnaire. The results were phenomenal and helped in almost every aspect when filming. The results are as followed (excluding the “Other suggestions…” which I will mention later):

Below shows the results of the 20 questionnaires in tally form. Some may add up to the number handed out due to some people ticking more than one box:

Lighting - Dark = IIII¤ IIII¤ IIII¤ II (17) Bright = (0) Both = III (3)

Sound - Fast = IIII¤ (5) Unusual = IIII¤ (5)
Slow = II (2) All = II (2)
Eerie = IIII¤ IIII¤ (9) Other = I (1)

Storyline - Tension building = IIII¤ (5) Crime orientated = IIII¤ II (7)
Action packed = I (1) Futuristic = II (2)
Unusual = IIII (4) Technologically based = IIII (4)
Gruesome = II (2) Other = II (2)

The results that are featured in bolt are the most highly ticked answers. These are what I will be basing my film around but other results will also be taken into account. Some of these results are what I was expecting including the dark lighting and the eerie music. But one result that I found slightly unusual was how the “Storyline” heading received various results. Most importantly a crime orientated thriller film has received the most “ticks”. As this is so broad and diverse on the ticks, several of these storylines will be collected together to reach out to a larger audience.

Next was focusing on the results from the “Other suggestions…” box, whereby people personally left suggestions on what they thought should be added into the film which I did not mention. This was a purposeful tactic, to try and find out what my audience really wanted to see. A selection of people actually decided to leave other suggestions but many were just adding on extra information from the recent headings. But three questionnaires caught my attention to what the viewer was suggesting and were very beneficial to me and my production. These next pictures are the other suggestions parts of the questionnaire that have been divided from the rest of the surveys:

　

　

Firstly, this suggestion is extremely important and gives our group a great idea to help base our film around. We need to feature enigmas through the film which will make the audience think! If they have to think about all the different outcomes, then they will be more involved and captured by the production.

With this suggestion, the basic importance is that I need to think of an idea, that nobody has done before which will be able to capture the audiences interest. If they have seen a similar film before, they will not want to see it again so we have to think of an entirely new idea.

The importance of this suggestion is that to be able to make a good film we have to think of an idea that will be able to make the audience relate to the production. If we do this, then the audience will obviously enjoy the film more, when experiences in their lives relate to what is happening within the film. This does not have to be exact reference to their lives, but should be able to cover a large audience and to make them think “what if this happened to me!?”.

Finally, I need to state how what I have researched has managed to wrought my ideas to create the best possible outcomes for the audience. I have created a Prezi to show the ideas that have been noted down to try and capture this audience:
http://prezi.com/4ayx0aa8adol/as-media-evaluation-how-my-ideas-incorporate-what-a-future-audience-suggested/

This link is my full Prezi document and is very revealing on the ideas I have received from the questionnaires.

This shows a screen shot of the Prezi:

Evaluation - Question (4)

4) Who would be the audience for your media product? - Evaluation
To create my audience profile I have analysed “Die Hard 4.0” which is in the same genre as the production we are going to create, an action/crime thriller. I took notes from what people were saying about this film because I can then link it to our similar thriller introduction. When I was analysing this film I understood before hand that the target audience was going to be separated by many factors including, age, gender and social class. When I was questioning friends and others, I noticed that the majority of people that were interested and enjoyed the film were of the age 15 - 24. This was then divided again into gender and it was clear that over 60% of people that said this film appealed to them were male, typically fitting the traditional convention that males prefer action thrillers rather than females. But with a 40% divide of gender, it clearly shows that women also enjoy action thrillers so they should not be ruled out of our final target audience when filming. Social class was less obviously divided with people from all different parts of the spectrum, enjoying the film.

Popularity of similar film - (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337978/)

But I didn’t focus singularly on “Die Hard 4.0” but also on the future production. By this I mean I asked questions based on what our final production would be like and what people would expect and enjoy. An example of a question included was “What makes you want to see a film, what will draw you in?” and one of the answers was very beneficial to our final production, “Action and enigmas! Everyone likes to be in a tension building film, keeping us interested. Some films I’ve seen lately have just not been up to the mark”. From this we can establish that we need a film that will make the viewer think and confuse them. If they think and are confused, then they are more likely to be interested, an example of highly prestigious, but confusing film, is “Inception”.

This screen shot shows an action thriller film, "Night Watch", and the percentage to baits to attendance. Squared with red shows how nearly half of the 158 people surveyed would attend it due to the genre/type of film. This shows the popularity that a movie like this can achieve, especially when there are 35 different answers they could of picked from. This helps our group to be 100% certain that we have picked the perfect sub-genre to base our final production on.

(http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/exitpolls)

I was also very observant of what the people were doing, wearing, eating and drinking when I was talking to them. This was solely for the reason that understanding our audience profile, will understand what they enjoy and then this can be used to our advantage by implementing it into the final production. I noticed that several people I asked were drinking “Red Bull” or similar energy drinks and from this you can identify that they are energetic and have a fast paced lifestyle. This shows that an action thriller would be a perfect film to draw in an audience because of its fast pace. Another thing that I picked up on was the groups they were in when I asked the questions. This shows how they are very friend orientated and love a social lifestyle. Another feature I noticed was how some of the people questioned were actually wearing clothing from particular movies, showing how some members of this particular audience have gone past the "FILM AS ENTERTAINMENT" (see below) stage but have moved on to the "FILM AS IDENTITY" stage. Are audience is avid and enthusiastic enough to be influenced to what films are presenting, showing their true love for films.

This shows the journey of interest of films.

(http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/media/pdf/7/j/Avids_report.pdf)

In conclusion, my production will be based on the audiences that are similar to that of “Die Hard 4.0” due to its close connection with the basis of the introduction of our final production. From that I am aiming for my target audience to be people ages 15-24, mostly male with the basis of appealing to females too. I will also make sure that our production doesn’t single out specific social classes and make it appeal to all people from different social classes so that the purpose of my production is effective. The questions asked about our final production will also help us to create a more vibrant and interesting environment for our target audience. These will include many different things including what I studied with what they were doing, drinking, eating and wearing. All of these can, and will be used to our advantage because understanding what they do and love will help us to draw them in further to our production. But we must remember as a group that "Avid identities are no more fixed than any other, and lifestyle changes…can have profound implications” (http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/media/pdf/7/j/Avids_report.pdf) . Analysing this statement in more detail shows that an avid thriller viewer can easily shift their opinions, helping us to realise that we are not restricted to our audience. But more and less people, from different ages, genders, social classes may become interested in what we our offering from what is affecting their daily lives. Putting it more simply is, we are not restricted to a specific audience. Below shows our typical target audience:

20th April 2012 - Media lesson.

Back after the Easter holidays, we have gone into our film project with full throttle, progressing excellently in today's lesson and managing to place all of our filming together. It is nearly complete, we are just adding the finishing touches and then we would have finished! These finishing touches include, editing and managing the soundtrack. Personally, in today's lesson, I edited and blogged our documentary from the last lesson, and started to use "Garage Band" on the Macs to try and create music for the film, but this is only in its early stages and we believe that the music I made at home, is probably going to be more useful.

Easter Holidays Update.

I thought I would make a small, yet important update throughout the holidays to sum up what I have been doing. Firstly, we finally managed to create and finish the last scene. We did not film this in Francois conservatory, we just used my dining area. There was also many changes to the script and storyboard but we will create a post on our group blog to show the changes. I also managed to create the music. It was a difficult process but I used my keyboard and guitar to make some unusual sounds which I personally believe, would be great for our production. We will be deciding as a group if the music I have created is worthy. I would attach it to this blog update but there is a problem with the recording and transferring it to blogger.