We all asked different people of different ages and gender so we could get a range of results; we will then compare all the notes we have with each other to get the better and much more accurate analysis of our opening sequence. We all asked 10 people, a variety of ages to fill in the questionnaire.
1) What do you think of the overall plot? (This was the newest plot)
Overall the feedback was much more positive than that of which we got from our original idea, with the majority of the people ask saying that there will be a clear sense of confusion created within our opening sequence. This is exactly the idea we want to project as a sense of confusion is a typical convention of a thriller. A common response to this question was that the plot seems to fit what you would stereotypically see in a thriller film, this is great feedback as this is exactly how we wanted our film to be represented, as we will certainly hit the mark scheme with our film. One respondent, who is media literate, said that as we are doing this by hand and have only a limited amount of props available to us for use, our filming may seem to unrealistic for a task for 4 media students to do.
2) What do you think to the point of which we join the film? (This is the fact that we join at the point where the equilibrium is disturbed)
One person who this question was asked to was clearly film literate and gave us an answer in which we wanted. The start will be similar to that of swordfish which if filmed and edited correctly which creates a great sense of confusion. This is what we aim for in our film as swordfish was one of our influenced films as our film as similar to swordfish opens at stage 2 of Todorov’s theory.
3) What ideas could be improved?
A response that was seen from numerous people was the idea of the gun to the head, they found it was too clichéd and an obvious way to kill someone. We do not one it to be an obvious way of killing someone as we want to create that sense of confusion still so this might be changed in the filming stages. Overall the response was pretty positive as most of our filming is quite realistic if we have the correct props and ideas.
4) What age group do you think our film is aimed at?
I asked all 10 respondents which age category they thought our film would be aimed at.
The possibilities were: 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31-35, 36-40, 40+
The results that were found I have converted into a graph form,
The graph show that the respondents believe the film is aimed at the ages of 16 to 25 year olds which is exactly what age group we are aiming at with our film.
5) Do we introduce characters/ plot/ setting?
The majority of my respondents agreed that the location isn’t recognisable to the character who is sitting in the chair being interrogated but not entirely to them as we do see a glimmer of the outside, but the idea is to hide the location to give the sense of mystery and the unknown, which is a convention of the thriller genre. Also some of the respondents said the identity of the agents can seem hidden as there are not many shots where they are clearly visible, this is also the idea that we wanted to create as through progression with the main plot the identity of the agents becomes much clearer, so the audience get a certain first impression of these people but then when the plot unravels the bond with the audience and agents can be created.
6) Will the main sequence of the film be able to continue on from our opening sequence?
The comment that we got from the same person who made the point about swordfish agreed that the film would easily continue from the opening sequence as it leaves the audience confused which is what we are aiming for. But the point about the fact that doing it like this will make the audience want to watch the rest of the film, which as a film producer is what we want the audience to do. Some of the respondents felt that it would confuse them too much mixing all of the timeline for the film up, but after watching swordfish we felt as a group this was the idea that we would want to introduce into our film.
7) Does our opening sequence grip you the viewer to watch the rest of the film?
As the respondent explained in the point above the idea of putting a scene that is toward the end of the entire film, at the beginning, grips the viewer and makes them want to carry on watching to see how it’s got to that point in the film and what will happen afterwards. But the majority of people interviewed agreed that they would watch the rest of the film as thriller film hit the age range of respondents (which was 16-27 years of age) so this has given a biased answer as we do not know if our film will attract an audience of an older age. But ‘at the end of the day’ our aim was towards that age range of 16-24 so if the respondents agree that they would watch it to the end then we have done a good job of creating the idea for our film.
