Audience Feedback

In order to make sure our film opening appeals to our target audience, we conducted a test screening. We used a female majority, and most of the viewers were 16 or 17 years old, which fits in with our target audience, so we knew that their answers would be relevant. However, we did also use someone in their 50s, which we thought would help us to see if they also thought our film would appeal to our target audience, and if we'd possibly eliminated other important target audiences. Their answers, however, confirmed our thoughts that we'd correctly identified our target audience.

We asked them if they thought any improvements needed to be made. 6 people said, yes, 6 said no. The improvements were:

• to finish the scream at the end - we have now completed this
• to completely finish editing and improve continuity - this has also been done
• change the ringtone - we chose not to do this, as only one person mentioned this, and others had in fact praised the ringtone we used
• the beginning - unfortunately, this was all that they specified, so we weren't 100% sure what they meant and were therefore unable to improve it
• 2x making the lighting at the end darker - we have tried our best to do this, but unfortunately, our editing software, in the end shot, was unable to compensate for not having filmed later in the day (this was the only shot that did this though)

Everyone else felt that no improvements needed to be made, so considering this and the improvements we were asked to make, it seems that we've successfully reached our target audience.

We asked them what genre they thought our film would be, and everyone answered either thriller, horror, or a sub-genre of these (e.g. psychological thriller), so we've correctly used thriller conventions to show our chosen genre of film.

All participants also correctly identified our target audience as being teenagers ages 15+, although only two extended this to the full 24 years of age, and one person thought it would appeal to those up to 40 as well. However, this could be due to the fact that we used mainly teenagers for our test screening, so they would be unsure what people in their twenties would want to watch. In hindsight, we should've used some people in their early twenties too.

The majority of answers said that our film appeared to be an independent film rather than a blockbuster (2 said unsure, and 2 were unreadable), so it seems that we've correctly brought this across to our audience.

Also, everyone thought the name of our film (Hidden) worked well with the genre and what happened in the opening, and thought the graphics we used helped to make it more effective and more true to it's thriller genre. We can therefore see that we don't need to make any changes to this aspect of our opening.

Everybody also felt that the sound we used was appropriate and created the right atmosphere for a thriller film. They liked both the diegetic sounds (panicky, breathlessness, screaming) and non-diegetic music, which shows that this will be effective for our audience. The only problem was a little bit of editing that needed completing (as mentioned earlier), which has now been sorted.

All feedback on the use of camera shots was positive, and often stated that they fitted in well with the genre. Two particular shots that were praised were the one half-hidden behind a bush, and the end shot where Amalia runs down the path and the person holding the camera (myself) chases down after her. The only criticism was that one person thought there should've been more cross-cutting, but we don't see how we could've done this without changing the plot of our opening, which ourselves and our audience liked.

The majority also said that they would watch our film (only a couple said they wouldn't, but that was only because they don't like scary films), which proves that our film opening is effective in grabbing the attention of the correct target audience. We appear to have been accurate in making our film appeal to the audience we wanted, and we are now confident that our film would be successful in the real world.