Our target demographic was the core audience - males aged 16 to 25. This is because of our generally conventional narrative and representation. On the business side, this core audience is also the most likely to visit the cinema and purchase synergistic promotional material.
In keeping with this we positioned the audience with the protagonist by showing him on screen first and for the longest screen time as well as using point-of-view shots to put the audience in the protagonist's perspective.
Throughout the project we have presented our ideas at various stages to our target audience. Our first experience of this was the genre pitch in which we pitched to our audience our chosen genre and our justifications for choosing that genre and received feedback on ideas to do with that genre and challenges that we will face in portraying that genre. Our second instance of audience feedback was when we pitched our film idea to the target demographic in order to get feedback on the narrative, soundtrack, etc. We later presented a rough cut of our film to our target audience to get an idea of what we can improve for the final cut.
To test our opening sequence to an audience the media department had a preview screening in which each group invited members of their target audience to come and watch their film and gave their invitees questionnaires to complete to give them an insight into how successful their film will be. The questionnaire we distributed can be found here.
What genre do you think this film belongs to?
Our first question asked what genre they thought it was and why they believed it to be that genre. Out of 11 respondants 4 believed it was a thriller, 3 a horror and 4 were undecided between thriller and horror. The majority of the reasons stated for choosing thriller was the soundtrack ("Music typical of the genre, surprise at the end."). Most of the respondants who picked horror noted the location and the soundtrack of the starting scene - "Opening scene graveyard and music typical of genre."
Do you understand the storyline? (Brief Summary)
Our second question asked the respondants to summarise the storyline to make sure they understood it. Almost everyone said that they either understood it mostly or "sort of" understood. This is possibly a good sign of success in horror as it is conventional of the genre to raise questions and incite mystery in the opening sequence.
What are the best features of this opening?
Our third question asked respondants for what they thought was the "best feature" of the opening was. This was to give us an idea of what the most memorable aspect of the opening was as well as what they as the audience enjoyed most. The vast majority cited the scene in which the antagonist says "How well do you know the woods?" as the best feature because of the mood it gave and how memorable it was. The chase scene was also a popular answer: "Scary chase scene.", "How well do you know the wood?" and tense running scene with Spike appearing."
What mood does the soundtrack set in relation to the opening?
Our fourth question asked what mood the soundtrack gave and almost every respondant wrote "suspense" or similar, such as "something bad about to happen". This is a good indicator that our soundtrack achieved the effect that was intended.
Do you think the characters are believeable and why?
We then asked in our fifth question whether or not the characters were believable and every respondant wrote yes for a variety of reasons including costume, non-verbal language, etc. One answer was "Yes, the limited dialogue also doesn't allow too much speech to detract from the mood."
How suitable do you think the costumes are for this kind of film opening?
Our final question queried the suitability of the costume for the style. Every respondant said that they believed the costume was very suitable for the style - "Suitable, can't think of anything else it would be."
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