Audience Research into short film.

I wanted to ascertain what a wide range of people thought about short film, film posters and magazine reviews. This would give me a more intricate idea about how to go I should go about creating these media products myself.

Firstly, I devised a simple questionnaire with just Yes/No and a few multiple choice answers and handed it to 5 people ranging from age 10, 17, 40, 54 and 78. I thought that this age range covered a broad enough audience for my results to be reliable.

Questions and Answers: 

1) How detailed is your knowledge of short film? 
Strong Knowledge 
General Understanding 
Brief Knowledge 
No understanding 

Age 40 and 78- Brief understanding
Age 17 and 54- General Understanding
Age 10- No understanding

2) Have you ever seen a short film? 
Yes  
No 

Age 10, 17, 40- Yes
Age 78- No

3) Would you ever choose to go and see a short film or series of short films over a feature length?
Very Likely 
Likely 
Unlikely 
Not at all 

Age 10- Unlikely
Age 17, 54- Likely
Age 40, 78- Very Likely

4) How often to you read film reviews? 
Frequently 
Often 
Sometimes 
Not at all 

Age 74, 54, 40- Frequently
Age 17- Often
Age 10 - Sometimes.

5) Where is the most common place you personally would find yourself reading a film review? 
Film Magazine (Sight and Sound, Empire, Total Film etc) 
Celebrity Magazine (Heat, Closer, Okay etc) 
Fashion Magazine (Elle, Vogue etc) 
Television Magazine (Radio Times etc) 
Internet 
Newspaper 

Age 10, 17- Internet
Age 40- Celebrity Magazine
Age 54- Television Magazine
Age 78- Newspaper

6) How influenced are you by film reviews? 
Extremely 
Moderately 
Hardly at all 
Not at all 

Age 40- Extremely
Age 17- Moderately
Age 10, 54, 78- Hardly at all

7) Would a bad film review stop you from going to see a film? 
Yes 
No 

Age 10, 17, 40, 78 - No
Age 54 -Yes

8) Does a film poster influence your choice to watch a film? 
Frequently
Often 
Sometimes 
Not at all 

Age 10, 17 - Frequently
Age 40, 54, 78 - Sometimes

9) What do you believe is the most important part of a film poster? 
Clear title 
Eye catching image 
Cast list 
Director
Release Date 

Age 10- Eye catching image
Age 17, 54 - Clear Title
Age 40 - Cast List
Age 78- Release Date

10) Have you got a favourite film poster? 
Yes 
No 

Age 10, 78 - Yes
Age 17, 40, 54 - No

11) Do you/have you ever had a film poster in your bedroom/house as decoration? 
Yes, Currently do
Yes, in the past 
No, never have 

Age- 10, 17 -Yes currently do
Age 40 - Yes, in the past
Age 54, 78 - No, never have

12) Do you believe a film poster is the most effective way of advertising a film? 
Strongly agree
Agree
Sometimes 
Disagree
Strongly Disagree 

Age 10, 78 - Strongly Agree
Age 40, 54 - Agree
Age 17- Sometimes

13) What is your favourite genre of film? 
Thriller
Drama 
Romance 
Romantic Comedy 
Comedy 

Age 10- Comedy
Age 17, 54 - Drama
Age 40- Romantic Comedy
Age 78- Thriller

14) Would you ever consider seeing a surrealist or more left wing independent film? 
Definitely 
Perhaps 
Definitely not 

Age 10 - Definitely not
Age 17, 54, 78 Definitely
Age 40- Perhaps

15) Generally what is your main reason to see a film? 
Great reviews 
Read the book
Eye catching poster 
Star Studded Cast 
Acclaimed Writer 
Acclaimed Director 
Award Nominations 

Age 10- Eye Catching poster
Age 17- Award nominations
Age 40- Star Studded Cast
Age 54- Acclaimed Director
Age 78- Read the book


These 15 questions enabled me to grasp the individual thinking behind these three aspects of film. It also allowed me to think about what target audience would be most effective for my own film ideas.

Flash of inspiration.

I have been solidly editing my film recently and appear to have hit a bit of a wall. I was worried this would be the case because of my last minute change in ideas.

I've spent my time researching into what I can add in, I don't want my film to come across cluttered with random, necessary content. I thought about playing around with the sound. My opening at the moment is the sound of children's voices getting louder and louder, originally I wondered whether I could morph this somehow, however then I came up with a different idea. 
This idea came about when I was doing some more research into MP's opinions and actions towards social media and the issues displayed in my film. From a young age one of the things that has struck me about when an MP voices his opinions in the parliament, is the erupting sound after a statement is made. I thought perhaps if I could find, or extract this sound and play it at the beginning of my film, then with it slowly morphing to the juvenile child sounds it might highlight the link i'm making a little more obviously. 

When I was looking into finding some sound, I couldn't help but watch some more video's with MP's discussing video's. Because my film already has the "education, education, education" quote from Tony Blair I had a look at some of the other video's just out of interest. 

THEN, it struck me like a tonne of bricks. 

Princess Diana! I've come across the speech that Mr Blair makes after Diana's untimely death a few times before doing various other bits of research. I've always been interested in the controversy that looms over her death; Royal Family's fault, or the media. 
Who controls the media? The Government. This takes me back to the original premise of my film. 
I'm not going to start playing the blame game, however Princess Diana in her prime was consistently splashed over the tabloids, what she was doing, what she was wearing, what she looked like. People were extremely interesting and after all, as Tony Blair stated she was the "People's Princess". 

It was speculated that Diana had issues of her own concerning her weight, she was diagnosed with Bulimia. No doubt her battle with food was something that had a lot of causes, her family issues, her broken down marriage, but I should imagine it was mainly because of the media spotlight placed apon her. 
If you draw parallels with the current Dutchess of Cambridge who is splashed across every magazine at least once or twice a week, her appearance is normally the thing that's being spoken about. If this was the case with Diana, then I believe this indefinitely was the cause of some of her problems. 

I have heard snippets of her interview with Martin Bashir several times and am always fascinated with her honesty and the way she justifies herself. 

I was wondering if instead of having my original narration in my film (scripted in post bellow), whether I could move the focus and have snippets of Diana speaking, this would be a great use of intertextuality and have a stronger relation to my original idea's about politics blind intervention with media, and our education system, sending us into a moral vacuum. 

Also, at the moment I have editing the clips together so that they flow into either other, using an effect on Adobe Premier Pro. I think I may take this out and have a the sound of a camera shutter, which will bring in my idea's about the media, paparazzi, Princess Diana and government intervention even more.

Script for Narration Part 1.

Education Education Education

 

Narration Part 1

Female Protagonist

(To be pronounced articulately and slowly. Dwell apon words. These are extremely deep emotions)

“ I used to understand it.

(Pause)

But now I don’t.

(Pause)

I used to control it.

(Pause)

But now I cant.

(Pause)

Its like my minds having an argument

(Pause)

With itself

(Pause)

About its self

(Pause)

And to do with itself.”

Script for Narration Part 2.

Education Education Education.

Narration Part 2.

Male Protagonist.

(To be pronounced articulately and slowly. Dwell apon words. These are extremely deep emotions)

“Control.

(Pause)

I know what I need to do.

(Pause)

But I cant.

(Pause)

I know what I want to do.

(Pause)

But its not that easy.

(Pause)

There’s no point in pushing.

(Pause)

Or trying.

(Pause)

Its out of my control”

Story Boarding.

Art clearly isnt my forte, however although I have begun editing my work I thought noting my original drawings for the short film may be a good idea. This way I can see how much my film is developing.

So far I have stuck pretty much to the basic premise of my first idea shown in the drawing above, although of course because of the length i've had to expand and add in different idea's. Such as having a male protagonist etc.

Story boarding is a really good way to get your idea's on paper in a visual way, rather than just writing them all out or making a vlog about them. I often work in a more visual and tactile way, so this compliments the way I work very well.

I always find it interesting to see how idea's develop and how they change, doing on going story boards is a really good way of displaying this so you can not only see the development yourself, but it can be shown to other people also.

Narration.

I've decided after all to encorperate narration into my film. I think I will probably use this rather than my idea of using music. I just dont think i'll find a song that connects as well with my film, also I watched back the little parts of my film that i've done and I feel like use of narration will help the audience understand the characters more. I dont want to give too much away in the narration, i'd rather just let the audience into a tiny fragment of the characters minds.

I used my own voice for the girls narration. I wasn't going to use myself originally, I just recorded my voice so that I had an audio version of what I wanted to say. However I imported the audio of myself into my film just to see what it sounded like, luckily it actually sounded exactly how I wanted to, so i left it in. 

For the male part, I wanted someone who had a clear, well spoken voice.  I thought immediately of Jake Brownbill. He has done a lot of narration and voice over things for other people in my media class, so I knew that he'd be able to speak clearly and get the point accross. Jake is also been an actor in a few things before, so he was perfect for the role.

This is Jake starring in an AS media film opening.

The words spoken by my narrator are the inner-most thoughts of my two protagonists. They would never ordinarily release this information to their friends or to anyone else. Both characters have a big front, and both have a fairly big brovado. This is why I hope my film comes accross quite instense.