Niamh expressed that having a male protagonist in a rom-com was unique and could appeal to both genders. While she initially preferred a voiceover opening, after examples she agreed dialogue was suitable. Samantha, an advertising professional, agreed with using a medium close up for an eye-locking scene and thought an establishing shot would be better to open with than a long shot of skateboarding. The focus group helped finalize film elements and provided further opinions on the opening sequence.

2. Niamh
In our focus group, Niamh expressed her opinion
on the fact that she liked that our main
protagonist was a male, which goes against the
idea of a main protagonist is stereotypically a girl
in a rom-com. She felt this was unique and it had
never properly been done before so it could
appeal to both the male and female audience,
which is what we would like to achieve. On the
other hand, she did say that she would prefer our
opening sequence to have a voice over, with no
dialogue within the film but we queried this and
gave her examples of appropriate films with
dialogue in, and she changed her opinion and
decided we should have dialogue.

3. Samantha
Due to Samantha being in the professional
advertising industry, she has a very good idea of
what is to be expected within a media project.
She agreed with the questionnaire results of the
fact that we should have a medium close up for
an eye-locking scene as it creates Bulmer & Katz’
Uses and Gratifications of Personal Identity as
you can associate yourself with the love which is
portrayed in our film. She also thinks that using a
long shot for the skateboarding scene is effective
but she thought that if we were going to open
the film with it, she thought that an establishing
shot would be more effective, we are going to
take this on board.

4. For our focus group, we chose to use 2 people
who fall into our target audience, 2 industry
professionals who work within advertising and a
boy from our secondary audience: Niamh – 17,
Lizzie – 25, Pippa – 45, Samantha – 32 and Jack –
17. We asked our group questions from our
questionnaire and finalized the ones we were
not 100% sure on. We also asked for any further
opinions on what we could include in our
opening sequence.

5. Pippa
Pippa is also an industry professional within
advertising. She believes that to make a opening
sequence of a film capturing for the audience, we need
to introduce the characters so the audience can
associate themselves with them. She also thinks that
using a village instead of a bustling city will be better
for our income bracket C2-E as we are aspiring to all.
She also thought that teenagers who go to private
school would more likely live in a village rather than a
city, so this fits our narrative. From giving Pippa our
music choices, she went against the majority of the
vote and though the best song to use was ‘Better
Together’ by Jack Johnson as she felt it fitted the plot
better and the genre. This is good as this is the song we
hope to use, as we are contradicting the results given
to us by the questionnaire analysis.

6. Lizzie
Lizzie is at the very top of our age bracket at 25 years old,
this means that she has already experienced a levels and
also university which gave us a good insight on what our 4
protagonists were going to face. She liked the fact that we
are using 2 males and 2 females, and that it balances the
friendship group out. She also said that she thought high key
lighting was appropriate as this would normally be
associated with a romantic comedy, and she felt that low
key lighting would be odd as that it normally used in a genre
such as horror. She loved the whole going to university and
hating each other because 2 friends hooked up, then
bumping into each other when they come home for
Christmas as this is a very realistic plot line.

7. Jack
When speaking to Jack, he liked the fact that we
were having a male as a main protagonist and due
to him being in our secondary audience, he still
said that we would probably watch our film. Also
we will be able to relate to Harry, the main
character, he thought the character should be
extrovert. He also liked the fact that we would be
having the 2 boys skateboarding and the 2 girls
getting ready for a night out, he said this splits the
genders well.

8. How has a focus group helped?
• We now know that using a boy as our main protagonist is
unique and the group suggest that it will get a good
audience following from the USP.
• They agreed on the shot types we wanted to use for an
eye-locking scene & and a skateboarding scene.
• They agreed on our music choice of ‘Better Together’ and
going against the majority of the questionnaire results as
they felt it was more effective to the narrative.
• They felt the most appropriate lighting would be high-key
• Getting told by our secondary audience of a male, that he
would still watch our film even though it was a chick-flick
because it portrays a real mans struggle with girls in life and
that he can relate to it.