Audience feedback was essential to improving the filmmaker's short film at each stage of production. Questionnaires provided feedback that helped determine the target audience, genre, and age rating. Respondents said the film was a psychological thriller best suited to ages 15-35. They felt the characters needed more development, which the filmmaker tried to address in later drafts within time constraints. The final questionnaire found the film was understandable, appealed to both genders, had no noticeable technical errors, and was not overly graphic. Respondents enjoyed the ending most and said with more resources, they would add character development and dialogue. Overall, audience feedback was invaluable to continually improving the film.

1. Q3- What have you
learned from your
audience feedback?
BY CHRISTOPHER OSBYRNE

2. Audience Importance
Our audience were a vital part of each stage
of our short film production. Audiences
have the power to decide what a film needs
to do to be successful. Their feedback and
first-hand responses to the film can change
the entire meaning of a film and can either
make or break it.
To evaluate the importance of audiences,
we asked our audiences for their opinions
on each product we made for the film and
whether or not it felt appropriate for the
genre, tone, age-rating and representation.
Its worth mentioning that our desired target
audience are aged between 15 to 35, male
and female and are interested in
psychological films.

3. Audience types
During Pre-Production, we had to research audience types
to determine which we were going to target the most and
be our key demographic.
These audiences types varied from gender, age, race and
genre preferences.
From researching on statistics provided by the BFI, we
found that majority of modern cinema go-ers are aged
between 15-35 and that only 53% of audiences enjoy
watching thrillers (the genre our film is). In terms of
gender, 36% of audiences under 35yrs are male and 45%
are female. This aided in us understanding what type of
audiences we should be reaching.
To emphasis this further, we also made several
questionnaires to our a group of individuals interested in
film.

4. 1st Questionnaire
Our first questionnaire was in video form. In the questionnaire, we gave a group of 4 participants a
short synopsis of the film in writing and they would answer questions that focus on the films
target audience, genre, age-rating and whether they understood the film or not.
The majority of our surveyors said that the film would be appropriate for teenage audiences and
upwards because they felt that the subject matter may be too complex and inappropriate for
younger audiences.
Similarly when we asked our audiences what genre they thought our film was, the majority of our
participants agreed that it was a thriller- or more specifically “a psychological thriller”. This conveys
that we have successfully settled on a certain genre in the writing stage of the film’s production.
Audiences all agreed in saying that they liked the idea of our film and commented on its
“originality” and some of its underlying “themes of religion” that were in the original synopsis.
This gave us hope in that it would be successful and encouraged us to make the decision to
continue developing and creating the film.
However, some of our surveyors suggested that we hadn’t given the characters enough backstory
and that they were under-developed. We took this into consideration when writing the script and
dialogue but struggled to develop the characters enough in editing without the film being over 5
minutes. Instead we chose to convey our characters visually rather than verbally.

5. 2nd Questionnaire
Our second questionnaire was based on a newer, more improved synopsis of the film that was
written at the stage of us writing the script and storyboarding our ideas. This questionnaire was
made available to participants online via Google Forms as a way to reach a wider demographic.
We asked similar questions in this to our first questionnaire to evaluate how we had improved
from our short film synopsis to our now longer and developed synopsis.
Again, the majority of our audience claimed that the film was of the genre and age rating we
were hoping they would respond with (Psychological Thriller, 15-35yrs old). We also asked some
extra questions such as what age and gender they are, to determine that we get a variety of
online surveyors.
The results are on the following slides:

6. In terms of our audiences, the results here convey that the film is capable of reaching both
sexes. From this, we also inferred that this must mean that our films representation of each
gender was conveyed fairly and didn’t fall under any stereotypes or archetypal male or female
roles.
Gender Statistics

7. In terms of our audiences, the results here convey that the film would be appropriate for people
who are aged at our desired age-rating 15+. From this, we can also infer that the content of our
film is deemed to be not only appropriate for that age but appealing to audiences of that age.
Age Statistics

8. In terms of our audiences, the results here convey that the film matches closest to a
Horror/Thriller hybrid genre. This is because we had made changes to the character of Elizabeth
at this point and she was written as being an antagonistic figure rather than what she became in
the final cut of the film. Our surveyors enjoy watching a wide variety of genres which only 10%
watch thriller films. However, I feel that if we were to have gotten more surveyors to answer our
questionnaire, it would have resulted in a much higher percentage of people.
Genre Statistics

9. In terms of our audiences, the results here convey that the film was majoratively understood by
our audience- making our film successful in creating a except for one anomalous result claiming
that they couldn’t. I feel that this person didn’t understand the story because the story was
made overcomplicated at this stage as we tried to develop the characters more and give them
stronger motivations that were difficult to understand. To combat this, we cut parts of the script
down while still maintaining the main narrative.
Understood
Statistics

10. Responses
This positive feedback encouraged to
work harder on the script.
These improvements were implemented into the new script.
Unfortunately, we could not do all of them because of time
restraints and the fact that it would make the film more than 5
minutes long.

11. 3rd Questionnaire
This was our final questionnaire for our short film made again on Google Forms. This would
evaluate how successful our film was on a technical aspect and determine what changes
audiences feel could be made if we had the opportunity to work on it again.
We added many extra questions on this questionnaire because we wanted to address all
possible concerns, errors and controversies the film may have with audiences (e.g Do you think
that the ending is overly graphic or controversial?).
The results are on the following slides:

12. Out of our final survey, our audiences all agreed that the film was understandable to watch-
even if some of them only put to a degree. These was a very rewarding result because we had
concerns as to whether the film might make sense due to some of the surrealistic scenes having
the possibility of not making sense.
Understood
Statistics

13. In terms of genre, our audience believed our film was a “psychological thriller” with elements of
romance and drama. This was also very positive feedback to the film because it means that we
were successful in categorising our film as our desire genre. Some of the reasons why people
thought our film was this genre were also ways in production we tried to convey conventions of
the thriller genre (e.g music, lighting, narrative).
Genre Statistics

14. In terms of gender, our surveyors came to the conclusion that the film could appeal to both
sexes. This is good for us because we intended to reach a wide demographic so that the film
could perhaps be a financial success.
Gender Statistics

15. In terms of technical errors, our surveyors said that they could not see any at all, despite there
being some continuity problems in terms of the bikers clothing in the opening sequence. From
this, we inferred that the problem is virtually unnoticeable and doesn’t hinder the film in
anyway because it didn’t confuse the audience.
Technical Error
Statistics

16. In terms of our final scene, the majority of our peers said that the film wasn’t overly graphic or
controversial. This is positive results for us because we were concerned that this scene could be
considered too gory and perhaps even fall into the genre of horror- but now that we know that it
isn’t overly graphic, we can determine that we were successful and the scene was used to great
effect.
Controversial
Scene Statistics

17. Our surveyors also felt that our film has improved dramatically from the rough cut we showcased
to them on many levels. The rough cut was much longer and needed to be cut down dramatically
and we worried that this would change peoples opinion of the film. From this, we inferred that
the scenes we cut out were not needed to make a successful psychological thriller.
Progression
Statistics

18. Our surveyors noticed some of the references we made to other films in terms of our films
cinematography and other psychological thrillers (e.g Easy Rider bike shots). From this, we
learned that the references were made were accurate to other real life media and blended well
with other psychological thrillers in terms of its visuals.
Inter-textual
Reference
Responses

19. Most of our surveyors said that they enjoyed the ending the most because of its use of fast-paced
editing, although many also enjoyed the wedding scene because they found the camera shots
impressive and created a sense of intrigue.
Favourite Scene
Responses

20. Finally, we asked our peers what improvements the film may need if we were to develop the film
further. Their responses mostly focused on the characters requiring more development and adding
dialogue.
These are also the changes we would make to our final short film. The reason we didn’t is because
character development would require more running time and the dialogue would require better
quality microphones.
Improvement
Responses

21. Conclusion
Overall, our audience have taught us continually on how to better improve our film in all stages
of it production. They shaped the way the narrative would be altered and without their constant
feedback on the film, I believe the film would be of a much lower quality.
Our audiences feedback not only aided in improving our short film though. They also gave us
feedback on our posters, radio trailer and logo.