As part of our A2 Media coursework we were asked to create questionnares in order to gather information and feedback on our idea of a film as a whole. The film will be 5 minutes long and we have thought carefully about what will be the main conventions and factors generating the film.
The questionnares were sent out to fellow peers and Media student and the results and conclusions made from them have all participated in our final decision on the film. The changes we make, music we use, plots and many more are based from the results we got from the questionnare. This is the analysis.
The synopsis of our film was as follows :
' This film is a story about a 17 year old boy who encounters an un-expected turn in his life after finding a top secret government CD while searching through his missing father's previous possessions. The boy then goes to colege unaware of the CD's relevance. One daym on his way to the local shop he hears the phone box ringin, and out of curiousity, he answers it. Someone talks to him asking about the CD and declares that if he refuses to hand it over, he will be assassinated. Not long after, the boy is kidnapped, as a black bag is forced over his head, and that is how the film is conluded. '
Firstly, we had to find the correct age of people to survey for our questionnare. We looked at many age groups to ask but of course concluded it would be fit to ask the same age group that our film is aimed for. We therefore asked other Media students as they more or less fit that age. As you can see 100% of the people ( 8 out of 8 )questionned were between the age of 15-17. Here are the results below:
We also asked people how much they would rate our film out of 10. From this we got some good responses, as no one rated our idea below 6. The number which received the most votes was 7.
Another question on the questionnare asked what format the audience most prefferd to watch films on. We had a choice of ; cinema, DVD, Tv, Internet and other formats. In our questionnare it seems people like to watch films in the cinema mostly ( 4 people ). The results are below:
After this question, we asked an open question. We asked about the main conventions people expected to see in our action film and we had a lot of similar answers. People wanted to see brutaility, fightinng scenes expecially when the main character acts heroic. People wanted to see the use of weapons as this is something usually seen in action films. However, the modal convention was 'chase scenes' (4 people). People wanted to see chase scenes if not more than one and it adds excitement, tempo and thrill to a film.
This was followed by us asking the audience what genre of film they prefferred watching. Our catergories ranged from Action, Thriller, Romance, Comedy, and Fantasy. Our audience preffered 'Thriller' (5 people) and next was 'comedy' ( 4 people ).
After this, we questionned what type of music would best fit our film. As we have not yet created our music, we would like to take notes on what other people think and maybe combine more than one genre of music to create the best sounds for our film. The catergories we gave were ; R&B , hip-hop, Rock, grime and other. Surprisingly , the majority of people chose 'Rock' (3 people) , as we predicted the majority would choose 'Grime'.
As another open question, we were interested to know what people thought the best action film of the year was. We had answers like ; Transporter , Inception, Salt, and The Expandables. Inception and The Expandables were the favourites. ( 3 people each ).
The last question we asked with a variety of answers was about what is likely to attract an audience to our film. We thought main attractions would be from ; Actors, genre , the storyline, trailer and poster. We predicted as a group that the trailer would be the main attration but we were wrong, as the main attraction was chosen to be 'the storyline'. ( 6 people ).
The students taking part in completing the questionnare then had to suggest a name for our film after reading the synopsis. We have not yet thought of a film name and some of the names suited well with our film and other were a little childish. The most popular name was ' The CD' or ' The Compact Disk '. Out of the participants, 3 people suggested that the title be someting to do with the CD. Other suggestions were; ' Stolen ' , which we thought was not original enough. Another suggestion was ' Top Secret ' which sounds good yet it is typical. We also had ' Kidnapped ' as a suggestion yet didn't think an abduction was the main theme of our film. Lastly, ' Guy On A Mission ' sounded a bit childish and typical at the same time. We will probably stick with a title mentioning the 'CD'.
In terms of suggestions for our film, they were quite weak. None were serious enough for us to consider althuogh there were a few which were in the balance. A suggestion was that we left an open ending where the character is left in a dark room saying 'Hello' , suggesting he has now made a transition from leading a normal life, to becomming a wanted man. This is a good idea but not something we would want to do as we would prefer to have a dramatic ending. Someone also suggested that we have an 'underlying psycological message' yet did not explain how and why. Therefore we could not take it into consideration even though with detail, it could have been an excellent idea.
In conclusion, the questionnare has made a difference. Regarding the sound , conventions and film name, we could definately take the suggestions into consideration. Our feedback on the synopsis of the film and any further ideas were generally positive and we are happy with this. In terms of any changes, we don't really have to make any. Most things we were going to do anyway have been suggested or not in the feedback and anything different from our ideas has'nt really come up. The recommendations for our film were weak so we have to edit and film according to our own ideas. Someting we discoverd is that some of the open questions we asked e.g ' What genre do yo like the most ' slightly depended on gender , whereas questions like ' What type of msic do you think will fit our film' were suggested all along the same lines. This could be due to the age group we questionned ( 15-17 ) , and also the areas the different people are comming from. Overall, the questionnare was successful.
This location is ideal for many reasons. firstly, it is a good place to gain camera angle diversity and also it is a great place in terms of location to fit the conventions that out british thriller/action film is trying to adhere to. It is near the phone box which is a significant prop for our film as the tension builds up prior to him answering the phone. Therefore, this loctaion is ideal for this. 
This is the dark room, this room can be used to film darker scenes as the room can be made pitch black by closing the blinds and turning off all the light also if needed spotlights can be turned on to give the room abit of light. This is ideal for the kidnap scene as it represents the dark and evil of the villains.
