STEP 6: Audience responses to the final film plot and script

Audience Responses

I carried out research to find out if the plot would be interesting for a real audience, to do this I asked thirty candidates to read the full final plot. The thirty candidates then responded to the questions appropriately.

The questions

1. What genre do you think the film is?  

• Science Fiction.
• Thriller
• Comedy
• Drama
• Horror
• Other

2. Is there any aspect of the plot you would change?

3. Do you think the protagonist should be male or female? Why?

4. What could be improved?

5.Is the ending unique?

6. What other films is it similar to?

7.What should be the title of the film if made into a short film?

• Playback
• Cortex
• Play. Pause.Stop
• Cerebral
• Virtual
• Other 

I wanted to see if the film had the potential to be made into a real film based on the audiences opinions. I was able to identify via the audiences responses the genre of the final film which will be a science fiction thriller. The choice to do a sub genre is strictly from the responses as fifty percent stated  it was a science fiction and fifty percent stated it was thriller. The film has elements of both science fiction and thriller so it is vital we identify the generic conventions of both genres.

Audience questionnaire: 50% science fiction and 50% thriller

 Most of the candidates stated that there was nothing they would change which is a positive for our group when it comes to making adjustments during production. However, the candidates that did respond to this question with yes made relevant points but we simply don't have the budget to create their suggestions. One candidate stated that we should add more futuristic elements such as flying cars and sky scrapers, however due to the low budget of our production this would not be possible. We also have decided that as it is a dystopian film set in the near future, we didn't want to focus on the futuristic development too much, we wanted to focus on virtual reality in particular. The sudden evolution of the world may be daunting for the audience so we want to subtly suggest that the future has advanced and we will do this via the content such as the dictatorship of the country and the playback tapes. 

The questionnaire also asked whether the protagonist should be male or female as we wanted to see what the popular opinion was. Most candidates said male and there reasons for this was that male protagonists are the social norm and are typically the more dominant on the screen. It was interesting to see the responses to this as we want to appeal to a wide audience. The genre itself is more orientated with a male audience in comparison to a female audience due to thrillers being more intense and action packed. To challenge the stereotype that men have to have the leading role in a science fiction/thriller film as women are perceived as weak, we have decided to make the protagonist female in order to deviate from the social norm within that genre but also to appeal to female audiences rather than just males.

The potential audience was also asked if they would change anything, the responses below were extremely helpful as we can now research into more locations based on one of the candidates responses. The candidate stated that they would have various other locations for the exchanging of the tapes. Based on the audience response we are now looking for more hidden alleyways and underpasses to elicit the amount of exchanges the protagonist makes and to have more varied  locations.

 From the As year I asked the audience what the title of the film should be during the ultimate part of the production and found that we  were not constrained to the tile and therefore we changed the plot numerous times as we had an inconsistent title. Upon reflection, we have decided this year to  establish a title from the beginning as it will allow us to develop it as the film develops. One hundred percent of the audience said that the film should be named Playback based on the plot.This allows us to create an opening title sequence in our rough copy and will make it more visual and professional for our potential audience. It will be interesting to see if we have the same responses to the same question when we introduce the audience with a rough cut of the film as it will show whether or not we have followed the plot closely but if we have depicted the playback in the right manner.

The title is going to be Playback based on the responses.