Focus Group Feedback

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties with our camera, the footage that we shot of our focus group watching, asking questions and giving feedback to our opening sequence rehearsal was not recorded. This is a screenshot from the 30 seconds of footage that did record at the end of our presentation to the focus group.


Presenting our opening sequence to the focus group

We presented this final edit of our rehearsal; improved with editing transitions, our production logo and our film title.


Morrighan And Courtney Practice from Courtney O'Donnell on Vimeo

Some of the main questions that we asked the focus group after they watched the opening sequence were:

1. Was the narrative of the opening sequence understandable and easy to follow?
Response: They all understood the basis of the narrative and could distinguish each character's traditional film noir role; the femme fatale, anti-hero and villain.

2. Were the camera angles and editing transitions interesting and fluid?
Response: The scene where the villain follows the femme fatale was uninteresting due to the overly long tracking shot and lack of interesting shots. There were no issues raised with our editing transitions.

3. Overall, is the opening sequence conventional to the traditional 1940/50s film noir style?
Response: With the mise en scene and costumes that we specified for the final opening sequence footage, it will meet the traditional film noir conventions.

4. Which BBFC age rating should our opening sequence be classified as?
Response: The majority of the class said 12A would be the most appropriate rating, however one person said it should be a 15 due to the wound we will be showing.

Upon evaluating the feedback, Morrighan and I agreed with most of the responses, as we also feel that the tracking shot in last scene is too long, that the opening sequence should be classified as a 12A, and that our range of shots should be expanded. It was helpful to receive feedback on whether the narrative was easy to follow and if the opening sequence was conventional to traditional film noir, as these were the possible problems that we were worried we may have needed to solve. Conferring with the focus group was an effective way of answering our questions and getting a practice reaction of the opening sequence as a whole from a real audience. It would have been much easier to reflect on our feedback if the camera had filmed properly, or if we had taken notes from the presentation/given out a questionnaire; however despite these hindrances, the focus group still responded with little feedback for Morrighan and I to reflect on. This suggests that this way of presenting may not have been the most effective way to encourage responses. We will consider other methods of asking for feedback for our next focus group presentation.