Pre-Production - Rough Cut 1 Audience Test:

We created a focus group from people who represented our target audience (15-25). We showed them the rough edit of our first draft and asked them questions about what they thought we did well and what we needed to improve upon. The focus group consisted of 4 females, although we would have liked a mixed gender group, these were the only people available to us at the time. The people in our focus group were:

• Emily Marsh 16
• Molly Braggins 16
• Jessica Underwood 17
• Anna McAllister-Little 17

Here were the results:

Are there any parts of the footage you think we could improve on?

• Some of the shots of the bench scene are very bumpy. Make them smoother to improve the look of the shot. 
• Scene at the bus stop, a lot of it is out of focus, your opening may be better if you cut the shot or cut down the timing of it. 
• The shot of them walking down the street is too long. 

What sort of the music do you think we should add?

• Something innocent but eery
• Something that subtly builds suspense, but you don't want it to be too dramatic. 
• slow music that slowly builds up to create tension.

Does the opening set a good tone for the rest of the film? Can you get a feel for the narrative of the film just from the opening?

• Yes, it sets an eery tone and leaves you wondering what the full story is.
• I thought it was a good first draft, I think the music would really bring the opening together for the rest of the narrative. 
• I liked the constant contrast between past and present in this opening. It makes me very intrigued for the rest of the film. 

Do you have any extra feedback?

• I think it needs to be made more clear what happens at the end to the girls friend because its quite confusing. We aren't sure if she was real or not.
• I think there needs to be a bigger impact with the ending. 

This feedback from our focus group helped us get a good range of ideas on how to improve our opening to create the final edit. We also got some good feedback for which music would work well with our production.