Focus Group Initial thoughts

Sam Warren, James Scott and I held a focus group today using candidates from our target audience to get some thoughts and ideas on why people enjoy watching British Film Dramas and how they could be improved. The feedback we recieved will be analysed and presented at a later date in a blog post as I need some time to go over the footage.

Sam Warren created a PowerPoint presentation with questions on British Film Dramas that we wanted to ask the members of our focus group, with some input from James Scott and I. We gave input on the way certain questions would be asked, how we would present the group with past trailers and what areas we would cover in the questions such as Sound and Editing. We also showed the group three past British Film Drama trailers for the films: Bronson, This is England, Legend. We decided that it would be best to get feedback instantly after watching one trailer before moving onto the next in order to keep it fresh in the candidates minds and not confuse their thoughts on one trailer with that of another. Briefly, I will say that using these past trailers was extremely beneficial at helping to generate conversation and give the members with limited knowledge of British Film Dramas and idea of what they were about e.g. the narrative.

Once we had finished watching each of the trailers we ended the session with three imoportant questions that we needed answering from our target audience. The questions we asked were as follows:

• Would you prefer a group or single narrative structure ?
• What suggestions do you have of a name for our film ?
• What genre of music do you feel is fitting for the British Film Drama ?

Obviously we expanded on each of these questions if they were answered briefly without solid justifications. For example, before asking for suggestions for a name for our film we gave our ideas and ask for their opinions on them. Sam Warren came up with the idea of calling it "Young Breed" I then suggested "Street Life" and James Scott suggested "A Brick Maze".

On the whole I think that the focus group went quite well and was professionally orchestrated by our group to gather as much information from our target audience as possible.