Focus Group

Like I mentioned in my last post, today I sent the opening to a "focus group" I recruited to help me better understand how an audience would receive the film opening. Here's an overview of what I did:

The Sample
My focus group sample consisted of 10 people, 5 teenagers (of whom only  2 have taken AICE media) and 5 adults ( all graduates, with experience, or currently working in the field of media/production of media). I reached out to everyone ahead of time yesterday and asked them if they would be willing to volunteer to be part of the focus group; after they agreed, they received this email:

Noticeable members of the group include a college professor at the University of Maryland and a graduate in production from the New York Film Academy.

The Procedure
I scheduled the email to send itself at 6:00am, all members of the focus group had until 2:45 EST to respond to the email with their answers to 3 questions, they were not able to see each other's response. I sent the original copy of the video, not the second version because I strongly believed -and still do- that the first is better than the second edit I made. 

The questions were:

1)What do you think the film is about?
2)What's going on during the film Opening?
3)Feel free to include any comments or suggestion, these are all pieces of critical feedback!

Analyzing The Feedback 
I read through every answer, some were very detailed, others too vague. All 10 members were able to correctly identify the topic of the opening, 9 were able to identify that the experiment would reopen (citing either or both the "2017" in the last shot or the voiceover foreshadowing); however, 8/10 members mentioned the audio as an aspect that could be improved. Having a better understanding of how people with no background about the syllabus (expect from 2) received the opening was eye-opening! I have to say, I'm very proud that the first version performed this well! Nonetheless, I knew I could do better! That's when I got working on version 3!



Editing Like There's No Tomorrow
Thankfully, I received most responses before 9:30am which was perfect timing because it was the beginning of my study hall! I edited non stop, I edited through very much needed bathroom breaks and through my lunch, I edited until it was probably a bit unhealthy to keep going. I found a track that was PERFECT! All along the static sound effect I was using wasn't helping me in the last, the one I found (on we video's free public domain library) was just right! That changed it all, I had finally found the happy middle! I noticed I had to rerecord some part of the script again for it to sound right, so that's exactly what I did. I locked myself in my business teacher's closet and rerecorded what I need. Here's the sample (same as the samples for version #1 and #2)!



I'm A True Media Nerd

It's official! After I finished recording the new voice over pieces, I was doing foley for the opening and closing beeps on the sony recorder inside of the closet of my teacher's class; I recorded the lst beep without the video on preview mode in the hopes of just matching it to the visuals later by moving it around the timeline and editing it... Then it happened, I played it back with the visuals and the foley matched PERFECTLY! I jumped inside the closet and triumphantly walked out with the computer at hand to show it to my business teacher. When I played it back again, I did a "yes hand gesture" and went in for a high five! My teacher didn't get why I was excited in the least but it was an awesome moment for me!