Survey analysisIn my survey questions I asked questions I believe will help me develop my main task. This market research has helped me gain information about my target audience and how they believe a short film should be made and what makes a good short film. I asked questions that were specific to short film as I believe short film has a lot more to achieve in a lot shorter time period than a long film does. Some of the questions include length of opening title, the gender of the protagonists and the genre of the film. The overall purpose of this survey was for to be able to build a backbone on which I could expand on to make my short film.

The first question I asked what length opening title sequence the short film should have, if any. Typically a standard film has a 35 second opening title sequence, however I am filming a short film. The majority of people said that they would rather see a short opening title sequence than a long. Short had a total of 87%, in comparison to long 13%, due to the vast difference in the vote I feel in order to make a successful short film that I should keep the title

to around 7 seconds as from the answers provided my target audience (all between 15-22). I went on to ask why the majority chose to see a long title sequence. From the answers it was clear to me that the audience wanted the opening sequence to set the mood and they felt anything longer than 10 seconds would be overkill. The other reasons why the short film’s title should be kept short were because it allows more time for the narrative and because often long introductions could be considered long and tedious. The results from this question in the survey tell me that a vast majority believe that only a short amount of time is needed for the survey. I will take this on board and very likely incorporate it into my final product due to the frequency of respondents that chose the short opening sequence.

The second question I asked was whether the audience believe a short story is best told through symbolism or dialogue. From previous research it is clear that the majority of short films are told solely through symbolism or dialogue, both proving equally successful. Asking this question gave me a look in on which one my target audience believed would be the favoured one to witness. As is made clear from the chart the majority (75% of respondents) chose dialogue, compared to symbolism. Short films such as ‘Love Field’ rely on symbolism to create the mixed messages in the piece through music, mise-en-scene, editing and

deceptive shots give the story line, conversely the short film ‘Elefante’ relies on dialogue in the form of narration to tell the story. The reason most chose dialogue is because symbolism can give lots of mixed messages that are open to interpretation which can lead to the oppositional reading.

This research question has confirmed my intentions of making a Sci-fi short. It is clear from the chart that Sci-fi is the genre my target audience would prefer to watch, 62.5% of the voters would prefer to watch a short film over any other genre of film. The only other two genres selected were romance and war, receiving just 3 votes between them. Due to the significance in results I will apply my respondent’s opinion into my final piece and make it a Sci-fi.

Following on from the previous question, as the majority chose to see a Sci-fi it was expected that the respondents would select somewhere in the future. The majority selected near future compared to distant future, by around 60% more. Again the data provided is significant, leading to me to place my short film in

the near future.

A female protagonist was selected by most of those who responded, this was surprising because 81% of those who answered were males. Typically, in Sci-fi films male act as the protagonist. Therefore these responses give me the opportunity to break common codes and conventions.