Focus Group Responses - Magazine Cover

As I had done with my poster, I showed my focus group my magazine cover to collect their feedback.

Female, student, age 15 – ‘Looks like something I’d seen on the magazine rack in a shop. The image works well and your fonts really work well.’

Female, student, age 18 – ‘You’ve followed the conventions of film magazines and created something that looks good and professional. Everything I’d expect to find on a magazine is there.’

Female, media student, age 22 – ‘The manipulation of the image is what really makes the cover work. Screams horror and I’d pick it up if I saw it. One criticism I do have is that there’s a lot of space that you could have done without, such as around the lapels of his jacket, could have maybe done with having the image slightly lower?’

Female, journalist, age 25 – ‘Really like your fonts, and the colours work together nicely, but I think the image could have been stretched over the page a bit more, there’s a bit much blank space around the mask.’

Male, advertising student, age 21 – ‘Everything aligns really well, which is what I think makes it look so professional. You’re clearly a perfectionist! Well done.’

Male, student, age 19 – ‘I don’t know if I like the colours of the image… Looks a little overdone to me. But on the whole your image is good and you’ve worked hard on getting the fonts right.’

Following these comments, I did fiddle with the image on my magazine cover in an attempt to have the mask slightly more obvious with less space around the lapels of the jacket; however the proportions were not quite right to do this and so it would not work sufficiently. One alteration I did decide on was using some more text on my front cover to make the page slightly busier as there was considerably too much blank space where a lot more could have been going on.

Focus Group Responses - Poster

To gather further feedback for my print work, I gathered my focus group together again to collect their responses to my poster and magazine cover.
I firstly showed them my poster (see below) and received the following feedback:

Female, student, age 15 – ‘I really like it. I think the image works really well and jumps out at me as being horror. The tagline is really good, creepy even. I think my favourite thing is the font of the title, really inventive and works well with the image.’

Female, student, age 18 – ‘I think the image could have done with being slightly bigger, but it is effective and all the elements seem to work together well.’

Female, media student, age 22 – ‘I like the image a lot. The slight tilt of the head by the masked man really gives it an eerie edge. You’ve clearly thought a lot about the image and it shows. Good job.’

Female, journalist, age 25 – ‘I’m not too keen on the font and colour that the actor’s names are written it. It’s the only part of the poster that doesn’t seem to quite work for some reason. Other than that it does work well as a horror poster.’

Male, advertising student, age 21 – ‘Looks like a horror poster, the lighting in your image is great, the editing is really good, well done.’

Male, student, age 19 – ‘Like the way the holes in the two chairs mirror the eyes of the masked man, clever! Looks like a horror poster, only thing I’d change is some of the fonts.’

 

Following these comments, I chose not to edit the poster as I think I got some really positive feedback and was pleased with the overall effect.

Focus Group Responses - Mock Ups

I firstly showed them my mock up poster and gathered the following responses:

Female, student, age 15 – ‘I like the concept of them facing away and being tied up on the chairs, with the villain looking towards us. It could be very effective – however I think the image needs to be bigger to gain more focus.’

Female, student, age 18 – ‘The idea is good. I think the man in the mask should be quite big in comparison to the two that are tied up to make him look more domineering and scary.’

Female, media student, age 22 – ‘The image is quite frightening, looks very creative and matches most of the conventions I’d expect to see on a film poster, and says horror to me instantly. The font really needs to be chosen correctly to create even more of a sense of horror.’

Female, journalist, age 25 – ‘I think your choice of image will be really good. An idea I would suggest is to have the masked man almost appearing out of the darkness with the couple in a brighter light as this could make the masked man look even more of a threat. Overall, I really like the idea.’

Male, advertising student, age 21 – ‘The poster definitely says horror to me. The idea of the mask is great – it’s a classic horror element and creates fear instantly. The poster could do with a little bit more going on, as it looks quite simple at the minute.’

Male, student, age 19 – ‘I like the mock up, and I think with the right colours, sizing and lighting it will look really good when completed. Very scary!’

I then showed them my mock up magazine cover:

Female, student, age 17 – ‘Could look really effective with the right effects and text. I think the background should be really dark and the mask would look great with some shadowing detail.’

Female, student, age 18 – ‘Looks quite similar to most film magazines I’ve seen, the conventions are similar. Maybe needs a bit more going on around the image, for instance more text linking to more things going on inside the magazine.’

Female, media student, age 22 – ‘Laid out professionally, but I think it might come to look a bit plain when you actually create it. I think it could do with some more text, maybe even just one small story around the outside to make it slightly busier and more interesting. In terms of fonts, you need to select the right ones to make it look as close as possible to a film magazine.’

Female, journalist, age 25 – ‘I like the idea of it being just the mask, with the ‘behind the mask’ text. This will definitely intrigue the reader as they will want to know more about the actor in the mask, even just what he looks like. I think it could also maybe look good with a long shot of the actor in the mask, in the outfit he wears in the film, perhaps holding a knife or something?’

Male, advertising student, age 21 – ‘Bit plain. Could do with a few more bits of text perhaps. I think when it’s put together with all the colours and conventions it’ll look good.

Male, student, age 19 – ‘I like the idea of the head and shoulder shot, as it’s not something you see all the time on film magazines. But at the same time this could make it a bit harder to distinguish that it’s a film magazine. As long as you stick to the conventions seen on current magazines I think it will work well.’

Focus Group

To gather feedback on my work, I thought the best idea would be to gather a small selection of people together to use as a focus group. With a focus group I would be able to ask my subjects face to face their opinions, and if I was unsure of anything they said I would be able to probe them into giving me further ideas to clarify. Focus groups are also quite intimate, and I would be able to see things such as facial expression that I wouldn’t by creating and handing out a questionnaire. This meant I could get a real idea of what people thought of my work. By using a focus group I’d be able to see what I could do to improve my products, and gather a majority opinion. My focus group comprised of people ranging from ages 15 to 25, as this is the target audience age I had gathered from my audience research. I chose to use six people for my focus group, all of whom were interested in horror films and also had an interest in advertising/media. As I saw in my research, the predominant gender interested in horror is female, so I chose four females and two males for my focus group.