Our Questionnaire

Before our production, we made a questionnaire to be the basis of many ideas for our opening sequence. We included specific questions that would enable us to become more aware of our audience and what they would expect from a period drama. Here's our questionnaire and findings of the 10 people we asked, who we knew were our target audience.

1.) What period dramas (TV or film) have you watched before and what is your favourite?
Pride and Prejudice
Atonement
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Jane Eyre
These dramas were the most popular choices, and atonement was the most favoured along with pride and prejudice.
From this we chose to watch Atonement to learn more about period dramas and their storylines in particular as well as getting inspiration from the costume and location from Pride and Prejudice and other period dramas we have watched before.

2.) What grabs your attention most about period dramas?
Location
Costume
Storyline
Half the people we asked said the location was most important where as 30% of the people said the storyline was the most important aspect. The remaining 20% answered costume.
On hearing this we found our own location at Knepp Castle which fits beautifully with our genre, from this we knew we should make best use to the location in order to create the best effect from it.

3.) How important is the soundtrack to a period drama? And what sort of music would you expect?
Scale of 1-10
The majority of people answered 6 out of 10 for the importance of the soundtrack, the answers range from 3-7. The type of music mentioned was unanimously classical as it suits the genre best.
The soundtrack is not the most important factor to our audience, however it will add to the emotion and connection between the actors and audience. Therefore we spent time looking for the right soundtrack and it is a classical piece of music.

4.) Do you associate period dramas with a love story?
Yes/No
8 out of 10 people said yes they would expect a love story within a period drama.
We chose to make a love story in our period drama after finding out that this would be expected in a period drama.

5.) Do you think period dramas are aimed at women and why?
The majority of people said yes they were more aimed at women than men, although some men may be intersted in the historical aspect of these dramas. This is because women enjoy having an escape from reality. The type of women who watch period dramas are those interested in literature, history and fashion.
We made sure to understand our audience well before filming in order to make a film that would appeal to them. We carefully chose our costumes which would appeal to those interested in the fashion aspect of the period dramas; the location is historical and the storyline reflects already existing period drama novels and films.

6.) What would you expect to see in a period drama?
People said grand architecture and the surroundings such as the house and gardens seen in atonement.
From knowing this we filmed extra footage of the scenary to make sure we included enough of the well-fitting location.

7.) What sort of atmosphere do you expect? And how do you think this is created?
A mixture of tension and suspense as well as happiness and romance. This is created by the emotions shown from the actors and how the soundtrack adds to this.
We made our storyline have a mix of emotions hidden within it, for example, Rose is pleased to find a note from her lover but there is tension created by this as it is a forbidden love. The voiceovers used add to the connection made between the audience and our protagonist as they are more personal.