Focus group findings

Yesterday my group gathered  a variety of people within the age range of our target audience and first showed them our original treatment pitch in order to gain new perspectives on our original/base idea. We asked the group as a whole about their opinions regarding the idea, the feedback we received was as follows: 
~ They were unsure as to how we would do some of the events we said would happen in the film such as the aliens
~ One person also offered the idea that we set it in a Hollywood film set (using a school drama room to do this)
~ We were then asked how we would represent each characters personalities in the short amount of time that we had. We proceeded to explain that we would represent personality through use of costume and dialogue/actions

We then showed to them a clip from the opening sequence of the hangover (this was the only clip from a  key text that we had available to us at the time as a result of technical difficulties, we had intended to use a clip from the anchorman also but were unable to find the clip again) After watching the clip we asked the group why they enjoyed watching comedy films and received the following responses:
~ To laugh
~ The outrageous things that happen in a comedy film
~ More entertaining than other genres
~ They say the things that you are thinking but don't say
~ The situations are outrageous
~ They're easy to watch

We also asked our focus group whether they would watch our film upon it's completion and what they would like to change about our pitch, we had the following responses:
~ We need more to actually happen in the opening sequence
~ Perhaps we could relate the sequence we were planning more to the hangover
They as a group seemed to like the idea of us changing the setting and using one that was more out of the ordinary, in order to make it more interesting.
~We could make it more interesting by having a big important/interesting event happen in the first few minutes
~Maybe we could make use of more risky humour
Overall the group seemed to like the fact that we had used elements of the hangover to inspire us.

We then asked how they thought we should challenge the general conventions of a comedy film, our main suggestion was to include a female lead as women generally don't have particularly big roles in comedy films unless they are romantic comedies.

We had a short amount of time at the end where we answered any questions and received more suggestions about our idea that hadn't been answered of previously mentioned:
~ The group insisted that we should definitely reconsider our choice of setting and a few suggestions (An aquarium, ASDA etc) were offered as settings for the characters to wake up.
~ Maybe we could have a list of things that would go wrong in the first 60 or so seconds
~ It was also suggested that we could make use of symbols/symbolism
~ It can't be too similar to other comedy films, it should be original and stand out from the others
~ Could make use of strange fancy dress costume
~ We need to be practical about what we do

As we finished we asked the group whether they liked the idea as a whole and would actively choose to watch a film such as the one we will be creating the opening sequence to, the whole group said that yes they would watch this film and like our general idea. As a group we found this to be very encouraging and useful.