Evaluation 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Announcer:

Good morning, I’m Ben Jackson and today we are interviewing three young directors on

their recent films. We’ll be talking to Lee Musson about his debut film “Under “and also to

Oliver Clark about his second film “Lonely”. Firstly, though, we have Gabriella Said talking

about her new short film “Outcast”.

Interviewer:

Gabriella, gaining audience feedback is an important thing to do whilst producing a

film. How did this help you whilst you were making your short film “Outcast”?

Me:

Gaining audience feedback helped me notice what my audience wanted to see within the film

and what they were most interested in. This helped me gain a better understanding of how the

audience would react to the theme and issues that I had chosen within my film.

Interviewer:

What methods did you use to find your audience?

Me:

I used a number of different methods to conduct my audience research. The different ways I

used were survey monkey, screenings, One-to-one interviews, Focus groups and also

questionnaires.

Interviewer:

You said you used survey monkey, how did this impact your film?

Me:

Survey monkey helped me gain more opinions on my film. I created a survey monkey for

people that already had an interest in short films, the reason for this is because they would

already have a knowledge and understanding of what short films should involve. I aimed my

survey to people aged around 15-20 years old. The reason for this is because I knew that I

was going to aim my short film to teenagers around this sort of age. I also, asked my

audience what themes and issues they would prefer to see in a short film and what they was

generally interested in. From this research I grew knowledge that neglect, loneliness and

teenage pregnancy was most commonly liked by teenagers and that these issues would have a

significant impact on them. This is what had the most impact on my decision.

Interviewer:

Which methods did you find were more useful to use to gain your audience research?

Me:

The methods that I found most useful were questionnaires and one-to-one interviews. By

using questionnaires I gained an advantage as I could use quantitative and qualitative

research, I also added in open and closed questions which helped me gain both numerical and

statistical data and extended answers, opinions, preferences etc. However, the one-to-one

interviews helped me gain different opinions which helped me change certain bits of my

initial story idea.

Interviewer:

What did the one-to-one interviews help you gain different opinions on?

Me:

This type of research helped me gain different opinions on my ancillary tasks such as my

poster, Magazine review and my short film. I interviewed three different people, who gave

me their opinions on my ancillary tasks. All three people spotted the same mistake that was

made in my film and commented on this.

Interviewer:

What was the mistake that was made and how did this help you complete your final

piece?

Me:

Well the part that my audience got confused about in my short film was that there was certain

flashbacks that were added within the film. However, it wasn’t sufficiently obvious that they

were actually flashbacks. The feedback that I gained helped me change how I conveyed these

flashbacks to make them look real and less confusing.

Interviewer:

You said that you changed how you conveyed the flashbacks in your film, how did you

do that?

Me:

Well, gaining the audience feedback I realised that the flashbacks were not working in my

film. Therefore, this made me go back to the editing process and change the order of my film.

Interviewer:

What do you mean by change the order of your film?

Me:

By this I meant that I erased the flashbacks completely and moved the clips of my film in a

different order to make the film one continuous narrative. Instead of the flashbacks I changed

the order of my film so that it was going from day to night instead of the flashbacks.

Interviewer:

Is there anything specific you learned from your audience feedback that you would like

to share?

Me:

There are different things that I learned from my audience feedback. One of the things that I

would like to share is that when I was gaining feedback on my synopsis I asked my audience

whether they could relate to any themes or issues related within my short film. Many of them

suggested adding different ideas such as child neglect and vulnerability. This helped me gain

a more niche audience as I learned that my audience could relate to the protagonist as there

was similarity in age group. I also learned that they felt emotionally engaged to the thought of

teenage pregnancy, abortion and child neglect as it’s a real experience in everyday life and

have experienced similar feelings or experiences.

Interviewer:

What made you use teenage non-professional actors to star in your short film?

Me:

After studying and analysing different short films I gained knowledge that most shorts use

non-professional actors to star in their films. If I used big stars in my short film this would

attract a more mainstream audience. Therefore, this would go against the aim of having a

niche audience. Also, I chose to use teenage actors as it is common to use young actors to

portray similarity in the protagonist and audience. I noticed this after analysing different

shorts such as Fish Tank, Antonio’s Breakfast, Cubs and many more. I also realised through

my questionnaires that the audience I was targeting my film at would prefer to see teenage

actors giving natural, real performances rather than older more experienced actors, playing a

younger age. The reason for this was because my audience could relate to the type of feeling

or situation that was being conveyed within my film better with people close to them in age,

disposition and behaviour.

Interviewer:

You said that your ‘audience could relate to the type of feeling or situation that was

being conveyed within your film’ how do you know this?

Me:

Yes, that’s right. The way I found this out was through my questionnaires on my initial story

idea. I asked my audience what they would most prefer to see in a short film, I gave them

several options which they could then choose from such as; teenage pregnancy, child neglect,

child abuse and alcoholism. Through this I realised that my theme I had chosen was most

common. Therefore, I then asked why my audience felt like this, the answers that they come

up with was that they could relate mostly to the protagonists feelings and somewhat

experienced this in a similar way as it fit right in with the genre of social realism.

Interviewer:

Why is it important to you that your film fits in with the genre of social realism?

Me:

It is important to me that my film fits in the genre of social realism as I understood that it was

easier for my audience to relate to this sort of genre as these issues could happen in everyday

life.

Interviewer:

What did you learn from your audience through your two ancillary tasks?

Me:

From my audience I learned that a lot of work had to be done to my magazine review. My

audience gave me advice on how to change it to make it look more realistic. The advice they

gave me was to add more text about the film. By this they meant to add more information on

protagonist and how she feels. Also, to change the font size and style so that it looks more

like a real magazine review. Another thing that I needed to change was the size and position

of the image. The reason why this helped me was because by doing that it made my magazine

review look more like a magazine review from, sight and sound. Also, I learnt through my

audience that my poster didn’t look even in the way that the font was positioned. Therefore, I

had to swap and change certain parts of the poster until it fit in right and looked more

pleasant to view.

Interviewer:

Well this is all we have time for today, Thank you Gabriella for sharing this interesting

information about your short film. It was a pleasure meeting you and hopefully we get

to see ‘Outcast’ very soon. However, if anyone has any other questions you will be able

to go on Gabriella Said’s fan page and comment on any thoughts or questions that you

may have.

This is Ben Jackson and this is the end of the film hour. Thank you for joining us and

tune in next week.