Evaluation Question III: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Evaluation Question III: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

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  Time Speaker Audio Coordinating Presenter Tothose who are listening, that was the Art Show with Douglas Allsopp, produced by Matilda Burke. Thank you for those fascinating insights into painting. To what extent do the views of the audience impact the finished film?Host listens to AimeeLee’s story onthe Film Review, coming up soon. Lateron, at3, it’s NewsFeed, here’s News Feed Presenter: News Feed Presenter At 3, we’ll be discussing the latest on the‘woolly’law about leaving our children home alone, in which it has emerged that over 500 parents each year are being arrested on suspicion of neglect for leaving children as old as 15 unattended. Also on the programme, is it worth buying a camera outside of your smartphone nowadays? We review the Canon AVCHD Legria HF G40 and compare it to the Panasonic AVCCAM AG-HMC41E. Later, Rich Ayden investigates the importance of the cinema to today’s generation in our world of digital and streaming. Tune in at 3. Coordinating Presenter Thanks, News Feed Presenter. Now, here’s Host with the Film Review. Host Hello, today’s show contains two very special interviews from young female directors. Grace Johansson explains to Ted Smith her attitudes regarding the representation of disability within the film industry. (excerpt of Grace speaking – over the phone?) Firstly, wehavelinedup aninterview with AimeeLee, who joins us here in the studio today. She has recently released her debut short HomeTime,which exploreswhathappens when a young girl is left to her own devices when her parents fail to pick her up from school. What sets her apart from other directors is that she has used multiple stages of audience research from the planning through to the post production stages. Most film productions conduct secondary research to get a better idea, although Aimee has gone above and beyond to meet more accurate idea of what her audience demand. Hello, Aimee. Aimee Hi Host, thank you for having me here.
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  Host Your film, HomeTime, premiered at the Beacon Short Film Festival earlier this month, and it has been received quite positively by audiences all around the country. How did you know which audiences to target to get such a great response? Aimee Having conducted secondary research on short films, support, development, distribution, festivals and streaming, I already had a vague idea of who my audience were. I was able to refine this idea of an audience by carrying out primary quantitative research on the people around me, asking closed questions regarding their basic personal information, which allowed me to study any potential demographic trends. Host How did theparticipants’ personal details help you inyour aim to discover an audience? Aimee The results that I received from my target audience research enabled me to identify a key demographic within the group of people that I surveyed, based on their age, gender, ethnicity, education level, where they live, and their media and film preferences. Host Interesting. Who did you find out was your target audience? Aimee My target audience is generally educated to A levels or above, and is comprised of mainly young white females aged 16 to 24, living in the local area. They sometimes watch shortfilmsandlookforminority socialgroupsbeing represented, as wellas issues thatincludecrime,sexuality, and discrimination. Host How did you adapt your film to suit your target audience? Aimee I cast a main character as a young white female, which matches the target audience, to create a character that audiences can relate to. She is young, and so all the participants of the survey can be reminded of what it’s like to be younger, as they’ve all experienced that age, as the youngest age bracket in my survey was for 15 and below, which the minority of participants selected. Host Are there any other ways in which your film was made accessible to the audience? Aimee I uploaded my film to YouTube, because it is what the majority my audiencesaidthey usedmostoften.Outofthe participants surveys, a lot of them said they watched three or less shorts a month, a large amount selecting ‘none’. Therefore, I used YouTube as a platform to share my film, because my prior research suggests YouTube to be a universal medium in which millions of different users can stumble upon and find my film, despite not being a typical short film audience, as would have been found by using Short of the Week, or perhaps even Vimeo, as it is geared towards higher quality content, with more intelligent and film educated viewers.
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  Host Oh, interesting. Howdid your research help you in the planning process? Aimee Following my target audience research, I had to adapt my film to cater for their needs. I wrote a few synopses based on my initial idea once I had identified my audience. I was interested in the themes of independence and vulnerability within young people, and so I created a few different scenarios based on these ideas. I created a survey in which I referred to Marilyn Milgrom’s script theories, asking questions about how high the stakes were, for example.I askedmy audiencewhatthey thought,andthey best liked the idea in which the young girl runs out of school to find her parents are not there. Host How did this help you in the writing process? Aimee I couldeliminatetheother ideas andcontinuedrafting just one. My audience research also helped me to realise where my synopsis was falling short. In the following drafts, I raised the stakes more and more each time, to the point where I added and extra character. The caretaker was a result of raising the tension to clearly convey the issues andthemes,as wellas exaggeratingthegirl’svulnerability. Host Were there any issues that you stumbled into after the initial synopsis research? Aimee Yes, I actually had trouble writing the end of the synopsis, because I couldn’t find a way to address what I wanted to say. Therefore, I conducted a short audience research in order to find out what my media literate peers suggested. Host Oh I see, how did this help you reach the final draft? Aimee I asked the audience three questions. I wanted to know at this point if the synopsis carried a clear meaning, as this is what Milgrom states to be important. I also asked the audiencetwoquestions onhow toend andhow they would edit the synopsis themselves. From this research, I concluded that my peers thought it be a good idea to end the film in a situation in which the young girl and the caretaker sit together, and share his sandwiches, reaching a solution to both characters’ issues of loneliness. Host That makes the writing process seem very tricky. It’s always useful to have some thoughts from the audience, and it sounds like it helped you to make a strong storyline. Would you agree or were there still aspects of the final synopsis that you were not happy with? Aimee I found that the research that I had conducted on my synopsis helped me to create a strong script, which just needed extending more than anything. Host The audience research really shows how much difference it can make to the storyline, and who is cast. Did audience research take place at any other point in your process?
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  Aimee Yes it does.Before and during the drafting of my poster and review, I conducted some research to help me in creating the most effective draft of each. Host How did you go about this? Aimee Similarly to my film audience research, I conducted target audience research on film reviews and posters, as well as secondary research on the forms and conventions of film posters and magazine reviews. Host Who did you identify your target audience as and how did they vary from your film target audience? Aimee The target audience’s demographics are very similar to the film audience’s. They are again, mostly female, 16 to 24 and somewhat film literate. I found that they read their reviews mostly online, and view posters outside of magazines also. The audience weren’t so familiar with Sight & Sound magazine or other film publications, but they understood the importance of both film reviews and posters. Host How did you adapt both your poster and your review to this audience? Aimee I made simplistic and minimal aesthetic choices when designing both to cater for the audience that tends to take their information online. As the internet directs so much information toward its users through the use of social platforms and other websites, I made my review as easy to read as possible, by using clear text and eye catching colours. I also divided the page in order to create readable segments. Host How did this apply to the poster? Aimee I used a stripped-down illustration which uses pale colours. The texts and integrated graphics can stand out and highlight key areas of the poster, which draws the reader’s attention to the information they need to see in order to create preconceptions of what the film is about. Host That’s very interesting. How did you settle for the main image that you did for your poster? Aimee I began planning before knowing that I was going to use an illustration. With photography in mind, I drew out several different ideas for posters. To help me decide which imagery was the most effective, and which I should continue with in future drafts, I enlisted my media literate peers to help me decide. I listened to their opinions on the imagery and symbolism, creating preconceptions that hinted atissues and themes.Both ofmy peers decided that I use the image of the girl and the caretaker sitting underneath the large windows which bare the words for the title inside each pane of glass. Host You said you initially had photography in mind, what made you change your image to an illustration?
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  Aimee Upon discussing thephotography I had in a previous draft of the poster with my media literate tutor, we agreed that the illustration worked better in terms of minimalism and depicting the iconography needed to communicate the issues and themes. With this, I updated my draft using the illustration, which also gave me space to include more conventional poster text and graphics. Host The careful consideration of audience feedback has ensured that you’ve created some strong and effective media texts. Thank you for coming in today and talking about your production process, Aimee Lee. Aimee Thank you for having me on your show. Host If you’ve just tuned in, I’m Host and you’re listening to the Film Review. Next, we’ve got an interview with Grace Johansson.