Gabriella gained valuable audience feedback when producing her short film "Outcast" that helped her better understand what themes and issues would resonate most with her target audience of teenagers. She used questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and screenings to collect feedback. The feedback helped her realize that flashbacks in the film were confusing and needed to be changed to a continuous narrative. It also informed her decision to use teenage actors who could portray feelings and situations her audience could relate to. Overall, the audience feedback helped Gabriella tailor her film to better engage her target audience.

1. 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:

2. 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?

3. 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:

4. 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.