Evaluation Three Radio ScriptInterviewer: Hi and welcome back to Radio One everyone. Today, right now we have a special guest on the show, Phoebe Stannard. She is here to tell us how to collect audience research and why it is so crucial to have when creating a short film. Everybody welcome Phoebe!Pheb: Hello!Interviewer: So phoebe youve already hit the film industry hard with your film opening last year My Mind and are about to release a short film Out very soon! We know you have continued down the same route of thriller but now have made your new film a hybrid with social realism, so please tell us how, when planning your latest release how did you find and direct your film to suit your target audience?Pheb: Well to start with I created a quantitative questionnaire which I handed out to a variety of the public, I wanted to find who would be interested in the short form most and what genres they wanted to see explored. The majority of people who filled out my questionnaire were females; therefore my target audience is more than half female, so I needed to direct my film towards the female population. This affected my creative process, because when writing my synopsis and coming up with a story I decided to use a mother and teenager daughter as my main protagonists. Which I knew many females would be able to relate with, allowing me to create a short cut in my short film. The effect on my film of using mainly female characters affected my target audience as not many males would be able to relate with these characters creating the possibility that I have pushed them away from watching my film.Interviewer: So what age group are you aiming your film at as you have two protagonists who are very different ages? Pheb: From the results I collected from my quantitative questionnaire those who had answered were between the age category of 15-25 and 36-45. Making my target audience mainly teenagers, young adults, and middle aged. This affected my creative process as my target audience was teenagers and middle age adults so I decided to write my story about a relationship between a mother and teenage daughter, and the difficult choices both, particularly the mother are faced with. Focusing my story on a teenager is what Marylyn Milgram suggested because all people will be able to relate with a teenager character. This didnt down grade my quality or effectiveness; it most likely improves it as using a teenager as the protagonist creates a short cut in my film allowing my audience to relate quickly with the character, also the story about the relationship between the Mothers also creates a short cut making it easier for my audience to establish with. Interviewer: I see how did you establish your hybrid genre for your film?Well again the majority of those who answered my questionnaire enjoyed watching the genres thriller and drama mostly and then the genre action. After receiving this information this affected my story as I was aiming to make a social realism film, but as my audience preferred the genres thriller, drama and action I decided to change my story to fit by adding in a scene where Lane hits Man over the head, knocking him out. This made it more successful as there is now a better climax and tension to the final deciding moment, making it interesting to my audience. This made the quality of my film better because now there is climax to this boiling point, also it has given a tone to my film, as I have tried to keep to the genre, thriller, conventions by filming in a dark location and playing with sound to heighten it, giving my film an eerie effect.Interviewer: Interesting, so how did you decide to focus around the themes and issues you did? Pheb: Well after looking at a variety of short films I found that the Themes and issues which are not widely explored are: Coming of age, parental abuse, spoilt children, how adults are perceived as always right when they are wrong. So in my quantitative questionnaire I asked if there were any themes or issues you consider not being explored enough in film? and I received a variety of different responses, but the main reply was about coming of age and parental abuse, really the relationship between youths and adults. As most of the replies to this question were about the relationship between parents and their children, I thought it would be interesting to focus my story on this, therefor creating the complicated relation between Mother and Lane and the tricky situation they are in. This allowed me to create a quality story which I could explore the strain on a relationship between a mother and daughter which the relationship should be unbreakable, but appears to break due to a mans dominance; however my story brings this relationship back stronger as the daughter and in a way the mother both deal with the Man.Interviewer: Why did you choose to represent the collective identity parents and adults? Pheb: I chose to represent parents and adults because the group that is considered to be underrepresented in film, my target audience decided parents and adults are underrepresented. This affected my creative process as I reconsidered my main character being a teenager, and decided to write my story from the p.o.v. from my character the Mother. Writing the story from the p.o.v of the mother enabled me to expand my story further, it also built climax and fear in to my story. Interviewer: Is the aggression in your film important to the ending of the film?After showing an example short film (Tyler) to my target audience I asked what engaged them from the opening, the majority of them replied that the aggression is what they found interesting. This made me reconsider my story line as I realised to engage my audience I needed to include aggression and perhaps violence, which is why I added the scene where Lane hits the Man over the head with a bottle knocking him out. Making more film successful as my target audience would take more pleasure in watching it. Also it gave the shock factor to my film. Interviewer: As well as the aggression, relationships is thewhat creates your film what made you decide that the relationships were such a big factor?Pheb: Again from organising a focus group my audience thought it was interesting how the short 'Tyler' explored relationships. I learnt that my target audience were interested in the way the film explored the boundaries of relationships and what is crossing the line and what is not. This affected my creative process writing my story as I was already basing my story around the relationship between a teen girl and mother, but finding that my audience were interested in the boundaries of relationships, I decided to see if I could reverse roles that the teenager and adult would have - making the teenager have responsibilities of an adult and the mother act weak and not take responsibility how a mother should. Exploring this relationship made my film more effective as it gave a stronger message that teenagers act more like the adult in the relationship. Also it gave me the possibility to explore different ways of presenting this through mise-en-scene and camera shots/angles. By adding this scene the quality and effectiveness of my film increased as it gave me the chance to build a climax to a certain point, again giving the shock factor to my films. Interviewer: From another source we heard there may have been an alternative ending?Pheb: Yes I asked my target audience which ending they would prefer out of the two I gave them. After creating a questionnaire about my final script draft, I asked which alternative ending my target audience preferred and why. The alternative endings were: Lane should join Mother at the table and have a cigarette with her or for only lane to have the cigarette. The preferred suggestion was that Lane should only have the cigarette as it shows her 'dominance, power and independence'. This affected the ending of my script as I now have a ending which my audience prefer, but it made it more successful as it ends the film on a cliff hanger because we do not know if the man is okay and not dead, and it is also a shock to know that both Lane and Mother do not do anything to help the Man.Interviewer: Exciting! Well sorry everyone but thats all we have got time for today, thank you phoebe for telling us how your audience research made a huge impact on the creative process of your film. I wish you all the best for the success of your film, good bye!