Evaluation Three Radio Script

Interviewer: 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!