Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER AUDIENCE RESEARCH bv a member of the Shell Film Unit recently, at the Shell Film Unit, we launched 'into a new educational series of films on the theory of flight. The series is planned for a limited distribution, being designed for the use of people in some way connected with aviation, as flying pupils, workers, or R.A.F. personnel, and also for the senior forms of secondary schools. As the first film neared completion, we considered the idea of showing it, in its cutting copy form, to the types of audience for whom it was intended. , Two reasons prompted the decision to try out the film in this way: firstly, we wished to establish that the approach of the film itself was sensible and adequate; secondly, we were anxious to discover how worth while it might be to pursue audience reaction tests as a regular stage in film making. After the final show to the experts who had advised in the making of the film, therefore, we arranged a special show of the cutting copy (commentary and picture) to each of three groups of people who together represented, as far as we could determine, future audiences. These groups were : a batch of R.A.F. aircrew personnel in the early stages of training (aged 19—31 years), a group of A.T.C. cadets (aged 14-19 years), and an audience of schoolboys (aged 13-17^ years). The numbers were, respectively, 15, 30 and 23. It may be argued that this did not give a broad enough survey ion which to base any very sound conclusion. On the other hand, to arrange a detailed investigation involving audiences totalling several hundred people is, perhaps, beyond the scope "of a small production unit. As it was, the limited enquiry, outlined above, took two to three ;weeks to organise, to record, and to analyse the 'results. The first step was to prepare a questionnaire, :he answers to which, we hoped, would indicate, not only the efficiency of the film in imparting ts information, but also the reaction of the iudiences to the film's style and approach. For ronvenience, the questionnaire was broadly divided into three sections, covering: (1) matters ?f opinion as to length of scene, commentator's /oice, etc. ; (2) matters of fact, the information :ontained in the film; and (3) details from the ludience, such as other films they might have seen, which would have a bearing on their esponse to this film. Each show was prefaced ?y a spoken explanation briefly outlining its wrpose; an attempt was also made to give the eeling that, by answering the questions careully and honestly, the audience was, in fact, aking part in the making of the film. An even >riefer written introduction to the questionnaire, vhich each member of the audience read before urning to the questions, emphasised what had >een said. A special point was made of warning ach audience that, although they were going to ee an almost finished film, it was still at a rough tate, when the odd noises, marks and scratches, ommon to all cutting copies, would be apparnt. There is no doubt that such an introduction vas essential in order to make the audience feel here was a serious purpose behind the show. It voked an excellent response from most people, Bit perhaps did not go far enough to break down 11 the reserves of some of the service personnel. The questionnaire was designed along familiar lines, a variety of answers being given to each question, from which the subject had to select one by underlining. Here is one example from each of the three sections of questions. (1) Did the commentator speak: too quickly, too slowly, about the right speed? (2) Is the sideways pressure of the airflow in the narrower part of the venturi tube : greater than, less than, the same as throughout the rest of the tube? (3) Did you know the subject before you saw the film: yes, no, partly? In all, there were some forty questions asked, which, it was estimated, would take ten to fifteen minutes to answer. It was found that most people did complete the forms within this time, although, of course, it varied from individual to individual — and more surprisingly, perhaps, from group to group (the youngest group being collectively the quickest). For convenience, the answers of each audience batch were recorded on a single sheet of graph paper according to a method developed by the Audience Reaction Committee of the London Scientific Film Society. A column, one small square wide, was devoted to each of the alternative answers to the questions ; the answers given in the individual papers being recorded by a tick in the appropriate column along one line. In this way, reading across gave an individual's answers to all the questions, while reading down the three or four appropriate columns gave all the answers to any one question. At a glance, therefore, one could see where the majority answer lay. Apart from this eye-catching advantage, it was a useful way of condensing the matter in order to prepare a summary; for this represented a full record, allowing the bulky questionnaire forms to be destroyed or stored. Before discussing the results, it is as well to remember that the film was shown in its cutting copy form. There is no doubt that the "buildups", joins, "dust-crackle," and all the other evidence of hard work in the cutting room, disturbed the audience. Possibly this was unavoidable, since to wait until there is a married print before trying out a film does not suggest that one is going to be easily influenced to make changes by what the audience thinks of it. However, one can allow for this factor by discounting to some extent the answers which implied, for instance, that the scenes in the "film were "jerky". There are so many variables likely to affect an experiment of such a limited nature that one must be careful not to draw too sweeping deductions from the results. Probably, the only really reliable indications came from the section of questions testing the success of the film in presenting its facts. Here we found that, irrespective of audience group, there was a high proportion of correct answers : out of 1 8 questions of fact, 1 5 were answered correctly by all except for 2 or 3 out of each group. Although several members of the audience had already covered some of the ground in the film during their normal school lessons or training, most of the subject was sufficiently new for the foregoing to be taken as an indication that the film was fairly successful in presenting its intormation clearly on a first showing. An interesting fact emerging from the answers to this section of questions is that, as a whole, the audiences were less successful in dealing with questions of a general kind whose answers could be deduced from the film. Out of three questions designed to this end, the audiences answered only two with any degree of common accuracy, while the third question was not even attempted by more than a quarter of them. Since, however, they were specially asked not to tarry over the questions (so that we could be sure of gaining their first impressions), too little time for thought may have been the real reason for much of this apparent lack of success. When assessing the answers to questions of opinion, one appears to be on even less sure ground, for opinion is more likely to be influenced by irrelevant matters; yet the majority of answers in most cases, were sufficiently alike from all three audience groups to suggest their validity. For instance, more than 90 per cent of each audience thought the commentary was spoken at the right speed; and some 70-75 per cent thought the commentator to be an expert, speaking with a pleasant voice a clear commentary that could not have been simpler and gave just about enough information (five questions). In some questions, however, although in each case the majority were of the same opinion, the proportion varied from group to group. As an example, we find 90 per cent of the schoolboys and of the R.A.F. personnel agreeing that the pauses between sentences of the commentary were, as a whole, too long, whereas rather less than 60 per cent of the A.T.C. cadet group thought this to be so. The later questions in this section covered points about visual presentation, evoking, in general, a more varied response. For instance, while some 60 per cent of the schoolboys considered each separate picture (or scene) to be too long, only about 50 per cent of the A.T.C. cadets were in agreement with this view ; but this attitude was opposed by the group of R.A.F. personnel, 66 per cent of whom felt each scene to be about the right length. Without comparing the results of individual intelligence tests with these questionnaires, it is difficult to account for such opposite views, unless they can be taken as showing the greater professional interest of the R.A.F. in the subject. The method of recording the answers, so that their trend can be appreciated at a glance, is revealing. One notices that in one group 3 out of 14 people feel that the commentator is "not an expert at all". Looking along the answers to the next two questions, one finds that two of these same three people think the commentary to be "sometimes clear and sometimes complicated" and the same two think further that the commentary "could have been simpler". Since these two people could have been sitting next to each other, there may be no other significance in their answers than that they were chatting to each other (this was observed with more than one group), missed the thread of the commentary and vented their disgust on the film. This kind of influence may be reflected, too, in the response to the question inviting individual comments or remarks, where it was noticeable that almost all the elder schoolboys filled up the space provided with suggestions and conclusions, encouraged less, perhaps, by spontaneity than by the accident of their having sat close enough together to be able to follow each other's example. Remarks, in general, were appreciative or constructive: (continued on page 14)