1. 1 - So how did you go about researching what kinds of audience consume social
realism films?
This is my first social realism film and it was interesting during the research process to see
what kinds of audiences watch and enjoy this less niche genre. In order to research what
kinds of audience consume social realism, I explored specialist film sites such as ‘IMDB’ and
‘MUBI’ to gain a greater understanding of how prominent social realism is within film genres
and tastes. For example, ‘imdb’ failed to class social realism as a genre and films that were
usually classified within it, such as ‘This Is England’, were under ‘drama’, however, by look-
ing at audience reviews and demographic consumption, I could see what kinds of people watch
these films. ‘Mubi’, on the other-hand, displayed a broader utilisation of artistic and social
realism media products. The site also allowed users to delve deeper into audience profiles
and see what their favourite films are, what directors they like the work of and what they
like to watch. By looking at these kinds of sites I was able to research what kinds of audi-
ences watch social realism films.
2 - Okay so the majority of social realism films do have that specific niche audi-
ence; Did you feel your target audience could adapt to this convention? Or did it
challenge this and reach out to a more mainstream audience?
I feel that my target audience are a more mainstream audience. From my research many of
them were unaware of social realism as a genre and what types of films are categorised
under it. The ones that were, were media students or film fanatics. So yeah maybe they could
adapt their interests and explore social realism as a whole.
3 - Even on an established database like imdb, social realism isn’t an identifiable
category. How far do you think your audience’s understanding or ‘misunder-
standing’ of the genre, social realism, and it’s aims effects either their reading of
the film or their enjoyment of it?
4 - It’s quite rare that social realism films are screened in nationwide mainstream
cinemas, such as Odeon and Vue. Do you feel your take on social realism is ver-
satile enough to be accepted within these venues? If not, are you aiming for fes-
tivals and more specialist cinematic venues, such as Picture House, Riverside Stu-
dios, NFT and the Barbican?
In a way I feel as if my film steers away from the norm of social realism. It’s based on a
true story, which gives it that flare of real social realism, however, the content of the film
doesn’t necessarily follow the typical, gritty codes and conventions of the genre. Saying
that I still feel the film’s not versatile enough as a stand alone short to be distributed into
larger, more commercial venues. To be honest I don’t think a mainstream audience will grasp
this film and therefore I believe that it should be kept within the art houses and yes, special-
ist venues.
5 - How did you develop the protagonist’s character?

2. The research into my protagonist came after I looked deeper into the story that inspired my
short. The wives of each of the men killed had to survive without them. It was a tragic event
and I felt the empathy that could be created was a good base to build my story upon.
6 - How easy was it to collect and distribute questions to your target audience?
I used the website ‘Survey Monkey’ to distribute and collect results for target audience re-
search via the social networking site ‘Facebook’, as that is a hub for where I knew my tar-
geted audience will easily be able to access. This way I found it simple to collect my results
because I posted the link and waited for them to fill out the questions. ‘Survey Monkey’ also
enables you to view the results live and display their answers, etc. All answers displayed
appear as anonymous.
7 - So you’ve received feedback from your target audience and you’ve studied
their responses. What important new things did you learn about your demo-
graphic? And did any of these have an impact on your ideas about characterisa-
tion and representation in your film?
From the responses I’ve noticed that social realism is not really known within teens. The
most popular genre was comedy, which is the opposite end of the scale to social realism. The
people who had seen a social realism film consumed the mainstream films such as, ‘Billy El-
liot’ and ‘This Is England’, ones that were distributed into large mainstream cinemas. My
target audience however, did have a good understanding of short film