What Questions to ask at Test Screening??

Staven

Staven

Well-known member
We're going to have a test screening for our film in the near future.

What questions should we ask the viewers regarding our film, and how should we set up the questionairre(whether it should be ratings out of five or actual written answers).

Wondering if there is some sort of generic set of questions we should include??

Thanks, Scott.
 
I would say that this really depends on why you are having a test screening. Knowing exactly what you hope to gain from the screening should help with the questions / format. That said, I would think it would be best to have multiple choice or scale of 1 - 5 type questions and maybe a space at the end for additional comments. This makes it easier to collect all of the data together and analyze it.

No matter what you do, defintely get standard demographic data (age, gender, income, etc).
 
I agree with Owen about determining why you're having the test screening. I've filled out too many questionnaires where the filmmakers asked my opinion on favorite characters or scenes. Those are questions are fine and good, but I think if you're trying to fine tune an edit or seeing if a comedy really is funny, you should gear your questions towards that.

Also, if your questionnaire doesn't fit on one side of one page, it's probably too long for the average screening audience. You can fill the room with filmmakers and film fanatics, who will usually give you very detailed opinions, but they may not be your target audience.

Good luck with the screening, and definitely post your results!
 
The more productive test screenings that I have been to have been those where there was a real post screening conversation between the film makers and the audience. Do what ever you can to begin a dialog after the screening (plant a few people to start off with some simple questions that you can answer), then you can begin to really learn not only their impressions, but what they didn't understand about the story. The written responses are not bad for use as an example of the audiences general enjoyment of the film (which can be part of the demographic information used in distribution funding presentations) but the conversations that you can have with real audiences can be very productive.
 
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