Audience Testing for Audiovisual Projects for Children and Youth: Why Does It Matter?

Do you know what your target audience thinks about your film, series or other audiovisual project? Audience testing makes it possible to involve children and young people already during the development process and gather structured feedback that can inform both creative and production decisions.

Petr Pláteník will introduce what audience testing is, which methods can be used, and what it can – and, equally importantly, cannot – tell us. He will show how it can be useful to producers, filmmakers, cinemas, festivals and other professionals working with young audiences – from testing the comprehensibility of a story and its characters and the visual form of a project to exploring whether and how the project speaks to a particular age group.

Audience testing does not have to be a one-off test of a finished work: the earlier we can gather relevant feedback, the more room there is to make use of it. It is a tool for gaining a better understanding of your target audience and making more informed decisions during the development of an audiovisual project.

Petr Pláteník is a methodology specialist at krutón. He studied Czech Language and Civic Education at the Faculty of Education and Czech Studies and Film Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University Olomouc, where he is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Theatre and Film Studies. As an editor and co-author, he contributed to the creation of Filmouka, the first Czech textbook on film education. He teaches film and audiovisual education at various levels of education and provides training for teachers.