Berlin, Germany: Demonstrating method to Berlinale Talents. Feb 2016

Client: Berlinale Talent, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin

 

Client’s goal: To run a live case in front of an audience made up of Berlnale Talents and festival attendees. The program listed the session as: “To "think of your audience" from the beginning of project development is one of the advices filmmakers often hear. But how can we actually get to know those audiences before they show up in the cinema? Paul Tyler, inventor of the "Handling Ideas" method, takes inner notions of a film's future audience out of the filmmaker's head and maps them with LEGO® on the table. Tyler introduces us to a method to literally see an assumed audience from birds-eye view and learn how it feels and deals with the story. Tyler leads Talents through a practical case study, blending a journalistic approach to interviewing with the techniques used in other creative industries to visualize ideas, enable collaboration and unlock decision-making.”

 

The session kicked-off by demonstrating how relatively simple information such as family tree structure containing just siblings, their respective partners and offspring, is so much easier to grasp when mapped out onto a table rather than simply told verbatim. 

 

Josh Kim (US/Republic of Korea) volunteered to have his project The Folding City mapped out onto the table as pictured above. The session raised several questions from the audience regarding how tough one can be and whether it intimidates the project owner. One audience member, representing marketing, sales and distribution commented on the effectiveness of the tool to identify the sub-groups to whom one could target. Whilst the event was set-up to focus on identifying your audience, the mapping still helped to unlock value on a story-telling level as Josh commented after the session, “"I went in prepared to talk about the story (or plot) from start to finish, but you immediately started with the characters, which made me realize how important the characters were and how the plot was secondary to the character's journey.”

 

Point of contact: Florian Weghorn, Programme Manager

 

Paul Tyler