Zara Griffen's BTEC Media Blog: The nature and purposes of research in the creative media industries

Primary research is new research that consist of answers about certain issues conducted by the Film maker or producer. It can have questionnaires, surveys or interviews with individuals. For my documentary I collected some primary research. Firstly, I created a questionnaire on survey monkey asking my target audience questions about the topic I wanted to discuss. For example, one of the questions stated 'What are your views on homosexuality'. Another type of primary research I used was having an interview with an individual. For this I used Callum Howard a former student at East Norfolk Sixth Form College. During the interview I asked his opinions and what society thinks of homosexuality. After the interview I asked If he would star in my three-minute wonder documentary and he kindly said yes. A few months back when researching a producing my dove TV ad, I made a questionnaire on survey monkey asking my target audience asking if they would like to see a dove advert for that target audience and what would work. 

Secondary research makes use of the information given from the primary research, usually the information is put into a summary or collation. For example, books, journals and searching the internet. For my secondary research on my documentary I watched a few different coming out videos on YouTube and videos based around coming out, and how they could possibly relate to the one I was thinking of making. Each video had snippets of things I could use. For example, one video I watched was

a coming out documentary. Other forms of secondary research were searching on Google the stats and other forms of information relating to young teenagers struggling in the LGBT community. one of the websites I used washttp://www.hrc.org/youth-report/view-and-share-statistics This website relates to the stats of the LGBT community against members who are not a part of the LGBT. 

Quantitative research uses ratings, numbers to  make use of sampling techniques such as surveys and customer questionnaires, it requires asking people for their opinions, in a structured way that will help your research. For example, film reviews, game reviews and responses to advertising campaigns. For my documentary I made a questionnaire to collect opinions on what my target audience would find interesting to watch when discussing the LGBT community. Another quantitative research I used was looking at other advert campaigns for example and seeing how many views it received and likes and dislikes.

Qualitative research uses detail,rather than figures and simple yes and no answers. Qualitative research  is easily accessible, for example film reviews, game reviews and attitudes to media products. One really good example of collecting qualitative research is companies that visit cinemas and ask customers weather the film was good or not. The only downside to qualitative research is the response could be bias towards the strong opinion of the person responding to the questions. During my pre-production for my documentary I watched a few different films that had an LGBT story line and looked at the viewing figures for the certain films. One of the films I watched  was Tongues United (1989) Directed by Marlon Riggs. The film's plot is about black men loving black men as a revolutionary act. The film inter cuts footage of men in social intercourse and dance and various other comic riffs. This film helped configure stats for my own documentary, with the different race and sexual orientation. The film itself has a 6.5 star rating out of 1 on IMDb and the reviews are extremely useful.

Data gathering agencies are responsible in collecting and maintaining data and operating data specific to the company. A few examples of data gathering agencies are BARB( Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) and IMDb and Boxofficemojo. BARB figures can be used to show different data for example if you are wanting to find out different data about films and TV shows. The week ending 1st May 2016 20.57% watch BBC1 shows in that week. Other than BARB, IMDb is also a very similar website to BARB where they collect figures on views of films, Although BARB only states the channel IMDb has individual film ratings, this helps if you are looking for ratings and views on a specific genre or film. Other information that IMDb offers is the box office and how much each film spent on budget (estimated) and how much gross they make in different countries and states.  Along with BARB and IMDb Boxofficemojo is very similar to the two. This website links very closely with IMDb, in the way that it shows the film expenditures and the gross that the film earns around different countries.

At a very early stage in pre-production its always best to establish your target audience before creating any media related work. This helps the idea of your product work and gives you a starting. For my documentary my target audience was young teenagers and young adults ranging from 13-24 this is the very beginning of the stage when young teenagers and young adults find what they want to do and how they feel towards different genders. After deciding your target audience you can then start market researching, for example making questionnaires and surveys that fit to your target audience or watching different adverts and documentary's that relate to your subject and your target audience. Demographic information is used in marketing to classify an audience into age, gender, race and other categories, they are then broken into different groups depending on jobs or status. Here is an example: 

As you can see each Job/Status is but into a letter code. Same goes for psychographics where they divide the market into groups based on social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics depending the product.

Here is the table for psychographics where they divide each personal characteristics into mainstreamer characteristics. for example Aspirer's who seek status, and are orientated to image and appearance, persona and fashion who are typically the younger generation.

Production research is always used when making a new product, its a very important part of the pre-production process. Pre-production paperwork includes: location recee's, location releases, talent releases, budget sheet, prop/costume list, shot list, storyboard, script, risk assessments and lastly production schedule/ call sheet. For my documentary I completed most of these sheets apart form prop/costume list, budget sheet, storyboard and script. The reason I didn't complete a budget sheet is because I didn't spend any money. During the pre-production process I emailed a few different companies enquiring about posters and stone wall company posted them for free. Each sheet has its own importance for example talent releases, with out getting a talent release signed you have no right to use the footage of them in your product.