Understand the nature and purpose of research in the creative media industries

     Research is essential to all aspects of creative media for more reasons than one, It could be to find a target audience, or to find the best way of selling a product to someone or even just to see if someone would watch a film but whatever it's for it is important to know how to conduct the research effectively  the purpose of the research and how to research data. I will be looking at all of this vital information throughout this post.

Methods of research:

   
     A widely used form of research is primary research, this meaning it is research conducted by you and there are many different ways of conducting this research such as using questionnaires like I did for my re marketing campaign of Tekken or there are more extravagant ways like interviews, observations, audience panels and even test screenings. Some test screenings have changed films drastically and there is a large list of them such as Australia staring Hugh Jackman, Titanic and even 28 Days Later.

     Another form of research is secondary research, meaning conducted by other people that you use, a mass source of secondary research is the internet with websites such as IMDB, Wikipedia and many others we even used IMDB and, Box office mojo and Wikipedia and other similar websites for our research. There are many other forms though such as books or archives, TV programs and even YouTube. The popular TV show Who Do You Think You Are? Would use some kind of archives to find out their information on relatives for the appearing guests, there are more ways of obtaining information however. There are some company's out there that monitor views on television programmes, radio broadcast's and even magazine sales these companies are BARB for television show's, RAJAR for radio broadcast's and ABC for magazine sales, if you wanted information on any of this it would be secondary research as these companies are conducted the research and not you. However there is more types of research available.



     Another type of research that can be used is quantitative research , This is data which can be expressed numerically as percentages such as fixed facts, viewing figures, box office data. The easiest ways to obtain such information is with questionnaires using closed questions and simple multiple choice answers I done this with my questionnaire for Tekken, giving me graphs and results to use in my prezi. Quantitative research is often used to place people in larger groups rather than taking them to be an individual and information will be collected through questionnaires, Online or through the phone, the information received however is not very detailed but there is ways of obtaining much more detail.



     Quantitative data is all about the facts and figures where as qualitative data is all about the detail, and will try to be tailored to a persons needs or large amounts of qualitative data can try to tailor it for multiple needs. This includes more open ended questions which can be included in questionnaires, I even done some in my Tekken survey to try and get the most accurate results possible.This method will be used when we don't know what to expect and it can be gathered in multiple ways through focus groups, In-depth interviews, uninterrupted observations and many more ways, so in theory test screenings with in-depth interviews with the audience members after the film would be a method of qualitative research leading to changes in films like Titanic because too many people said it was too long or other things just like Pride and Prejudice and how the UK audience rejected the American ending because it was too sappy.



     There are many was to obtain all this information and some companies specialize in obtaining information, these companies are one's like BARB, RAJAR, ABC and even IMDB, Some of these companies have been mentioned before others not. For example companies like BARB and RAJAR obtain information on ratings and can see how well a particular show or program is doing such as you can look at BBC one and see the ratings for Strictly Come Dancing compared to the ratings for ITV's X factor and then companies like IMDB would gather information on films such as there budget and the world wide gross they have made. For example on IMDB's website it tells you that the budget for X-Men First Class was $160, 000, 000 and the world wide gross the film made was $352, 616, 690 so not only is this given you accurate information on the budget but it can also give you information on the cast, crew and even a break down of the story line. Although there are all these forms of research it is important to understand the purpose of the research allowing you to carry out the most effective form of research needed.



Purposes of Research

     It is important to know the purposes of any research even if it is something as simple as working out weather the audience will like the newest James Bond film of if it is something a little more in-depth like finding out what kind of genre's a certain audience likes, how old they are and asking open questions to get the most in-depth answer possible. It is a good idea to ask the audience what they think to get some audience data but when doing it you ill often end up with audience profiling based on their demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, and class all of these things can contribute to stereotypes as it might appear that there is a higher percentage of people aged between 12 and 16 that prefer violent or action films leading to the stereotype that younger people tend to be more violent but however this could be crucial information to make sure a marketing campaign does well, for example The Expendables 2 might be aimed at a teenage or Young adult male audience meaning audience profiling and stereotypes are needed to find what sells a film to the target market. However these are based off just Demographics and are very fixed answers where as Psychographics is more about individual people and their personalities one which links into this is geodemographics which is about where people live although this is very closed in can give us an insight into their daily lives but may also create more stereotypes.



     Although it is one thing researching to understand you audience and how to get the best ways for them to see a film it is also important that you understand the competition in the market and also being able to get a good competitor analysis, being able to spot a good time for the release and not having to compete with another big film to draw the crowds in just like how during 2012 the film Total Recall although it is a fairly big film it had to compete at the similar time against The Bourne Legacy and there were many other films like it competing for the title of the best summer block buster. So it is important to know the competition and what they plan to do, however before even getting this far you have to know the purposes and full fill in detail the production research.



















     Before the actual production starts it is important to conduct research on a variety of things such as viability. Will it succeed? If so what price are you looking at for a budget and how much will each thing cost? After that it is important to consider content so if it will contain blood or violent images or anything else for example films are age categorized and TV shows by what time of day they are being shown such as The Walking Dead is shown after 9 o'Clock so after the water shed to try to protect children from seeing it however cinemas are a lot more secure due to the age restrictions. On top of that you have to consider what technological resources you want to use and do you have the required personnel to do everything you want, Not just for the technical side but for everything including the cast. You also have to consider locations, where you are going to shot when and will it be in or outside and what release forms will you need, all of this plus more has to be considered before production even starts otherwise things can easily go wrong.



























Assessing Research data

     After gathering all of the required research it is important to asses them and make sure they are valid although it can be difficult to get valid results for multiple reasons. One being that when people are asked to fill out questionnaires and other things they might rush or not give appropriate answers so it is important to ask an appropriate audience other wise you might just get answers you want to hear rather than what they actually think, if this was to happen at test screenings when asked to fill out surveys films that we know and love such as Australia, 28 Days later, Titanic and Pride And Prejudice could have all turned out very differently.


























     It is also important to try and get the most reliable results possible although this can be more difficult than it first seems, as said before people may rush surveys and questionnaires leaving you with results that are not appropriate or accurate and are there fore not reliable so once again it is important to ask a appropriate audience but also if you are asking more than one person you must make sure that the questions and method being used are appropriate for the task and also that when repeated to someone else that it is done under the same conditions.




     Whilst assessing the research you must consider representatives as this could affect the results given. Using audience measurement panels you can determine who is watching something rather than how many people are watching it so if asking a group of people after a test screening you can determine where they are from and how it affected the results for example this could mean Americans are more found of the film Shutter Island than the British or maybe that the British are more found of Harry Potter than the Americans  anything like this can have a spin on results and once again this leads back to Psychographics and Geodemographics of where people live and how this can effect personalities or views on certain things. This method can be used to give us a wider range of results especially if a representative of a area or region is in the audience.

   
     All things consider when gathering data you must make sure that you know the purpose of the research and then use the correct method to gather the required data needed but it is also important that you ask the right audience so that you can make sure you gather valid and reliable answers rather than rushed, inappropriate and untruthful answers. All of this can lead to many ways and means of gathering data using methods appropriate for the cause and can help make sure you get honest answer and hopefully lead to a projects success.


Bibliography:
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/10-films-drastically-changed-after-test-screenings.html
http://www.rajar.co.uk/
http://www.barb.co.uk/
http://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/quantitative-qualitative-research/
http://www.imdb.com/
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/873069/the_big_blockbusters_of_summer_2012.html