Primary research is new research that you conduct independently. It is to find out specific questions. This can consist of conducting questionnaires, interviews and surveys.
Examples of Primary research in the media industry are test screenings for films. Film makers will show their product to a board of directors, financiers or audiences to see how the product will fare. Rouge One: A Star Wars Story, Gareth Edwards, 2016 has had to go through re-shoots as it was apparently too dark for the producers, compared to Star Wars The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams, 2015 which was light in its tone, so Disney wanted them both to be similar in tone.
Rouge One: A Star Wars Story being re shot because test audiences thought it was too dark and brooding.
Because Disney wanted it to fit more in line with the lighter Star Wars The Force Awakens.
In one of my past projects "An Unfortunate Abbreviation" which was about a local metal band 'Silence, The Defiler' and to understand in depth about the local metal scene and how this band was formed I conducted interviews with the band members. It was enlightening as instead of looking up prior research I could ask the band members questions on the spot and learn during the interviews.
Examples of interviews.
Secondary research:
Secondary research is when you find sources and make use of information that is already out there instead of conducting new research you're looking at existing research. In the media industry there are productions based off events that have occurred. And as the events actually happened creators want to to as much research as they can into certain events. When Steven Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan, 1998 he did extensive research into World War II to make the film as authentic as possible. He wanted to film the attack on Omaha beach sequence as authentic as possible, so to do this he looked at the 11 photos taken by Robert Capa on the day. Spielberg liked the blurry realism of the photos so much that when it came to shooting the film he wanted his cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to film with a handheld camera and experiment with different shutter speeds, lenses and frame rates to try to recreate the shots as close to the images to give the film gritty realism. The photos also helped with the Mise-En-Scene of the film, so the crew could get the costumes, weapons, boats and props as accurate as possible. Crew would have gone to a War museum to look at how everything in World War II would have looked.
Saving Private Ryan: The cinematography was influenced by Robert Capas War photography. Extensive secondary research was done to achieve the look of the film.
Sometimes Secondary research can hinder a production. A lot of films that Stanley Kubrick wanted to make were never made as he spent so much time researching like Napoleon for example. As when he was close to production Waterloo came out and flopped which made Kubrick leave the project behind.
Kubrick a known perfectionist often did so much secondary research on a film to the point of it not being made.
Some secondary research I've done is last year when I analysed existing 3 minute wonders. And without these already existing videos I wouldn't have been able to have researched 3 minute wonders. The layout of telling a story in three minutes was important to understand. And watching the videos influenced how I would make the documentary.
Quantitative research:
Quantitative research is a systematic empirical investigation which is often done through statistics, mathematics or computational techniques. In the media industry Quantitative research is great for finding out how a media product is doing critically from a general consensus on what critics and audiences thought of a it. The numbered results are added up and the film is given a general score. Websites like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes etc are the most common ones. IMDB is more audience based, whereas Rotten Tomatoes is a site aimed more at critics. So between the websites ratings of the films can differ because of this.
For example on Rotten Tomatoes the overall score for Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice is a 27% which means it is rotten. So the critics detested the film. On IMDB though the film received a general rating of 7.0 which would qualify as a good film. It shows a divide between the critics and audiences on the same film. That is a flaw with Quantitative research as people have individual opinions on a media product so you can't truly quantify if a product is good or bad because it comes down to personal opinion.
Rotten Tomatoes score
IMDB score
These websites show the divide between professional critics and general audience members.
The budget for films and how much it makes financially can also be shown on IMDB, which Hollywood can analyse to see what kind of films the mainstream public wants and what makes more money.
Most of my Quantitative research consists of surveys in which I sent to people to get a general consensus of what people thought of the projects I have made. Here is an example of one of my survey results which was for my Esting. I made a Questionnaire to find out general answers about the young demographic I was aiming for. So for example I asked what genders people were and their ages were so I could get specific answers.
Qualitative research:
Qualitative research is exploratory research. It is used to gain an understanding of reasons, motivations and opinions. It helps with adding improvements to a project and for what you can do with future projects. Usually in the media industry this is done by individual critics. Unlike Quantitative research where you normally just see a rating of a film, the critics opinion heavily impacts the rating of the product. Arguably Qualitative research is more informative as you hear not only the critics opinion but the technical aspects of a product in how it is good or bad. Examples could be Magazine reviews like Empire or Newspapers reviews like The Daily Mail. Magazines like Empire come out every month and primarily focus on films so they have a group of critics reviewing as many films as they can in the month and get reviews out with the magazines. Yet the magazine does have a website to put the reviews on so anybody can access them. The Daily Mail focuses less on media products as it is a newspaper, but it does have a select few critics who do film reviews.
As it is individual reviews the ratings can differ quite a lot. The film High Rise, 2016, Ben Wheatley got mixed review with critics. Empire gave the film 4 stars out of 5 saying that "Batshit crazy. Don't expect a thriller in the seat-edge sense, but you will be thrilled-and repulsed-by this bold, faithful adaptation of Ballard's ever-prescient picture of First World strife". The Daily Mail gave it 2 out of 5 stars because of it's over indulgent violence and sex and how the political commentary was force fed to the audience.
Empire Review
The Daily Mail review
With surveys I have sent off, I always ask for improvements or what could be better so I can change things or bring it towards an upcoming project. If I don't get any critical comments I can't develop my own skills when it comes to future media productions.
Examples of Qualitative research
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/8VZBXGL
Data gathering agencies:
BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) is a data gathering agency which was formed in 1981, to compile audience measurement and television ratings in the UK. It is jointly owned by BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky and the Institute of Practitioners in advertising. BARB put a reporting box in approximately 5,100 homes which represents around 12,000 citizens. The box records the exact data of what they watch. And demographics are analysed by buttons on a remote handset which identify the demographics. On demand sites like BBCiplayer are analysed on BARB now as well because a lot of people now watch shows in their own time on demand. Similar to sites like IMDB, BARB quantifies all of the audience data for it's results and analyses how popular a certain show is. BARB viewing figures can determine if a show is renewed.
BARB results for on demand programming
BARB results for Live programming
Another example of Data gathering websites are sites like RAJAR which is the equivalent of BARB but for the radio. It measures the audience figures of certain radio shows and stations and quantifies the data on what most people watch the most. Data is completed via a self-completion diary in which an adult (15+) and up to two children (10-14 years) fill them in selected households. Respondents are asked to sort through cards with the names of the radio stations in the area. This gets the stations known on RAJAR.
Statistics for RAJAR
KANTAR Media is a Media research agency in which its data is a measurement of audiences and the understanding of context and trends across media. Some of the datasets of KANTAR include audience profiles, purchase data, earned media occurrences, audience and media ratings. It looks at global results to quantify.
Purposes of research:
Audience and Market research:
Audience research is studying how a target audience will react to media which includes demographic and psycho-graphic details the audience and how they are exposed to different types of media. The habits of the viewer are analysed like what they listen to, read or view. This will dictate what the audience will want in a media production. It provides feedback so producers of the content know how to appease the mainstream or target audience. For example the BFI conducts audience research to make its films to a certain standard, by researching the audiences and how they'd potentially react to the film.
Market research is looking into what audiences want and need. Most media companies have Market research as a top business strategy to make sure the products that they make are suitable both financially and critically. It can be undertaken any time before launch, so for example once the film is made market research can be done so it can be advertised in a certain way. And as it is appealing to a specific market it builds interest. Like in the Captain America: Civil War trailer a lot of people wanted to see Spider-Man, so the studio decided to build audience expectation by showing the character briefly at the very end to build hype for the audience. They knew that this worked as they looked into what the fans liked and it may be a reason the film made a lot of money. It is also great as Marvel are competing with DC when it comes to making films based on comic books and Captain America: Civil War was in competition with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice so Marvel aimed to make a lot more money by including a character who is just as famous as Batman and Superman, but by including him in a film with a lot of recognizable characters.
Producers know showing Spider-Man in the trailer will get audiences excited.
The amount of views for the trailer.
Whenever I research audiences and markets I look into detail about the brief I have been given and analyse how different people would react to the project I will make. I look into demographics and psycho-graphics making sure that it will fit the target audience of the brief I have been given.
My first example is from when I had to re-brand a Unileaver product to a new audience. I chose to analyse Radox and aim for it to be aimed at a new audience. Radox is aimed at more adult audiences ranging from 25-40, yet I wanted to aim it at a millennial demographic that was niche. Almost a hipster marketplace. My original concept idea was to do Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino because it is a very popular film, but it didn't fit the mold of Radox, so I decided to make an advert based off of Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock. As it is a classic film that a lot of young people still admire, particulary young people with an interest in Cinema and art.
http://connorwrightcert.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/re-branding-unilever.htmlAnother example is when I looked up the styles and conventions of a music video. Looking into the different types of music videos for different genres made it easier to analyse where my music video would lie. I watched a lot of music videos to understand the grammar of how one works. Some are narrative based, whilst others are completley surreal and lack any traditional plot structure. Some are edited in a traditional music video style, by showing the band or artist playing music whilst a narrative goes on around them or a a music video could make an incredably powerful message. I knew how I'd be able to make a music video for a specific audience by knowing what types of videos the mainstream like to watch or ones that have a harder time finding a big audience because of the content or how it was made.
http://connorwrightcert.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/music-video-styles-and-conventions.html
Production research:
Production research is done whenever a new product is being made. You need to be able to plan out how a product is going to be made. Pre-production is extensively done so people who are making a project know what they're able to do all the way through production and post-production. Everything more or less has to be planned out before anyone can film anything. Even if the finished project doesn't fully reflect elements of production research like the storyboards for example, it is vital that there is at least a plan as hundreds to thousands of people will be in the process of making a media product. For example Apocalypse Now was extremely hard to shoot as the research into production wasn't to well looked into and a lot of bad things happened on set, like Marlon Brando turning up to set late into production and severely overweight and Martin Sheen having a heart attack. Examples like this is why you have risk assessments and do as much production research as you possibly can.
Apocalypse Now, 1979 had a lot of flaws on set mainly due to lack of production research.
Whenever I make a project I do extensive research into how I will make the project. As if I don't things could potentially go wrong. So whenever I have made a media product it makes my grade better when I planned it out and it makes the overall project better.
Here is an example of one of my bits of production research for my music video. Instead of doing a storyboard I planned out a Timeline in which I knew what I had to shoot and edit to thew time of the music. It helped with me getting the shots the right length and so forth. A rough shot list helped me to get a general idea for how it would look and play out before I went into detail with my other parts of pre-production. Whereas my synopsis was detailed so I knew the plot layout and general layout of things. Recces were good for me scouting out locations and seeing what places worked and what places didn't. Once I knew where I would shoot I got releases signed. I wrote a risk assessment to make sure that if anything went wrong at all I could get it sorted out with hopefully no hassle. And the actor release forms was written consent from the actors showing that they wanted to act in the project. All of this had to be extensively planned so I knew how to make the film.
http://connorwrightcert.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/pre-production-paperwork-music-video.html
Here is the blog in which the pre-production for the project is.
http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html
http://www.vulture.com/2012/11/how-steven-spielberg-cinematographer-janusz-kaminski-got-these-shots.html
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/batman_v_superman_dawn_of_justice/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2975590/?ref_=nv_sr_1
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-3498552/High-Rise-towering-ambitions-hunk-du-jour-Tom-Hiddleston-flaws-s-multi-storey-car-crash.html
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/high-rise/review/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcasters%27_Audience_Research_Board
http://www.rajar.co.uk/
http://www.kantarmedia.com/uk/our-data
http://www.slideshare.net/marleylong/audience-27055236
http://www.bfi.org.uk/film-industry/lottery-funding-distribution/insight-reports-case-studies-audience-research
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