Questionnaire Conclusion

 For my general market research I asked 20 people questions about their film consumption. My questionnaire results showed that 1/2 of my sample were students aged 18-25. Although it could be argued that my research was slightly biased as it was predominately extrapolated from a particular social group, this will become my target audience as I have a lot of accessible information from this group of students ranging from 17-25. Additionally by having an answer influenced by students this means my film trailer, poster and magazine will be tailored well to their needs.

For my film campaign I decided to focus in on genre - drama. To narrow this down I learnt a total of 2/3 prefer the subgenre of thriller drama which is a popular in today’s film market but as 50% of my sample would describe themselves as an ‘alternative market’ and 75% seek out films to watch, I could combine the thriller aspect with a docu-drama feel -like one of the film I analysed ‘This is England’- to go against the typical conventions in Hollywood and create a film trailer, poster and magazine cover of an ‘indie’ or ‘art-house’ nature. As my audience is predominately students or young adults this will appeal to this large market as they are new generation looking for different avenues of media text.

In my questionnaire I asked questions concerning how my trailer should be constructed. I discovered that 75% of the 20 felt that a trailer was vital in persuading them to go and see a film. Therefore I must ensure the trailer is engaging for the audience by using the enigma code which 19 of my questionnaire audience felt was effective in leaving an audience in suspense. This links to the figures that just below 50% preferred the trailer to pick out the best bits so although I’m not making the whole film it does not have to self-explanatory. Therefore by capturing a contrast of high action and low action scenes this will draw an audience in successfully to watch the hypothetical film.

My questionnaire then went on to explore my audience’s view on posters for the second part of my media coursework. The majority said the actor in the film attracted them to a poster. However graphics (including photographs) came in as the second most popular and therefore I will utilize that data as my film will be in an alternative style so the actor will not be that prolific thus I will need other ideas, images or graphics to gain the audience’s attention.  Furthermore I will also include critics’ quotes on my poster as this made 60% of my sample go watch the film. This will be useful for my advertisement poster as it corresponds to the other ideas, images or graphics I will need to make my poster professional and effective.

Out of the 4 magazine covers I analysed, each were very different. Although the alternative magazine ‘Little White Lies’ used a drawn image I’m going to use a photo of the director which is more like the magazine ‘Sight and Sound’ as it allows the cover lines to be based around the production of my film which was demonstrated by my questionnaire as being the favourite topic of featured article.

With this information from my questionnaire and wider research I am now able to create the foundations for my trailer in a story board format as it gives me a loose structure of how to make it appeal to my target audience and conform to my chosen genre.