Audience Research 2 - Analysis

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After a period of one week I had received fourteen responses from the GR media social networking page that related to my audience research questionnaire 2. I felt that this was a low response, but I was grateful nevertheless to the participants who had taken an interest.

With reference from the Audience Research questionnaire automatically generated responses, I have analysed the results and submit my conclusions below for each question, as the results from several questions varied to individual preferences from the fourteen participants.

Age of participant
The oldest participant was 48 and the youngest participant was15
The mean age of the fourteen participants is 25.6 years old
The range of the ages is 33 years old
The statistically median age is 18 years old

From the different forms of averages, it can be concluded that the method of this internet based questionnaire attracted a variation in ages. Although a particular age group for target audiences is nice to keep the majority happy, it is great to know that people from different generations can enjoy socially driven films.

Gender of participant
I had an even number of participants from both genders who responded.

Which film engaged you the most?
Seven participants concluded that ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’ engaged them the most, while seven participants felt more engaged with the film ‘About a Girl’. I decided to look at this more closely from their individual responses to see if my five participants who were over the age of twenty, were more inclined to prefer one particular film over the other. Two older males preferred ‘About a Girl’, and the two older females along with the other older male preferred ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World.

I repeated this analysing to the younger participants and now, I can firmly conclude that altogether there was definitely a gender divide with five females more engaged with ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’ and five males preferred ‘About a Girl’. Consequently, males in general are inclined to be drawn to a film that has a female protagonist and women are more inclined to be drawn to emotional stirred films that involve male characters and children. From a psychological point of view this is demonstrating their nurturing nature.

In order for my own film to be successful, I will have to implement a firm mixture of both, to ensure it not only captures the imagination but it is implemented with empathy along with gripping suspense that both genders will enjoy.

How did this film engage you?
There was a mixed response to this question; however imagery and issues came out on top. This supports my belief to the above conclusion and I will now endeavour to apply.

About a Girl
Does the title ‘About a Girl’ reflect the film?
Twelve participants agreed that it did, whilst two participants were in disagreement. I looked closely at the two responses that disagreed, which were both from the older age group. Maybe, they were more inclined to feel that the title should have been more appropriate to the issues the girl in the film had experienced.

Please rate the amount of dialogue for this film.
On the scale rating, five participants had indicated there was a perfect amount of dialogue, whilst eight participants chose to state that they felt there was slightly too much dialogue.

I chose to implement this question within this questionnaire, as I had previously discovered from within my short script article analysis that most short films work better with minimal speech. As this was evident from the majority of my participants, I will now have to adhere to implement minimal speech, when I start to create my own scripts.

Which issues did this film highlight?
A lot of the participants chose to select several options, with Teenage pregnancy, relationships, poverty and the need for attention being the popular choices. However, one young female also chose the option ‘violence’. The final scene of the film depicts the young protagonist throwing a plastic bag containing the baby into the river; an audience can assume the baby was already dead, but how did it originally die? Was it through an act of violence? I never really looked into it that deeply when I had originally analysed the film and the option ‘violence’ was placed in the questionnaire as a red herring. I now realise in order for a film to be completely successful all angles of issue representation have to be established from a viewer’s perspective.

Was the final scene expected?
Twelve participants indicated that the final scene was not expected, while two older participants had decided that they did expect the final scene.

Do you feel teenage pregnancy is a negative issue?
There was an even response to this question and on analysing this further; there was no real pattern to the response. Therefore age and gender did not help me establish the participants thinking strategies.

The Most Beautiful Man in the World
Does the title ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’ reflect the film?
Ten participants decided the title did not reflect the film, but four participants actually felt that it did. Three of the participants that did agree, were from the older age group. This tells me that they obviously could relate the title to the content from within the film. Perhaps from an emotional point of view as I had previously established from my own analysis of this film that the male’s beauty is from within, as he showed a caring nature towards the young protagonist and this is in complete contrast to the mother’s behaviour, that displays a lack of empathy towards her young child.

The film contains very little dialogue. Could you identify the storyline?
Eleven participants could identify the storyline and three did not. Two of the participants that could not identify the storyline were male, one being from the older age group and one who was just fifteen, therefore age is irrelevant. However, both of these participants had originally chosen the film ‘About a Girl’ to be the one that had the most impact on them, maybe the storyline of this film was more evident.

This has given me a need now to make sure that my own product has an easy to follow storyline.

How would you describe the pace of the film?
Nine of the participants felt the film was well paced, while five felt it was moderately slow. I believe this answer is down to personal preference and how engaged with the film the participant was.

What could you establish about the class and status of the protagonist?
It was established that eleven of the participants thought the protagonist to be from the lower class of society, whilst three participants believed the protagonist was from a working class background. What we see and perceive is a good element to portray whilst I am developing my story synopsis.

What issues did this film highlight?
There were various answers to this question, but the majority of participants highlighted the keys issues of neglect, isolation and relationships. One older male participant offered an alternative suggestion, by conveying the issue of child custody.

By placing this question on the questionnaire it has bought to light that a well-constructed film clearly highlights key areas and this is what I must certainly try to achieve in my final product.

Final Questions
Would you like to view more short films in the future?
One male participant from the older age group indicated that he did not wish to view more short films in the future and he represents 7.14%.

Seven participants said yes, they would like to view more short films in the future and they represent 49.98%

Six participants indicated that they may like to view a short film in the future and these people represent 42.84%

Which of these films would you recommend to a friend?
This question was applied for personal preference and the answers varied between the participants.

Answer (None) three people – All from the older age range.
Answer (Both) four people – One from the over twenties and three from the under twenties
Answer (About a Girl) – One older male participant, three younger male participants and one young female participant.
Answer (The Most Beautiful Man in the World) Two young female participants.
These responses coincide with the question - Which film engaged you the most? Consequently, confirming my prior conclusion.

Please feel free to add any extra comments below.
There was only two participants, who offered extra comments, one being an older male stating that he finds social realist films very bleak in their outlook, while an older female participant wrote -.

Both films tended to convey the sense of isolation and poverty of working/lower classes, also a lack of hope. Social realism should not always portray the bleak side of life as this is not an accurate representation of real life.

I personally respect the aforementioned comments, but I would just like to say that no matter what class and status a person is from, the majority of society at one point or another in their lives, have endured a bleak issue and many people take comfort from viewing a socially emotional driven film and especially one that highlights a solution.

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