The Nature and Purposes of research in the Creative Media Industries

Primary research:

Primary research is research acquired by the person finding it so they can get specific and trustworthy new data. This can be found through a variety of different methods such as surveys, questionnaires, polls and interviews. "Research means you don't know, but are willing to find out" - Charles F Kettering.

Some primary research I've done is a survey I made to find out what the interests and issues were with the public (especially teens and students) and teen movies, more specifically the portrayals of teens in those films, as well as seeing whether they would be interested in my own pitch for a teen movie. Embedded above is the results of the survey which I have analysed to help in the production of my screenplay.

A large part of primary research in the media industry is test screenings for new TV shows and movies. These test screenings can provide great input from general viewers and fans of franchises alike in helping make small tweaks to a movie before its eventual release. An example of a test screening impacting a movie is Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' (1979), in which he responded to the reviews he got back "my nerves are shot, and my heart is broken". However, if it weren't for the criticisms received from the screening the movie wouldn't have shaped into the classic it is today, as well as showing the professional film industry that test screenings can be a valuable source of public opinion.

Secondary research:

Secondary research involves using already acquired information and data to find things out. this could be from reading a book or case study or looking at statistics and ratings. Secondary research can be very vital to a lot of topics so long as the research itself is from a trusted and credible source, rather than the ramblings of somebody who has lost the plot or is manipulating the truth, a prominent feature in many historical writings, making way for the quote "History is written by the victors" - Winston Churchill.

Some secondary research I've conducted was finding the demographics for Ben and Jerrys ice cream when I was rebranding Ben and Jerrys ice cream for a new demographic. For this I had to study previously analysed consumer data charts on the age, income, race, education and other factors on what sort of people are more or less likely to purchase Ben and Jerrys products.

Secondary research is used a lot in the professional film industry, especially for historical and scientific films. A good example of secondary research taking place in the industry is for James Camerons 'Titanic' (1997), where James Cameron did a good amount of research into the ship itself, making the boat in the film as accurate to real life as possible, accounting for the 16 lifeboats and 4th purely aesthetic smoke stack, as well as making reference to various historical characters from the incident, including Isidor and Ida Straus, the owners of Macy's who gave up their spots on the lifeboat.

Pro's and con's/comparison:

Primary research is a good source of data that is both reliable and specific to what you need answers/data for, but can be a lengthy process involving finding volunteers or getting back any surveys or questionnaires you've sent out, which isn't a good option for someone on a short deadline. Secondary research can also provide a lot of data and can take a short amount of time to complete or a long amount of time to complete, however the data acquired is potentially false so when looking for existing research fact-checking and finding reliable sources could take up some time.

While both have pros and cons, they both serve a useful purpose conditional on what type of production they are being used for. A film based on a historical event, place or person would use a lot of secondary research for accuracy, especially things like journals and paintings/photographs from that point in history to gain a better understanding of the setting.

Quantitative Research:

Quantitative research usually involves data that can be shown numerically and be given values and statistics, like graphs and averages. Usually it consists of non-specific and wide-spanning data that benefits from a larger data pool. "The advantage of the analytical approach is that it is widely applicable, and it can provide a considerable amount of quantitative information even with a relatively poor resolving power." - Christian de Duve.

An example of quantitative research I have done is as part of the survey mentioned in the primary research part of this post, with a flip book of just quantitative data from the results shown above.

In the professional industry, reviews for shows and movies have a quantitative factor on top of a written review. Many sites, newspapers and other review articles will use an 'out-of' system or a percentile system for a mass consensus on the production, with RottenTomatoes.com having a 'tomato meter', which generates a percentage rating made from every review pooled, and the higher the percentage the more people like it.

Qualitative Research:

Qualitative is a lot more specific than quantitative and can't be subject to statistical analysis. It is most commonly used as a written opinion on something, and details an often personal, in-depth analysis of a matter. Like quantitative it is still useful to collect as many different sources as possible, however a smaller number should still be considered. "As every bookie knows instinctively, a number such as reliability - a qualitative rather than a quantitative measure - is needed to make the valuation of information practically useful" - Hans Christian Von Baeyer.

Like with quantitative, my example for qualitative comes from my survey, and shown above is just the collected qualitative data which is a lot more specific and personal to each respondent.

In the professional industry qualitative is also used for reviews, however is much more insightful than a rating system. Many critics are upheld in the industry and are praised for their critical reviews on productions, with many people using these reviews to decide whether a film is right for them to watch or not. The rotten Tomatoes latest reviews page shows all of the most recently made reviews by trusted critics, and each one while being given a rating out of ten also has the written piece provided by the reviewer which goes into more specifics of how they perceived the production.

Pro's and con's/comparison:

Quantitative research is a quick and efficient method of finding generalised and common answers which increase in accuracy the more respondents and sources are attributed to the data required. Overall, if you need a generalised or quick consensus on something, such as finding a target demographic and non-specific interest and feedback quantitative excels. If you're looking for a more in-depth analysis focusing on specifics then qualitative is your best bet, as while taking more time than quantitative can be much more informational and specific to a topic. this could be a personal response to something such as an interview or a comment on a topic.

Data gathering agencies:

Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB):

BARB collects and distributes data based on the UK television audience, collecting information on who is watching what and when and how they're watching it. BARB collects data using two methods: The BARB panel and through device-based census data. The BARB panel consists of 5,300 homes (200 of which are broadband only) which cover households of every demographic, geography and TV platform to establish an accurate reading on what each of them is watching and subsequently sorting the data into demographics. The census data is collected from 40 different Broadcaster Video On Demand (BVOD) services, which when used by a device it will collect code to be generated into viewing data that shows what was watched and for how long. The viewable data from this gives a total to the number of PC's, phones and tablets being used to watch live-streamed and on demand programmes.

BARB 'what we do' page

IMDb:

IMDb provides a massive database of movies, programmes, cast, crew and more using a multitude of research methods from reviews to interviews. A subsidiary company of Amazon, IMDb is a huge source of information for things related to the media industry, whether it be a film recommendation or an information page on an actor or director, including stuff about their personal and professional life.

IMDb home page

Boxofficemojo:

Boxofficemojo is a website run by the IMDb pro service that stores data on Box office sales, whether it be daily or yearly, domestic or international. it details many things ranging from average gross value of a years worth of movies, to a showdown between Adam Sandler's 'worst' movies in statistics.

Audience and Market research:

Audience and market research from what I've found appears to be research done by companies, either for themselves or another employing company, to see what the target market wants out of a product and the customers it attracts. It uses a wide variety of primary and secondary research to achieve the results it needs, as the audience and market are complicated due to the uniqueness of every person's expectations of a product. 

"The process of gathering, analyzing and interpreting information about a market, about a product or service to be offered for sale in that market, and about the past, present and potential customers for the product or service; research into the characteristics, spending habits, location and needs of your business's target market, the industry as a whole, and the particular competitors you face"

Link to Prezi - An example of market research I've undertaken was looking at trends and gaps in the current film market so that I could plan my script proposal around it's success factors and selling points, like finding unique things to accomplish but also try and find a trend that will boost the success of the idea into a mainstream audience.

 An example from the professional film industry is once again test screenings, which provide a good outline on how the general audience will react to a movie.

Production research:

Production research involves finding things required for a production. This can include any copyright laws that might be infringed by a production, the locations a production can use, what suppliers will be used, etc. It's a very important part of the pre-production process and almost all pre-production work can come under production research, especially the financing and release forms. 

An example of production research I've had to do was the pre-production paperwork for my DepicT! task. 

This was vital to the success of the project as without any planning for the budgets or use of time the production could have passed the deadline and gone over budget. Specifically the research within the paperwork is in the location recces, which required us to go out to different places and look into their suitability for what we were trying to shoot based on safety, availability and accessibilty. The rest of the paperwork is all planning for the production such as scheduling and budgeting, however for the budget we had to research the costs of the various props.