Audience Research

Conducting Audience Research...

“Excellent” research into a potential target audience is actually quite simple - it means demonstrating that you have considered 5 things:

1.       Who you audience might be (demographics)

2.       What types of media they currently engage with (films, TV shows, music etc)

3.       Why they like those films/media (audience pleasures)

4.       What they think of your opening sequence idea.

5.       How your findings for the above 4 questions will influence your own production... how you will cater to your audience’s needs/desires?

How to do it... Option 1: Questionnaire.

Design a questionnaire with around 5-10 questions which investigates some of the following:

·         Age/gender of audience

·         How they see themselves as a film audience member (Movie buff? Casual audience? Goes to cinema but other people choose what to see?... try not to simply ask how often they go the cinema which doesn’t really tell you much about them)

·         Favourite genres/favourite films – why?

·         Favourite directors?

·         Favourite/memorable film sequence – why?

·         Favourite actors? – why?

·         Other media (favourite TV shows/music/games)

·         Write your opening sequence idea down in a couple of lines – then ask for some feedback.... this last one will be the most telling.

Once you’ve collated your responses to the questionnaire – write a short report which summarises what you have learnt about your audience. The points you make will depend on how you interpret the responses. 

How to do it... Option 2: "Talking Heads"

Do exactly as above, only instead of keeping it paper-based, pose the questions to individuals or pairs of people on camera then edit their answers together question by question... upload to Youtube, embed to your blog and post a summary of your findings.

Final note... NO PIE CHARTS!

This is what I think of pie charts...

Evaluation Questions

In the evaluation you must answer all of the following questions:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

You can start by answering each question in an essay style. But if that's all you upload to the blog - even if your answer is brilliant - you will get a maximum of half marks.

Your evaluation must be creatively addressed and it must utilise the functionality of the blog format. Blogs allow you to upload images, video clips, audio clips, webcam footage etc They also allow you to have bloglists, link lists, surveys and hyperlinks - you must try to embrace this technology and use it in your evaluation... Here's the marking criteria for an A-grade evaluation:

• Excellent understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production.

Excellent ability to refer to the choices made and outcomes.

Excellent understanding of their development from preliminary to full task.

Excellent ability to communicate.

Excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation

Here's an example of an evaluation which sits just within the Level 4 (A-grade) band: http://scasmediagwpahs.blogspot.com/p/evaluation-of-our-media-product.html

DEADLINES REMINDER

You should now have finished all planning and research. I'll be marking these slowly over the next week or so. If I spot any massive fails on your part I'll let you know and give you a new short deadline to fix it while I continue marking the rest.

PRODUCTION DEADLINE: Friday 9 March. This is a realistic guide as to when you should have finished filming and editing... its 2 weeks from now... Ultimately you have a further couple of weeks after that to hand in a DVD - but you have the evaluation to do aswell.

EVALUATION DEADLINE: Friday 30 March. This is the last day of term. Your grades will be sent off soon after this deadline - there will be NO extensions to the deadline.

Each individual needs to hand in a DVD featuring their preliminary task and opening sequence.

NO COPYRIGHTED MUSIC ALLOWED

You must think about and design your soundtrack well.

This includes:

• Looking for copyright-free soundtracks on the web (check under Resources on the left of this page).
• Recording 'wild track'
• Recording 'foley'
• Looking for sound effects (ask me for the DVD of sound effects and check Resources)
• Mixing everything together in Final Cut Pro

The rule against using copyrighted music is a strickly enforced one. If you download a soundtrack from a website such as incompetech get a screen-grab to prove it is royalty-free and post it to your blog like this:

Planning and Research Improvements Deadline: Mon 27 Feb.

Ok so none of your blogs are worth a level 4 (A/B) yet.


Most of you need to continue uploading planning documents such as storyboard, script and shotlist etc. Most of you also need to write up your audience research - write a summary of what you have learned from it or how it will influence your work.


All of you need to work on the presentation of your blogs. Add more images, embed more video and add more links to other blogs and websites... that is what blogs are meant to do.


Remember the level 4 grading criteria:


- Planning and Evidence will be complete and detailed
- There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience
- There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes and props
- There is excellent work on shotlists, storyboards, scripts
- There is excellent care taken in presentation
- Time management is excellent.




MAKE ALL IMPROVEMENTS BY 9am MON 27 Feb.

Shot-list

A shot-list is a checklist of all the shots you need to make your opening sequence. It needs to be specific. So if you are going to shoot a conversation you need to shoot the whole conversation in Midshot, over one shoulder in Close Up, then over the other shoulder in Close Up, then maybe over each shoulder again in Big Close Up. That's a total of 5 shots.... It will be the editor's job to cut it down into a flowing conversation.

You can use a blank shot-list form such as this... (Downloadable from Blackboard under 'course materials')

Cam Shot List

Scripting

Whether your opening sequence has dialogue or not, you must create a script for it. The script MUST appear in the correct format - or a very close approximation of it.

Scripts have very specific formatting rules. Have a look at the example below. It gives you some rules and asks you to observe and work out other formatting rules.

You script should look like the example given.

Type it up on word, then use http://www.scribd.com/ to upload it your blog - every member of the group should have it on their blog.

Scripting