Short Film Audience Research

In order to find out more about my chosen audience (teenagers aged 14-18) to produce an effective short film which adheres to them, I decided to carry out a questionnaire whereby I asked a range of questions to those asked. The questionnaire covered three areas; audience film consumption; film posters; and magazine reviews. Below, I have displayed these results in the forms of graphs, each with an evaluative comment explaining the outcome of the question asked and the effect this has on the short film which I produce.

The opening question of my questionnaire was to classify the gender of those asked. The reason for this is because this will greatly affect and influence the responses the rest of the questionnaire since opposite genders have different prefereces. Out of the 13 people asked, the ratio of females to males was 9:4. In a way, this could probably reflect the ratio of females to males in the world in the sense that from this, it could arguably be said that there are more females. From this, I could therefore presume that more female teenagers would be likely to watch the short film I produce. However, this is based on a small proportion of people and so it would be improper to conclude that this result is the overriding statistic for the rest of the world.

To find out the preferred choices of film genre, I offered a multiple answer question and the result was that all subjects enjoyed comedy films, or at least those with a comical element. The next popular genre was romance however, this should in a way be disregarded considering how two thirds of those answering were female, and as we all know, the romance genre is typical of females. The third most popular result was action which shows people like to watch energetic and lively scenes. From these results, I can say that in terms of how they will affect the short film I produce, it would be strongly recommended that I integrate a comical style as this is what my results conclude. I should also avoid considering making a short film consisting of sci-fi, crime, mystery or the documentary style since these were adequately unpopular genres.

It would seem that the majority of those whom I questionned rather enjoyed films which had a moral. This result will have a great influence upon my own short film as it shows I should try to include some form of message towards my audience. By doing this, it would also mean I would be creating a multipurpose film since not only would the film be produced for entertainment, but there is also a reason behind it. If I choose to do this, the short film I create will need to strongly support this message as this will help with producing a strong narrative which makes sense.

All males asked claimed that they watch short films, and two thirds of females asked stated they watched short films too. This shows that there is a large audience of teenagers who watch short films, thus showing that my decision in producing a short film aimed towards teenagers was a good choice to make since there are a number of people who are likely to therefore watch my film.

It appeared that short films were not seen on a frequent basis with the majority of those asked. However, they did watch short films. This result will give me an idea as to how often my own short film is likely to viewed.

From this, I can see that the topic of films is used in conversations and that people are likely to discuss and in turn, recommend films to each other. This also shows that by word of mouth is the best distribution method due to communication. It can therefore be guaranteed that the short film which I produce is likely to be talked about, even if for a brief moment, but this increases the chance of people watching my short film.

The point of this question was that it would show where the best place would be for me distribute my short film to in terms of which media is used to view films the most by teenagers. The format which appeared to be most popular was that of television, but this is to be expected as the majority of films are bound to screen on television after release in cinema and as a DVD/ VHR. Furthermore, this method of viewing films is free whereas to watch a film in cinema or for home viewing requires money, therefore is widely accessible to a larger number of people. Of course, the cinema would also be rather popular as this is the first place people go to watch films. If I was to have my short film screened in a cinema, the best chance of having it viewed would be by having it shown during the advert period before the feature film is shown (where the feature film's target audience is teenagers). In all honesty, all choices of viewing were popular with those I posed the question to showing that I could use any form of media to show my short film since all are used by my target audience.

From the last question, as I noticed half those asked used social networking sites to view films, I decided to further ask which of the popular networking sites they were members of. It seemed that everyone has a Facebook account and considering the rising popularity of Facebook in the world today, to upload my short film to this site (either using my own account  and relying on my friends to spread the word of my film or requesting to have it as an advert link) would be the best way to distribute my film. Furthermore, since it is quick to do and requires little or no money, the audience would be able to view the film for free, thus being a factor which would make them more likely to watch my short film.

This result shows that even though everyone asked was a member of at least one social networking site, only 4 of the 13 actually used this as a method to stream or link video clips. However, even though this seems a small number of people, it only takes one person to start a chain reaction and spread word about something for it to become more popular therefore, I would not see this as too much of an issue if I were to decide to distribute my short film online through a social networking site.

To also help with research about film marketing, I asked for the ways in which people received information about films from. The most commonly occurring result was that people heard through friends, thus showing that conversations and communication are the way most people spread word. The next popular category was the internet. This helps with the marketing section of my short film as it goes to show that the internet is an extremely helpful and useful method if one wants information to be spread. Furthermore, since the internet is global, it means that my short film would be read about from all corners of the world, expanding on the number of people who would watch it.

As just over half of the subjects being asked responded that they did read film reviews, this shows that the ancillary task of producing a magazine review is important and that when it comes to designing the writing the text for the review, I should try and include as much information about the film as possible as this will be a productive way to hook and persuade readers, and my target audience, to watch my short film.

As many people's decisions appear to be persuaded by what they read, this shows that the discourse of my magazine review is extremely important as it would help determine the decisions of whether a number of people would watch my short film. This therefore means that the magazine review will be a critical selling point for the consumption of the short film which I make.

To find out where is best to advertise my short film and place the posters, I decided to question my subejcts where they are most likely to see film posters. It seemed that the majority of them saw posters for films in the cinema which is understandable since the cinema is a mini film world and would want to use these posters to persuade consumers to watch films. The next popular area was in magazines and newspapers, and the effect this has on my short film poster is that the context of where a text is placed needs to be payed much importance. Taking a magazine as an example, the pages are normally flicked through and not payed much attention, aside from the sections which the reader wants to read, and so placing a film poster in here means that it would need to be eye-catching and prominent in order to catch the reader's attention in the split second that the page may pass their eyes. The same goes for if the poster was to be placed on a bus; people would not have time to read any text since the bus would be moving most of the time so the idea of using text in this case should be dismissed. Instead, it would be the image which catches the most attention, as well as a unique, bold title so that passer-bys on the street would know the name of the film being advertised, and would be able to remember it.

Since it was claimed that many of the people do pay attention to film posters, it means that this needs to be payed great attention to since the film poster is one of many methods used in marketing to sell the film to the audience. This means that what is placed on the film poster will need to do give enough information to the audience to have an idea of what the film is about, whilst also creating enigma codes to make them curious about the film and whilst also conforming to the conventions of short film posters.