Unit 3 Assignment 1 Research Techniques

QUALITATIVE Research -  This type of research is based on peoples opinions. For example, if you were to have a focus group for a film you have made, the feed back that they would give would be qualitative as they are giving thee opinion of the film.

QUANTITATIVE Research - This is the opposite to qualitative, as it includes numbers. For example, the money a film made at a box office over the opening weekend or for the whole duration. What demographics of male and females have been watching your production.

Advantages of QUALITATIVE Research:

• Can be used for future research
• Good source of information, it can be more detailed than quantitative research.
• Feedback can lead a project on the right path.

Disadvantages of QUALITATIVE Research:

• Sometimes can be too general, tricky to get exact results.
• can be less valid, could easily be untrue
• Result of quite a few variables (what, who, when, where)

Advantages of QUANTITATIVE Research: 

• Easy to analyse the results as you can out them in to graphs and charts and compare them to other graphs and charts from other research.
• The facts could be used to back up your opinion.

Disadvantages of QUANTITATIVE Research: 

• Cant really be used for future research as the date of when the research was made could effect when you can use them in the future (could be out of date)
• Results could sometimes be too simple, sometimes you need to know whats behind the figure and get details of what or who the figure represents.

I think that using quantitative research in pre production is best because it's a basic way of giving feed back. For example, if you used the ratings for when you piloted the production, this could tell you whether people liked it or not because if the ratings were low then the production wouldn't of been successful and there for you would need to make changes to it.

There are two different types of research that you can do to help you find things out about your production: 

• Primary research - This would be getting the data yourself e.g. going to the cinema and asking people to fill in a questionnaire that you have made. 
• Secondary research - Is research thats been done by somebody else that you would like to use. You should get permission to use this information and give credit to who it belongs to. 

The advantages of primary research is that its reliable. It's reliable because you know that it is isn't fake because you have done it yourself. You can be more specific with the data you want to get because you can make your research moulded around what you need. On the other hand, primary research can be time consuming and your response rate might be low because if you're simply standing outside the cinema asking people to tell you about their viewing experience of your film they might not be willing to talk to you. 

The advantages of secondary research is that it is fast, as you don't have to get the data yourself its already done for you. It's also cheaper as you won't need any money to get the data. The disadvantages of secondary data would be that the data isn't your own so it's not as reliable as primary data, it could also be dated. You need data to be current for it to be relevant to what you're trying to find out unless you deliberately want to know results from in the past. 

Primary research and Secondary research are both reliable, it all depends on you as an idvidual. Secondary research is reliable for data that you can't go and find out about yourself and primary research is reliable because you know that it's accurate and exactly what you're looking for. 

Before you start your production you need to know your demographic, and you need to look at productions that will be similar to yours to see what you can do to make yours the best it can be. This would be called market research. Market research is vital, because how can you make something and not know how? Looking at similar productions to yours is a very useful way to make your production better. For example, if you were making a horror film that had zombies in it and you thought you needed make the zombies more scary then you would research horror films with zombies in and pick out ideas and use them in your own way. 

Researching your demographic is very important because how can you make a production and not have an idea who you're making it for? This is audience research, if you research who has been watching productions similar to yours, this can give you and idea of who you should be targeting your production at. 

Using audience profiling can tell you exactly what people of certain age and gender are watching currently. This is a massive help in trying to identify your target demographic. The categories of audience profiling are: 

• Men aged 16-34
• Men ABC1
• Men C2DE
• Men 55+
• Women 16-34
• Women ABC1
• Women C2DE
• Women 55+
• Housewives with children 
• Children
• Boys & TV
• Girls & TV 

Production Research is vital because you need to know what you need to of achieved at the end of your production. Things that need to be taken into account are: 
Locations: are there locations that you can use that are easily accessible but suitable for what your production is about? A risk assessment of your locations is important so you know what safety precautions to take when filming at a location. Getting permission to film in public places is also very important because you can be prosecuted if you don't. 
Personnel: Your crew are more suitable if they are qualified, do they have the right skills? These things can make a big difference to the quality of your production.
Technical Resources: You need to work out what equipment you will need for your production, you also need to find out what equipment you can get that is the best quality possible but also within your budget. If you are hiring things then you need to find out if equipment is available for when you need it and it would be suitable to book equipment in advance to ensure that you will have everything you need.