Nature and Purposes of Research in the creative media industries

Primary Research

Primary research is research that you go out and collect yourself rather than source some of somebody else. This can be conducted in various ways such as interviews, observations and surveys.

For primary research I conducted interviews and also sent out questions via Twitter to gather information. I decided that observations would not really be useful for what I wanted to make and find out so decided to stay clear of this instead focusing on the other areas of primary research. For the interviews I spoke to knowledgeable people in the sector I was making my documentary on and got their input and asked them questions about my ideas to see if they were viable and if so to see if they were useful ideas.

Some examples from my project were using face to face interviews and recording what was said to then look back on and pull information from. As well as this I sent out some surveys to see what people wanted to see from a documentary looking at a local charity, this was extremely helpful as I didn't want to include content that people didn't want to see. As well as this I sent out some tweets on Twitter to see what people wanted to see and how they would want to see a video based on a local charity constructed (length,pace etc.)

Secondary Research 

Secondary research is the collection of already existing research instead of creating your own which would be primary research. 

For my 3 minute wonder I wanted to gain some inspiration from already existing 3 minute wonders so I looked across the internet for already existing ones. From these I then watched them to see how they had been constructed and what kind of tone they sent. This was important for me as I wanted to see exactly what 3 minute wonders were about and gain inspiration from parts. As well as this I also looked at some newspapers to see how charities were written about in print media and then saw if I could translate that into video form. 

For my secondary research I used both YouTube to find past 3 minute wonder videos and also newspapers to read about charities and see if the format could be translated into video form. 

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is a more data heavy style of research that provides evidence of what people think from a analytical point of view. 

To gain quantitative research for my 3 minute wonder I used the data that came from my primary research and then extracted the numerical data from this. This gave me an idea of what people wanted in a numerical format. Another way I conducted quantitative research was by looking at view counts  

on YouTube and seeing what made a successful documentary in terms of views especially in the charity sector. 

This is one of the most viewed documentaries on YouTube so I looked into why it was so popular and why it had such good reviews. This was because the documentary was so well made and explored something that hadn't been before. This gave me ideas of how to shoot my documentary and the content to include in it to keep people engaged, I also wanted to be able to show the real story and interesting people as this is what engaged me with the popular documentary on YouTube.

Qualitative research 

Qualitative research is a type of research where thoughts and feelings are recorded rather than numerical data. This is usually conducted in smaller samples and it looks at the relationships people have with certain things. In this example it would be the feelings and relationships that people have with media consumption. 

To conduct qualitative research I sat down with people and talked to them about my idea and what they thought of it, from this I could see what they thought of it and was able to collect their thoughts and feelings about the idea. Another way I did it was by asking for thoughts and feelings of the idea on my questionnaire and this was also a great way to produce qualitative data. 

To conduct this research I used my primary research and designated questions in this to extract qualitative research. To do this this I placed questions in there that would be able to capture the thoughts and feelings required to produce qualitative data. I also used interviews to be able to see the thoughts and feelings from people when talking about documentary ideas and I could see this first hand. 

Data Gathering Agencies 

One example of a data gathering agency is BARB, these compile TV statistics for the United Kingdom. They were founded in 1981 to take over the previous system which went by the name of JICTAR which was complied by ITV. The way BARB works is approximately 5000 households in the UK (11,500 people) have a box in their home which records what they are watching and who is watching it. This is then recorded and each box represents approximately 5000 people. This means that the end result is very much a representative result but BARB do say that their results are pretty much accurate. BARB figures are hugely important as it gives the TV producers feedback on what shows are working and what are not and also means TV channels can sell advertising space on their channel - viewing results are important as this determines the advertising attractiveness of the channel. 

IMDb is a data publishing website that provides a lot of information for films such as box office incomes and user reviews. This means you are able to keep up to date with how movies are performing with near enough live statistics and you can also compare to see if the money made in the box office directly relates with the user reviews. 

Box Office Mojo is also a website for movie statistics but provides much more detailed statistics. Where IMBd are much more user based and rely on their users to compile their data for them. Box Office Mojo go out and find their information on their own. Both are great websites depending on what kind of content you are looking for. 

Audience and Market Research 

There are many different methods used to research your audience and market. One good method of seeing what your audience is like is through the method of audience profiling where you group your audience into certain categories such as race, occupation, education etc. You can also look at demographics and see what grade your audience will be in, this varies from A grade workers who are in higher management right the way down to grade E which is the unemployed and students etc. 

Once you have looked at the consumer you can then look at the market and more research is needed for this. To do this you need to look at the market that you will be working in and see how that market is made up and where there is space to enter the market. You can look at market trends and market segmentation to see how you can promote movies and TV programmes and some companies even use SWOT analysis which is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to an idea. 

In my audience and market research I made sure I researched what other factual programmes were out there and if there was room for mine to enter the market. I didn't want to make something that was already out there so I researched it using market segmentation as this allowed me to cut the whole market down into sizable chunks to research. 

Production Research

There were many different factors that would determine if my idea was viable or not from a production point of view. First of all my location needed to be researched to see if it was ok to record at. After completing a few recces and assessing the best options I found my location as this was the best suited and safest for what I wanted to do.

In terms of costs I had this covered but I did research a few different ways of financing. I knew that the college could fund some expenses if needed and I also looked at some different grants that can be given to young creators and also the channel 4, 3 minute wonder  fund which helps first time directors with producing short 3 minute documentaries. Luckily though I didn't need any money to finance my 3 minute wonder due to me having all relevant equipment. 

The final thing that I needed to research in terms of production was personnel that would be a pivotal part in the production of my 3 minute wonder. I had to make sure I was in regular contact with the people in my production and also keep them in the loop with what was happening. Luckily the two people that were pivotal in the production of my 3 minute wonder were both very co-operative and helped a huge amount, this made my life very easy. 

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

http://www.imdb.com/

https://www.youtube.com/?gl=GB

http://benjaminfoundation.co.uk/home