Hello I am Daniel Hopkins and in this podcast I will be looking at the marketing campaign for a walk among the tombstones, producer’s research techniques and finally describing my exit poll results for the aforementioned film.

Firstly, I will be looking at the types of research used by producers in the various stages of production for a film.

Throughout they will be using primary, secondary, qualitative and quantitative research.

Primary research is research conducted by an individual or a company themselves and may include interviews, surveys and questionnaires. This means that questions can be tailored to your needs, but can be expensive and time consuming.

Secondary Research is the collection of existing data as opposed to going out and collecting it yourself. It is faster and cheaper to collect than primary research but may not be entirely specific to your needs.

Qualitative research is data that is in a lot of detail and may feature individual assessments and opinions.

Quantitative research is data that features results on a mass scale, using numbers and percentages. The data isn’t usually very specific to individuals, instead looking at people on the whole.

An example of primary research are surveys. These will be conducted pre-production and may be given to a certain group of people or simply anyone, depending on the film that is being made. The questions will generally ask whether people want another film of a certain genre and what they think makes a film good. By using the opinions of the public, producers will then try to create a film that they believe appeals to people and will be successful. They may even ask specific questions such as what actors and directors they like. Questions like this can be both qualitative and quantitative research, as people may only give answers such as yes or now or be required to go into more detail. For example, they may have to state the reason they enjoy a certain type of film.

An example of secondary pre-production research is the use of various websites to view information about a film. The British Film Institute, or BFI, has a database of dozens of exit polls from films over the previous few years. They include the results of answers from questions such as how people found out about the film, which will help producers create a marketing plan and, general things such as what they thought of the cast and the story. The IMDB website also offers statistics and figures on how much the film made and over how long. It shows how much a film made in each country, how many screens it was shown on and the final box office takings. Producers will be able to see how much a certain type of film generally makes and if it is worthwhile to create another one. This type of data I have described will be in quantitative form as it deals with monetary numbers and the amount of people who selected an answer on an exit poll.

As a form of primary research post production, producers may create exit polls for cinemagoers to their film. They may ask questions such as how the person found out about the film and whether they enjoyed it. This will then help them know whether or not their marketing campaign was successful and whether the film was well received, which will subsequently affect their future production decisions. By finding information out about the individual, producers may then be able to find out the general age of the film viewers as well as their gender and social classification. This will also help to plan future films, as they may have been trying to target certain audiences.

A producer or director of a film may organize test screenings as a form of primary research post-production. This includes gathering a select amount of people from the intended target audience for the film and giving them a screening of it before its general release. The audience then discusses with the producer or director what they think would make it better as well as what they enjoyed about it. This then gives the filmmakers the chance to go back to the editing phase of the film as well as being able to film additional scenes where needed, to help it to appeal to more people. An example of a test screening affecting a film is from one for the movie ‘titanic’. People complained about its length and James Cameron subsequently cut 10 scenes adding up to nearly half an hour from the final cut.