Harriet Jelfs Media
Audience Questionnaire analysis
Q1.) This question was designed to see if there seemed to be any pattern for favoured films and genres due to the age and gender as older people are more likely to grow up around traditional films and therefore end up liking those better than the current hypes that teenagers are more likely to follow as they may be from different backgrounds as society develops. My age ranges vary from 6-71 years old with a 50/50 match of males to females.
Q2.) In this question I’ve asked people to score what they like in a film showing their favourite to the element they like least; I’ve done this so that I can see what’s popular for whichever audience so that I can include these factors in my film opening for my target audience. It also helps me identify the difference audiences and that of my genre.
My results show that there were no signs of resigned, succeeder, or reformer audiences as elements of work orientated, political and domestic aspects were rated very high throughout all of the questionnaires for boys. However traditional varied with a range of 6 and an average of 6.8 rating out of 12, which still isn’t the highest rating as musicals with 10.7. The favourite overall is adventure with an average of 2.2 with action following swiftly behind with 3.2 which therefore supports my findings of the audience to most likely be explorers or strugglers.
After looking back at their ages I have also noticed a pattern that the younger boys were classed as ‘strugglers’, even though you’d expect them to be mainstreamers, while the older ones were classed as ‘explorers’.
However after analysing the females, they show either struggler or explorer characteristics as the lowest average was mystery with 2.83, showing elements from the explorer category as it then becomes challenging. Although sentimental, romantic and musicals I have categorised with strugglers and each struggler has scored these elements very low.
Q3.) This question I wanted to find out how people watch films so that I could think about what’s best for my film viewing. Unfortunately for this question I didn’t get one clear result as I had 3 votes for DVD/Blueray , television and subscription sites.
Although I’ve found that the eldest and youngest all watch the televisionwhile middle aged people use subscription sites and teenagers either go to the cinema or use online streamers.
Q4.) I wanted to know how often people watch films in a week time frame to see which gender is more likely to watch more films. My results show that overall women watch less films as they go as low as watching only one film a week and as high as 5 times whereas males have a minimum of 2 times and go as high as watching films every day and maybe more than once per day as one male chose the ‘other’ box showing that they don’t watch just one.
Q5.) Question 5 is very similar to question 2 as some of the words cross over, although before it was just the elements within the film while this question is to do with genres.
My results show that the older male participants are all explorer audiences while the younger teens showed more aspirer characteristics within their answers as they seemed to vary a lot. The youngest participant, on the other hand, continues to show struggler characteristics. Only 2 males had a change in audience characteristics, both of which were teens. The male averages are more scattered showing they like a variety of genres although their overall preferred genre is action with a score of 3.17 and least is musical with 13.83
My female participants, on the other hand, show an unexpected result of an aspirer characteristic for the eldest participant; despite them liking documentaries, as expected, her other responses proved to her be an aspirer. At middles aged, however, my participant came under the title I’d expect the elderly lady to have come under- resigned. Half of my teen show struggler audience characteristics which have matched their former result in question 2. Likewise, another match with explorer while another changed from a struggler to a resigned audience. 2/3 of the women have shown that they like sentimental that make you feel as resigned and strugglers were popular which would both feature touching films in the form of traditional and sentimental films.
On average, females preferred comedies with 4.3 as an average vote and a score of 11.83 as the highest and most disliked genre- horror!
Q6.) I designed this question so that I could get a clearer insight to why they liked certain genres; I’ve found that half the females just want to escape from the everyday and want to imagine better things, one even said “it gets your brain thinking more creatively” while talking about fantasy films, these females were all teens. However the eldest preferred documentaries which explores real life, the complete opposite. Then the middle aged participant said she likes thrillers for the “suspense and problem solving” but prefers them “without the blood and guts and ‘jumpy’ bits”. Every response shows a different genre which is unlike the male as 1/3 said action for the fast pace with another middle aged man saying thriller. Similar to the female teens, the youngsters also like to escape and have a laugh. Overall the favoured genre from my sample is action because “they have more of a storyline,” “it’s interesting all the way through the film” and it “grips my attention and takes me to the edge of my seat.”
Q7.) I’ve included this question as a way to see at the end if there are any connections between the economic class of a participant and the types of films they like. However most of my participants are of E class as students or retired, although I have people from the highest classes of C2 and A class.
Q8.)Next I tried to use film examples to give a different perspective into thinking about audiences to try to get a clearer idea. The female teens are 50/50 between mainstreamers and strugglers on this question and, again, unexpectedly the eldest showed results for an aspirer while the middle aged participant gave answers for a resigned audience, which would have been expected for an older audience. Although a teenage boy gave similar answers gaining the same title with other teens showing mainstreamer qualities like the girls’ but half of the results, including the young participant, were strugglers. Although the middle aged man continued to be an explorer.
Using all of the questionnaires the graph shows all the averages combined with the lowest rating film being The Wolf Of Wall Street and the biggest being Magic Mike, although this doesn’t mean it’s least liked as not all options were chosen. The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Hitler: The Rise Of Evil haven’t been picked by anyone showing that they’re not in the top 7 therefore these are least liked, both of which are for reformer audiences.
Q9.) As I wasn’t able to include every type of film and it was possible that people may not have picked certain films purely because they didn’t know them, I decided to let them see and decide who they thought they were most like as they would know themselves and their likes better.
My results show that most think they are like an explorer, although 1/3 of the female teens said they were more mainstreamers because they “prefer to watch films the whole family would enjoy” and another one said it’s “the only ones I seem to hear about” as they are more popular. Another mainstreamer is the young male as he, too, likes walking with the family. One teenage male said he was a struggler so that he can “discuss with friends” about the films, these points give more of an insight than the participants likes and dislikes. The only white collar worker has also claimed to being more like a succeeder, which is expected.
Conclusion- These are the results overall with each question taken into account for the consumer characteristics for each age group. the younger audiences seem to watch mainly struggler films , while the elderly stick to mainly aspirer and some explorer. Middle aged viewers genrally watch explorer films and some resigned while teens are more across the board by watching explorer, aspirer, struggler, mainstreamer and resigned. Overall, reformers and succeeders aren't very popular in any age group.