Market Overview research and Analysis of Results

This chart shows the ways in which audiences of different ages interact or watch the exhibition of films. It is split into age groups between 16 and over 55.  It shows the difference in the way different age groups interact with media, there is a definite change in some of the different forms of consumption as the chart progresses with age.

Teenagers are represented with about 25% of them consuming with films using online software such as downloading, streaming or piracy. This slowly decreases along with age until it only represents a few % of the 55+ age group. This shows that teenagers have more accessibility to download film, there may be many contributing factors to this. Teenagers have a lack of money and therefore would be less likely to spend this money on purchasing films, they also have less time (due to full time education) to go out and watch or record films. Teenagers also have a wider access and knowledge of the internet and so can easily access streamed movies. This means that trailers alongside films in cinema are no longer as effective and so if a film is aimed at a teenage audience it is more likely to now be advertised using social media such as adverts before YouTube videos or on sites such as Facebook.

This said however a large chunk of the teenagers (around 20%) in fact go to the cinema, this may be for socialisation purposes, to hang out with friends as it is a fairly cheep (around £8 a ticket) form of entertainment. The amount of people who go to the cinema does not change drastically over the progression of age. This may be because it is still accepted as an easy form of entertainment for all different ages of people.

Something else which stays fairly even throughout the different ages of people is the number of people who receive DVD’s. This may be down to it being an easy gift to give to people for their birthdays or Christmas presents for all age groups. Renting and buying DVD also stays fairly similar which shows that these are fairly regular ways of viewing film throughout different age groups.

Around 50% of 55+ year olds  view films through recorded TV, subscription TV or live TV. This may be to do with the fact that people retire soon after this age and so the majority of their day they have not a lot to do and so end up watching the films that are on day time TV. It is also assumed that they are not as familiar with the internet which is why a very low percentage of these people watch films via online sources.

This is important as our target audience interact with media through the internet, this means that our product will have to be accessible on these mediums, as it is very easy to just switch to another film while online compared to watching a movie in a cinema the trailer is specifically important in the success of the film as it shows off the best parts of the film and makes the audience want to watch the whole film. 

This chart shows why people tend to watch films. 76% of people said they watch films for pleasure and similarly 76% said they watched it for relaxation. This shows that films serve as a purpose to entertain but also make an audience relaxed. This means that overly complicated plots are not widely popular as they cannot make the audience relax whereas a simple movie will allow them to do so. This is something directors will have to take into account when creating their movie as the more effective a film is at doing these things increases its overall effectiveness.

Focusing these groups down on gender and age showed that more females watch films for relaxation and men for pleasure. This may show that women have more stressful life styles as stereo-typically they have to care for children as well as possibly work whereas men watch movies for pleasure to entertain them when they might otherwise be bored.

Throughout age groups the most popular overall was watching films for pleasure however the age group 55+ watched films for relaxation slightly more than for pleasure. This may also be down to lifestyle as older people get tired out more easily and therefore need time to unwind, whereas other age groups of people who are mostly all in education or work watch movies as a source of entertainment and pleasure.

The next most popular reason why people watched films was escapism, escaping from everyday life with around 62% of people agreeing with this. This is also a very good factor of movies to allow the audience to escape from their reality and enter a world where they no longer need to worry about their own problems. This is another technique used by many directors to create an effective film.  It is also proven effective as over half of the people questioned in this survey said they agreed with this.

The lowest % of people was people watching films because they were passionate for them with only 40% of people agreeing with this. In comparison only 18% of people over 55 agreed with this statement, this may be because they have less connection with modern films, for example, some people may be passionate for comic book films as they have grown up reading the comics, people over a certain age loose interest in these things.

  53% of people between 16 and 24 watch movies because they are passionate for them, this may be down to again the idea that they have grown up with such stories and therefore want to watch the movies. This is something we will have to take into consideration with our young audience. 

This means that for our trailer we will have to be creating a product that mostly evokes pleasure in the audience. Something they find interesting and entertaining as it will also be used for them to relax and unwind from school or stress from school. We will also be throwing in elements of escapism to really help the audience to escape from school and from the stresses of everyday life. This is especially important for our audience who will be going through exams and therefore need this element of escapism and relaxation. Using a story which is already well known may also evoke passion from the audience as they want to watch the movie adaptation of a timeless story which they will have heard about. 

This chart shows the % of people who enjoy watching certain genres of films. As you can see the most popular film genre given by the  people who were interviewed was comedy with 64% of people saying they enjoyed this genre. Although this I the highest, 64% is still not that high and so shows the massive variation people have in their favourite genre of films and what they enjoy watching. This is why film producers narrow down their audience to make it something which appeals for the people who mostly enjoy this genre. Although a teenage male may like a comedy, an older lady may not which is why the survey was then concentrated into different social groups.

This chart shows the concentrated genres of people who consider different film genres their favourites. The survey was broken down into males younger than 35, males older than 25, females younger than 25, females older than 25. Whether they were parents or not as their social class. Comedy still appears to be the favourite genre of all different groups of people which means if you were to pick comedy as your genre of film you would have a difficult time picking a specific audience group to focus on.

 For our genre of fantasy it was preferred by women who were not parents of a middle class background, this mean this is the group we will have to focus down on during our own research. Although this survey states that it is women over 35 who prefer this genre other surveys we have look at told us that it was younger women who preferred this genre and therefore we are going to have to look into this a lot more through focus groups and researching individual people.

As our movie will be dark fantasy and therefore contain elements associated with horror films we are going to be looking at horror film audience as well. According to this survey they are most popular with younger women, this is equally spread out depending on if they have children or not and they are again mostly middle class. This means we will be definitely focusing down on this audience as a focus point. 

HOW WE WILL USE THIS RESEARCH

This research supports our planning as we now understand fully what our audience would want to see within a successful trailer. It gives us a real incite into what we are dealing with when it comes to audience, how to attract them and interest them enough to make them want to watch the full movie and what they will look for content wise within the movie and therefore what elements of this we should present within our trailer.