Research project into film audiences - FINDINGS

I intended to find out which audiences prefer which genres of film. To do this, i took all the data from both the quantitative and qualitative questionnaires, and arranged them into pie charts according to age groups, and gender. Below are the outcomes.
 

A pie chart showing the favourite genres for the BELOW 12 perticipants.

It shows that out of the 10 genres given to choose from, only 4 different
 genres were chosen. This indicates that the results with similar amongst
 this audience segment. It also shows that the adventure, comedy and
fantasy genres were the most favourite.

 

A pie chart showing the favourite genres for the 12 - 21 AGED participants.

The results of this audience segment show that comedy was the
clear favourite genre, closely followed by the action and romance genres.

 

A pie chart showing the favourite genres for the AGED 41 - 50 participants.

The favourite genre amongst this group are the science fiction and
comedy genres, closely followed by comedy.

 

A pie chart showing the favourite genres for all of the MALE participants.

It shows that by far the action genre was the favourite, followed by
comedy and science fiction.

 

A pie chart showing the favourite genres for all the FEMALE participants.

The majority favourite genre amongst this group is the comedy, followed
closely by romance.

























The research into genres produced the general trends that I expected it to.
The 12-20 aged audience favourited the action and comedy genres the most. This was as I expected. The answers to the qualitative questionnaire showed that this age group generally preferred to watch films with certifications of 15-18, as these films were specifically aimed at teenage/adult audiences. I found that the older participants of this group preferred the 18 films as they are more mature films, and that reflected the way that these people felt about themselves.
The older aged audience, 41-50, showed that they, too, preferred action and comedy films. Although this wasn't a completely unexpected result, I expected a greater difference between the results of the 12-20 group and 41-50 group. This audience also liked the science fiction genre more than the others. I predicted this audience to prefer to view the 18+ films because of higher maturity levels within the films and within the audience. However, I found that as well as this certification PG films were popular due to wanting to view family films, suitable for their children.


I also intended to find out how different audience preferred to view the films they watched. During the qualitative research, I asked whether they preferred to watch films at the cinema or at home. I split the data into four labels and presented each as a graph:

This graph shows that 5 males from all the age groups preferred to watch films at the cinema, and no males preferred to watch films at home. This is expected, as males tend to prefer the experience of visiting the cinema to watch the films they like. This might be due to the genres of film they prefer, such as action films, which produce a greater experience at the cinema than at home. When asked why they chose the cinema, the common answer was due to a greater atmosphere with the audio, lighting and quality.

Like the results for the male group, the females overall preferred to watch films at the cinema, although 2 out of the 7 females chose home. As expected, more females chose home than males. This is due to the greater comfort levels that watching films at home provides that cinemas don't. However, the majority preferred the cinema experience, like the males.

The majority of 12-21 year olds said they preferred going to the cinema than watching films at home. This result was expected due to the desire that teenagers and young adults have to get out with their friends and socialise.

This graph shows the results for the 41-50 year old category. Once again, the results showed that the majority preferred to go to the cinema than to stay at home. This contradicts my prediction that older audiences will prefer to view films at home due to lack of time with full-time jobs. Instead, the answers were as such commonly due to the general cinema experience, just like the other audience segments, but they often also chose the cinema as a way to treat their children and spend time outside of home with their families.  

As well as this, I wanted to find out how the different audiences find out about the films they watch. I did this in both the quantitative questionnaires and the qualitative research.

Although only a small amount of participants, the under 12s said that they found out about films through advertising only. This is expected, as this is really the only way for them to head about the films; they are to young to listen to the radio, read newspapers or use the internet to find out about films, and although they may talk about films with their friends, it isn't a hot topic amongst children.

This graph shows that the most popular way of hearing about films for 12-20 year olds is through TV advertising, although the data is much more spread out than that of the younger audiences. This is due to this age group having more control over what they see. Word of mouth is a popular way of finding out about films, as expected as this age group are going to share their cinema experiences with one another.

This graph shows how 41-50 year olds hear about the films they want to see. Like the results of the 12-20 year old audience, they data is reasonably spread out, with the majority saying that TV advertisement is the main way. Methods like the internet, newspaper and radio adverts are also popular in this audience as more people of this age use this media everyday.