The document discusses market research conducted to determine the target audience for a short film. Questionnaires asked about gender, preferred genre, whether participants watch short films, and how they consume media. Most respondents were female and enjoyed romance/comedy genres. While many don't typically watch short films, television and internet are common viewing methods. The research informed decisions about creating a romance-comedy short film that uses narrative mysteries to engage audiences.

1. Morgan Clough
Primary Search Results
I collated these results for my market research. The purpose of this research is to find out a potential
target audience for my short film by asking questions such as ‘What is your preferred genre of film’
this will help me decide a genre of film that I will use to base my coursework on. The method I used
to collect this data was Questionnaires by collecting both Quantitative and Qualitative. Asking broad
questions and collecting word data from participants gives me the relevant information to be able to
start to build my target audience for my short film.
Firstly, I asked participants for their gender. This gives me relevant target audience information to be
able to work out who I want to target my film too. I found out that a lot of the people who had filled
out were mainly Females.
Gender
Female
Male
This shows me that a female audience watch short films more than males do. This tells me that I
should target my film more to an audience of females because they are shown to watch them more
than a male audience.
Secondly, I asked participants for their preferred genre of film. This will help me decide on the genre
of the short film I will be making for my coursework. I found that Males would typically choose
Horror and Action films and Females would choose Comedy or Rom-Com. This is stereotypical of the
Female and Male genre as Males are stereotypically known to be masculine and like blood, danger
and gore. Females are stereotypically known to enjoy romantic films.

2. Morgan Clough
Genre
Horror
Comedy
Sci-Fi
Romance
Rom-com
Adventure
Action
Other
This shows me that the most popular genre of film is Romance, Rom-com and Comedy. This also
gives me a better insight into what genre of film I would base my short film around. This tells me the
most enjoyed genre of film by a female is Romance, rom-com and comedy so this means I would
target my film at a mainstream audience of females who enjoy romantic but comedy films.
I then asked whether the participants watched Short Films. The majority of the participants put
down that they did not watch Short Films. This made it harder for me to target to a preferred
audience because a wide audience would mostly enjoy watching regular films that have more of a
storyline to it than a shorter film.
Do you watch Short Films?
No
Yes

3. Morgan Clough
This shows me that I would have to make the Short Film more interesting and catches the audience
eye to keep a wider audience attracted to the film. Making a mainstream audience want to watch
the film and not get bored.
I then asked the participants how they watched short films. Because a frequent amount of the
participants didn’t watch short films they ticked the boxes for how they watch regular films. I asked
this question for my market research to find out how films are watched by an audience.
How do you watch Short Films?
Television
Download off the Internet
Tablet/iPad
YouTube
Other
From these set of results I came to the conclusion that most films are watched either on television or
‘Other’ which could be anything from Netflix to paying for them on demand off a television. This
helps me because it helps me determine how an audience would watch a Short Film.
I then asked do the participants like a film when it has a narrative enigma (audience aren’t sure
about what will happen within the film – it is perhaps elliptical, leaving the audience guessing)
Do you like it when the film has a narrative
enigma?
Yes
No

4. Morgan Clough
From the results of this question I came to the conclusion that over half of the people I interviewed
liked a narrative enigma in a film – this helps me determine how I will set the storyline of my film
out. Whether to follow a linear narrative (in chronological order) or whether to keep the audience
guessing by using a time fragmented narrative which can then create a narrative enigma, a high
frequency of a mainstream female audience would enjoy this because it leaves the audience to
come to their own conclusion about what could happen in the film and then their conclusion can be
made true of false when the ending is revealed to the audience. As a media producer I will use Halls
Encoding and decoding theory, as a media producer I will encode the meaning of a romance comedy
into the film by including typical conventions of the film so they can be decoded by the audience.
This helps the film achieve the correct target audience. The mise en scene for example may have
stereotypical representations of a romance-comedy through the use of male and female characters,
although some of the characters e.g. the male character in the film, challenges the stereotype of
male characters. This can target a new category of romance-comedy film, this creates a new genre of
film.
I then asked the audience what were their favourite films – this helped me determine a structure to
base the film around whether to get inspiration off another popular film. This also carries on from
the narrative enigma – this helps me decide what to base my film around and whether to take some
ideas from the audience’s favourite films.
I then asked the question ‘how long would your ideal film last?’ this was to find out how long a
consumer would prefer their film to last. Whether they like long films which have narrative enigma
and take a couple of hours to get to the point of the film, or whether they enjoy a short film which
gets straight to the point of the storyline.
How long would your ideal film last?
30 mins
1-2 hour
2-3 hours
3+ hours

5. Morgan Clough
This tells me that an audience enjoys a film of 2-3 hours which tells me a consumer enjoys narrative
enigma, the storyline gets slowly told throughout the film. This has helped me determine how long
my film will last and how I will put the storyline across to the audience.
After reviewing these questions I have come to the decision that the chosen genre of my film will be
a Romance-Comedy, this is a hybrid genre so it can be watched by a mainstream audience who
enjoy either romance or humour. I will use a narrative enigma which will keep the audience guessing
by giving them false hope on what may or may not happen during the film.
The use of narrative enigma would appeal to my audience because in conventional rom-com a
narrative enigma is used, I would use Uses and Gratification theory as a media producer to target
the preferred audience by using Personal Relationships and Personal Identity. This is directly
appealing to the target audience because whilst watching the film they will be able to relate to the
film because of typical conventions of the use of gratifications within the film. Although some
audiences may have an oppositional reading to the film because of the complex narrative enigma, a
wider audience will have a preferred reading of the film because it leaves suspense and also gives
the audience time to come up with their own conclusion for the film.