Secondary Research

I am researching into musical productions to find out what people want to see in musical productions. I have participated in some secondary research, using the website IMDB.com. Here are my findings.

1: The film ‘Camelot’ appeals to males aged under eighteen years of age. This film has the general theme of ‘royalty’, with the storyline based around the marriage of England’s King Arthur. This film mostly appeals to males under 18 because of all of the action that takes place in the film.

2: Sleeping Beauty is aimed at the females aged three to ten years old. It is a fantasy film, with a princess in whom is cursed by an evil witch which results in a prince fighting the evil witch to save her. This plot line appeals to this particular target audience of 3-10 year old females because that is the age they are into Princesses, so they are interested in it.

3: The musical production film of ‘Rent’ mostly appeals to the  females that are under eighteen years old. The theme of the musical is romance, and is a rock opera illustrating the story of bohemian people struggling in the modern-day New York. The target audience for this film is females under 18 because the theme is romance.

4: The Prince of Egypt is film that appeals to females under eighteen. The theme of the film is an adventure-romance, an Egyptian Prince learns of his identity as a Hebrew and the deliverer of his people. The target audience is females under 18 because the film is animated and the theme is romance.

5: The musical production ‘Sweeney Todd’ mostly appeals to females under 18. The theme is of horror, with the storyline of Benjamin Barker, aka Sweeney Todd who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant. This appeals to females under 18 because it’s not just a horror, because there is a love story integrated into it.

6: Grease is a musical production appealing to females aged 45+. The theme is romance, with the storyline of a good girl Sandy and greaser Danny fell in love over the summer. But then they unexpectedly discover they are in the same school. The target audience is females aged 45+ because it was filmed while they were growing up.

7: The Lion King is targeted at females under 18, with the storyline of Simba being born, his father Mufasa dying, and Simba claims his rightful position. The target market is females under 18 because it’s about family and emotion.

8: Singing in The Rain is a musical production aimed at males and females under 18. The storyline is in 1927 Dan Lockwood becomes a famous actor in his friends company and falls in love with an actress. The target audience is males and females under 18 because it’s a musical with the theme of romance.

9: Hercules is a film with the viewers being females under 18, with the storyline of Hercules being turned into a half-mortal and he can only return to Mount Olympus then he becomes a true hero. The target audience is females under 18 because it is an animated musical with a bit of romance, which is what appeals to that specific target audience.

10: The Corpse Bride has the most viewers being males and females under 18, with the theme of fantasy-animation. The storyline is about a shy groom practicing his wedding vows in the presence of a dead woman, she rises from the grave thinking he has married her. This particular film appeals to both genders aged under eighteen because of the romantic storyline.

The musical production film of ‘Rent’, filmed in the year of 2005, directed by Chris Columbus, and screenplay written by Stephen Chbosky, received 6.8 star ratings out of 10 from users on the website IMDB, 5.8 out of 10 on RottenTomatoes, and also 7.4 out of 10 on Metacritic. These ratings from the websites users are fairly average – above average, with the vast majority of the votes coming from females under eighteen years of age, which is the films target audience. I found this quantitative data out from IMDb, RottenTomatoes and Metacritic, which are all fairly reliable media reviewing sites. I checked the same information on all three sites to ensure that my findings were reliable.

Information Trail

Presenting Results of Research

I have created a survey to discover what my target audience would most like to see in a musical production in order to write a script for one that I shall be filming. I put my survey on a number of social networking sites so I could receive answers from participants informing me exactly what they want to see in musicals. My results are really reliable, as the majority of my respondents were aged 16-18 which is my target audience. From my survey, I have collected some quantitative data within my results, such as the participants age, favourite genre of musicals, preferred genre of music and the overall likeliness of the participant actually watching a musical. Below I have put my quantitative data into graphs, to document show my results clearly.

In my graphs, although I have recieved twenty-eight participants for my survey, I have more answers in certain questions because my questions allowed the participants to give me more than one answer if they wished to.

Through my survey, I have also collected some informative qualitative data with some specific responses to my survey questions. This is because I asked some open questions, allowing the respondent to give me detailed answers rather than a closed question, limiting them to multiple option answers.
One of my open questions asked “What would you like to see take place in a musical, and why?” to which I got the response from a participant “I’d like to see an evolution of characters, showing real depth because it would help viewers to engage in the story.” This is the sort of response I wold take into consideration when developing the characters in the musical. Through analysing my qualitative data even further, I discovered that the majority of the respondents want some romance to take place in a musical. I found this out from responses such as “Romance, as it always heightens the story, especially if there is a love story” and “A romantic story, as they are always entertaining” and also “A wedding taking place”.
In another open question, which will help me to collect qualitative data, I asked the participants to “describe your ‘perfect’ ending…”. From this particular question, I discovered that the majority of the participants wanted a happy ending, yet with perhaps a moral in the ending and still being realistic. I got this result from the responses such as “The conflict is resolved, but not necessarily a stereotypical fairytale ending.” and “Things should be resolved, and the viewer should be left with something” and also “Realistic and relevant from the rest of the musical, with happy endings”.
In the general storyline of the musical, the participants want to see something to do with “compelling character development” throughout, where the characters “redeem themselves” and where the characters are involved in a “love triangle”. Another popular general storyline which the participants responded with was something with the theme of history, as they answered that for a storyline they would love to see “Historical overtones” and “something not set in the current day in time”.
I also asked my participants what their ideal character in a musical would be, asking them to give me a descriptive answer in this open question, allowing me to collect the qualitative data to find exactly what characters they would like to see. The respondents said they’d want a character who is “intelligent, kind, funny, sensible and romantic”, also someone who is “tough on the outside, yet still kindhearted on the inside”. Some participants even told me their favourite character in already existing musicals, such as ‘Mary Poppins’ ‘Enjorlas from Les Miserables’ and ‘Ron Weasley’.

Through my survey responses, I have come to discover that the majority of the participants of my survey would prefer a musical with the theme of romance, with exactly 50% of respondents opting for romance when asked what their favourite type of musicals is.

I have also found out that most people generally don’t like the idea of a musical with the theme of Sci-Fi, as this option on the question ‘What is your favourite type of musicals’ only got one vote, which is 3.6% of all participants.

Most of my participants preferred genre of music is rock, with 46.4% of my participants choosing that over classical with 17.9%, pop with 25% and alternative with 32.1% of participants choosing that option. This tells me that in my musical production, I should incorporate some rock music into it as that’s what appeals to the target audience.

When I asked my participants whether or not they agreed with the statement “Grease is the best musical” the vast majority of them (42.9%) answered that they strongly disagreed, although 9 participants (32.1%) said that they nor agreed or disagreed with it. From this, I shall take into account the participants preferences and shall not include anything similar to the storyline of ‘Grease’ in my musical production.

I have found out that people enjoy watching musicals with a happy ending, with participants responding to the question ‘ with answers such as “a happy ending with a kiss or marriage” and “a happy ending, all loose ends tied up”.

My participants, when asked what their ideal character would be for a musical, mostly said that they’d like “compelling characters” who are “likeable, kind and sacrificial”. Now I have found this out, I will refer back to this, and include a protagonist who has these characteristics.

The majority of my survey participants were females, with 20 out of 28 respondents being female (71.4%). This particular piece of information tells me that females most enjoy musicals, with males not being particularly interested, therefore females who are 16-18 are my target audience for this musical.

The second most popular type of musical overall was ‘Comedy’. From knowing this, and that the most popular genre of musicals was ‘Romance’ I could incorporate both genres together to create a ‘Rom-Com’ as that is what the majority of the participants are wanting to see in a musical.

From my survey question ‘What’s your preferred genre of music?’ I found out that ‘R&B’ (7.1% with 2 votes) and ‘indie’ (17.9% with 5 votes) were the least preferred music genres, therefore shall not consider including these music types in the musical.

Looking at some of my qualitative data results, I have found out that from asking my participants what their ideal fictional character in a musical would be, a lot of them responded with a character that is realistic. I think this is because they would want to relate to and make a connection with the character they are viewing.

Research Information Trail & Screenshots

Research Log

Research & Theory – Information Trail

Research-log

Survey for Musicals

Click here to view my survey. alternatively type in the URL  – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RNBZGTK

I have created my own survey using the website www.surveymonkey.com. I listed a set of ten different questions, including the general questions of the participants gender, giving them a choice out of two answers being male and female, and also the specific age of the participant. This information is gathered in order to seek out who our target market exactly is, and who our musical production will be most appealing to.
The first insightful question which I asked in my survey was the closed question of what genre of musicals would the participant most enjoy, giving a set of multiple choice answers which included romance, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, thriller and the option to specify another genre not yet mentioned. This information would be really helpful towards the musical production, as we then have a foundation on which to base the musical on regarding on the various participants opinions.
Below is a question from my survey, illustrating how I have used the multiple choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following this question, I asked the participants whether or not they agree with the statement “Grease is the best musical” and used a likert scale so the participant could answer how strongly they agreed with the statement. I also used another likert scale in my survey, questioning the participant on the likeliness of them actually watching a musical, giving them a set of five different options, such as; ‘very likely, likely, sometimes, unlikely, and never’.

An image below showing my surveys likert scales.

In my survey, I also asked a few open questions which allowed the participants to, if they wanted, to write a detailed response in an essay box, or ‘comment’ box. An example of one of the open questions I asked the participant is “Describe your perfect ending?”, which allowed the person taking the survey to inform me exactly what they would like to see as the ending in a musical, with as much or as little detail as they wanted.
Image below, showing my essay/comment box question.

 

 

 

 

After I had completed creating my survey and included all the necessary questions within it, I posted the link to my survey to various social networking sites in order to find participants to complete my survey.
I firstly posted it to my Facebook as a status, allowing my Facebook ‘friends’ to click on the given link and answer my surveys questions. After that, I then posted it to my Twitter asking my followers to complete my survey. I also decided to post it to my Tumblr, asking my followers and also people who follow the hashtag of ‘Musicals’ ‘Media’ and ‘Theatre’ to participate in my survey.
Here are a few screenshots to illustrate my survey on social network sites.

Research & Theory – Purpose of Research and Outline of Methods

In my theory and research lessons, I will be carrying out some primary research, research of which I have gathered and collated myself, and also secondary research, which is research already collected by other people made available to use, such as information on the IMDB website. Once I have completed this task, my research will include the plots used, themes and also music used in the production that relates to the general target market audience. The target market that we want to appeal to is mainly 16-25 year old, both genders, all sexual orientations and ethnicity’s.  The general purpose of this research is for a musical production that myself and other members of my class will be filming alongside the performing arts students at college.

From my research I expect to discover that out of the various people of whom I shall ask, the majority of the females aged 16-25 will stereotypically enjoy viewing musicals with the general theme of romance, for instance the musical production of Les Misérables. Also, I assume that the majority of males won’t be keen on musicals at all, though if they were to watch one, they would prefer one with lots of action. Going by the people I will ask ages, I expect that the younger members won’t be interested in musicals at all.

To complete my research, I will be using both primary and secondary research methods in order to gather reliable information. In my primary research, I shall create a type of survey of which I will list a certain amount of options from which the people taking the survey can choose from. This is independent research which I will find out myself, then record down in a quantitative data form of a tally chart or in a block chart table.
I will also be using the more reliable secondary research method, of which I will find out information from various websites and non-fiction books and then record down in a qualitative data form, noting down in paragraphs my findings.
With both of my research methods, I am more than likely to be finding out more secondary research as it is more reliable because its factual information.

In my opinion, the most appropriate and reliable research technique for this particular subject would be internet surveys. For this type of survey, I would appoint various answers as options for each individual question and perhaps allow the person answering the survey to tick their desired option. Regarding the internet survey, I would post a link to the survey on social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and perhaps various internet forums which have relevance to media and musical productions.
This particular research survey technique would be best to use, as an advantage would be that it’s less time consuming than, for instance, focus groups, and also a lot less money.

I think that other research techniques, for example using a focus group, isn’t a very appropriate technique to use for this particular subject as the people partaking in the focus group could give rather biased answers depending on what the other members of the focus group answer. This would then prove to be an unreliable research technique as the answers are not truthful.

Another method which I wouldn’t choose to partake in would be street surveys. This research method is rather time consuming for the person asking the questions, and also the person participating giving the answers. The general public are not likely to want to stand in a street answering questions which aren’t particularly of relevance to them, therefore I think this would be a waste of time and money to do. It’s the same regarding interviews also, as people wouldn’t generally have the time to sit through an interview answering questions for a survey. This is why I have chosen internet and postal surveys, as it’s an advantage because people can answer the set questions in their own time with no pressure of surrounding peers, no set time amount and little to no money being used on the method.