The document summarizes the findings of a questionnaire given to 15-24 year olds about their movie watching habits and preferences. It found that most in this age group go to the cinema regularly, with comedy and action being the most popular genres. When making films, producers should focus on popular genres like comedy and action and include humor and interesting characters. Most participants found out about new films through friends or TV ads. Online advertising was also effective. Downloading and streaming films online is common for this group, so online distribution would be sensible. DVD prices around £7-8 would be reasonable for this target audience.

1. Questionnaire Findings and Conclusions <br />Cinema<br />100% of the participants that took the questionnaire said that they watch films at the cinema. 30% of them went to the cinema regularly (every week or 2/3 times a month). 35% went to the cinema once a month. We can see from these results that most 15-24 year olds regularly watch films at the cinema and more than half go one or more times a month. As a film producer it would be a good idea to make films targeted towards this age group because they are the main consumers in the cinema industry and would therefore accumulate more money. <br />Film genres<br />When we asked which genres of film people liked the most popular genre was comedy, of which 85% of the participants selected. Some of the reasons given as to why people liked comedy were that it is funny and cheers people up after viewing. Comedy was by far the most loved genre and 30% of people identified comedy as their favourite genre overall. These findings could be used by film producers when creating a film. Producers may decide to make a comedy film because they are popular and usually appeal to a wide audience. <br />Action was the second favourite. 80% said they liked this genre and 27% chose action as their favourite. Most people said they liked action because it was entertaining, exciting, and because of the fast pace. One participant said ‘it keeps my adrenaline going’. Although this genre was very popular, a few females said they didn’t like it because at times it was too violent and a bit too much for them. Action films are very well-liked which is why there are many films made under this category. Film producers may be more likely to make an action film because they are popular. Our research shows that slightly more males than females preferred action films therefore they should be targeted more towards male audiences. <br />We found that 73% of participants liked thriller films. This was the third favourite genre. 23% selected it as their favourite overall genre. Many participants liked thrillers because they were ‘well intense’ and ‘gripping’ and because of the suspense that they created. This is another popular genre that would be a good choice when creating a film. <br />Horror films were moderately popular, with 45% stating that they liked them. However people had mixed opinions about the horror genre. It was the fourth favourite overall genre but also came second out of the least favourite genres. 18% chose horror as their least favourite genre. It was mostly females that disliked horror films because they found it too scary. Horror films appeal to a smaller audience than comedies, action and thriller films do but are still quite popular. <br />We found that Romance was the least favourite genre. 20% said it was their least favourite overall and more males than females disliked romantic films. Horror was the second least favourite and musicals were the third. Chick flicks were disliked by a few male participants. Romance and Chick flicks are films targeted towards a female audience and do not appeal to a lot of males. <br />Features that make films more appealing<br />As a film producer you should make sure that your film is something that your target audience want to watch. So we asked questions about what would make a film more appealing. <br /> <br />82% of participants said that they were more likely to watch a film if there were renowned actors in it. We would have to take this into consideration when producing our film because as a new and small production company we would not have the finances to pay famous actors to star in our film. Therefore to ensure our film is as successful as possible we will have to heavily promote our film in the least expensive way. <br />When asked what factors most interest you in a film, the top 4 results were: <br />Theme/genre (70%)<br />Well known directors, producers and actors (48%)<br />Humour (45%)<br />Interesting characters (45%)<br />This shows that for most people the film genre has a significant role in their choice of film. So it would be best to choose a popular genre. Adding humour and interesting characters to a film would be recommended as they both make films more entertaining. <br />The promotion and consumption of films<br />Most participants said that they found out about new films from their friends or from TV advertising. Online film advertising was also very popular and so was advertising on billboards on buses. The least popular way in which they found out about new films was in magazines and newspapers. If we were to advertise our film we would use online advertising and put our trailer on various websites because this is the least expensive method of promotion. This is also the best method to use because our target audience spend most of their time online so this would be the best way to communicate with them. Our results also show that it is a successful method of promotion as many of them already find out about new films this way. Some of the websites we could use to advertise our film include myspace, facebook and youtube. These websites would enable us to create an account and upload videos for free. We could also make our own website.<br />65% of participants told us that they downloaded films on the internet. This is quite a popular way of consuming films so when distributing our film it might be a good idea to make it available to download. It might also be a good idea to put our film on the internet for people to watch as we found that 92% of participants watched films on the internet though this would not create any profit. <br />We found that a majority of people bought between 1 and 5 DVDs in a month. Most said that they bought less than 2 DVDs in a month. It seems that our target audience are not the biggest consumers of DVDs possibly because they have little or no income. We would therefore sell our film at a reasonable price.<br />When we asked our participants what they thought was a reasonable price for a DVD:<br />£3-5 (20%)<br />£5-7 (30%)<br />£8-10 (40%)<br />£10-12 (5%)<br />£12-15 (5%)<br />Only 10% were happy to pay more than £10 for a DVD and 50% were happy to pay £7 and below. These figures could be used by the producer and film distribution outlet to set a price for the DVD. Somewhere around £7 or £8 would be good.<br />Our film could also be sold to Blockbuster and other film rental stores, so it is available for people to rent although renting films has become less popular recently. We found that 55% of those who took the questionnaire never rent any DVDs. 25% said that they didn’t rent DVDs often and only 2% said that they regularly rented them.<br /> <br />