Research Methods

Primary:
Primary data is data in which a person has collected first hand, the data did not exist before it had been collected. Primary data is collected in many different ways like, interviews, telephone conversations, questionnaires and emails, as the person doing to research is getting all of the information first hand for themselves.
Secondary:
This is the opposite to what primary data is, as the data has already been found and the person doing the research has found it either online using search engines like google and magazines.

When creating my short film the research that takes place towards getting my end product will mostly be primary research, as all of the research I get will have to be my own. The research also has to fit the film genre of my choice. This means that I will be using research methods like emails, interviews and phoning people directly in order to find out the information that I need. This will benefit my research as there wont be any misinterpretations of questions that are being asked or I wont have unnecessary information that I don't need and isn't going to help me further. I will be getting primary research using many different methods, however all methods of research have many different positive and negatives:

Emails:

• Positives:
• Free
• Quick and Easy
• Can send as many until you have got the point you want across
• Messages are less likely to get misinterpreted as you can write as much or as little as you want. 
• Negatives: 
• You are relying on the person you have emailed to reply 
• Finding email adresses for some of the people you may want to get into contact with can be hard. 
• Can not see if the message has been delivered or read  

Phone Interviews: 

• Advantages:
• Questions are harder to be misinterpreted as you can explain what you mean in a lot of detail 
• Direct way of getting to your target audience 
• Everyone has a phone or has access to one so you anyone will be able to take part in a phone interview 
• They can be done on the go so isn't going to take a lot of someones time if they are a very busy person 
• Disadvantages: 
• You may loose signal or mishear them
• Talking and recording your results at the same time may be difficult 
• If the person is abroad the call maybe costing your lots without you realising 

Internet: 

• Advantages: 
• Easy to access 
• Can find almost anything that you want when you search it 
• More and more places have free wifi 
• Can ask questions via social media so can have a range of answers 
• Disadvantages: 
• Not everything that you read online is reliable so you cant believe everything that you have read
• Sometimes there is lots of information around the subject that you are searching but the information that yo have found does not directly answer the question that you are looking for the answer to 
• You may get distracted from what you are meant to be looking for and end up on social media website or on gaming websites, which will cause you to get behind on your work 

Newspapers/ magazines: 

• Advantages: 
• Every shop that you go into will be selling newspapers and magazines 
• If the newspaper/ magazine is based on the topic that you are looking into then it is going to be full on information that is going to help you 
• Disadvantages:
• All stores may not sell the magazine that you want 
• Information in magazines may be over the top in order to get more people to buy the magazine, as it makes it more interesting to the reader
• They can sometimes be expensive

One of the main reasons I would look into using newspapers and magazines in order to do some research is due to the fact one of my ancillary texts is a film magazine review page. As I don't read many review pages Im not very familiar with what they are like and the information that is included in them which is why I need to look into in further to ensure mine is going to be including everything that it needs to. Looking into the magazine review pages will also mean that I can see the conventions that they have used in order to use them for my own. 

Inorder to collect information about which genres of films people like watching the most I may do a survey as this will allow be to find out what my target audience like the most. This will allow me to design the questions in the way that I want to in order to get the most information possible, if the survey is one verbally I will be able to ask any follow up question that I have at the moment. Another method I can use in order to collect data is a focus group, as you are able to gather multiple options together in one go. 

Quantitative research: This is research that is all based upon numbers, like pie charts and graphs.

Qualitative research:  This type of research is opposite to quantitative as its all about peoples opinions and the facts that you have found out. This type of research goes into a lot more detail and you can find out why someone of the outcomes of your research have come out in the ways in which that they have. 

Most of the research that I am going to be collecting will be qualitative as when doing things like surveys I will be finding out why people feel the way that they do and how that is going to have an impact on my short film.