Research Techniques

When entering into the initial stages of creating a product, research into areas like the market, the target audience, and the product of said product, are important in order to collect the relevant information that will lead to an understanding of what to create. There are many ways to collect these pieces of information, and choosing the method appropriate to the data you're aiming to collect can make the investigation easier and more effective and accurate.

Types of Research in the Creative Media Industry

 

Audience research investigates information around who is going to be buying or viewing your product (your target audience). For example, knowing the gender, age and cultural background of the consumer you want to target can help to direct the ways in which you can get their attention and sell your product. Knowing where to raise awareness of your product, and times it will be seen, can ensure the right people see your advertisement.

Research into the market can show what is already selling well in the industry you are looking at, and having awareness of possible competition your product might face can highlight weak areas in their campaigns, and show you where you could better them to gain more profit. Many existing products and companies in the market also have additional merchandising, social networking partnerships and expansions that may indicate how follow-ons can benefit a campaign.

Production research can explain many questions surrounding cost, content and methods of creating your product. It can be useful to know the price of the production of your product, as well as possible ways to be efficient and possibly decrease the initial cost. Research into this area can also show you how to make your actual product better (e.g. what materials are high-quality and durable if your product is a physical object), and indicate the ways in which you can gain the most effective profit from its sales.

Investigation into research methods themselves can highlight the most effective ways of gathering information, and show you which type is most effective for what you're trying to find out.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

 

Quantitative data is often shown through numbers and graphs, as it can be measured and counted. This sort of information can be collected in online surveys (see below) when asking someone to rate a subject on a scale of 1 to 10; the quantitive values can then be collected in numerical form and used. This can be useful when trying to track easy patterns in people's reactions, or have a solid ideas of an audience's preferences (e.g. through a bar graph or pie chart), however it does not show what people's personal opinions are, and so cannot be overly detailed when it comes to tailoring your product.

Qualitative data is the opposite: although it cannot be used to clearly map trends, it can provide in-depth information about specific questions. For example, focus groups (see below) will produce qualitative data through their verbal or sometimes written responses to questions asked to them in person. This sort of data can be very useful in the later stages of research, as it can give very specific and detailed information about a small area - often once you already know the subject you need to gain data about. However, it can sometimes be hard to see an overview of the results collected as each one will be unique.

Primary and Secondary Research

Interviews allow you to directly talk and find out the opinions of the general public, or specific people from your target audience. These can take place in public places by asking passersby to take part in your research, or in more controlled circumstances like private appointments. The strengths of this method include the fact that an interviewer can latch onto something the subject has said, and choose to question them further on it, and a range of results can often be found. However, the method is limited later into a project, when a more selective audience of people need to be targeted, as opposed to a mix of the general public.

Online Surveys are a method which uses the internet or email to get a large number of responses is potentially a very short amount of time. This has become increasingly popular with the growth of social media, as a small link can instantly send people to a comprehensive or even simple survey from anywhere with an internet connection. A benefit of this method is that it is less costly than most other methods, and very quick and easy to get out to a lot of people. However, it does mean that it becomes harder to monitor the types of people answering your questions and therefore potentially misleading for a close analysis of an audience.

Similarly, questionnaires can be sent out to a large number of people to collect varied results. While traditionally on paper, questionnaires are very like online surveys, but usually are more flexible in the answers that can be provided. Open-ended questions are more common in this method, and they can be useful for receiving unexpected responses. Again, like surveys, it can be hard to control who answers your questionnaires, and the flexibility of the method means that it can be hard to gain clear averages and patterns.

Focus Groups are selective interviews with multiple people taken directly from your target audience. These people meet with a facilitator from the company selling the product, and are often asked to examine or try the product and give feedback either through their own comments, or in response to -in-depth questions. The strengths of focus groups include the fact that everyone involved is from the audience you are trying to appeal to, and so their detailed responses are more likely to be useful. However, the smaller a focus the group the more niche the product and potentially the less appeal to people outside that audience.

 

Secondary research can include excerpts or whole sections of information from sources such as books, newspaper or journal articles, websites, archives, visual photographs or videos etc. Often secondary sources are used as the foundation of research in order to get a general idea of a subject, and give a direction for what sort of things can be asked later in primary research. The benefit of secondary research is that it is relatively easy to come by, and can potentially be incredibly helpful, however as the research is completed by someone uninvolved in your personal project it can often be too general, or specific to another topic. The reliability can also be called into question in some cases, for example when using the internet and videos; and interpretation of sources like photographs can be misleading.

Post-Production: Evaluation

The Test vs. the Final Film

Red Riding Hood shares the same style of photographic animation as my original test using images from one of the first ever stop motion films: Muybridge's 'Horse in Motion' from 1878. Though I added to this in my final piece by also having an animated set and wolf, the pure style of creating character and movement through individual photographs stayed consistent as I was very happy with the results of my initial test.

 

The main piece of feedback I received for my test run was that the figures needed to be double-sided (when my horse turned around originally it was blank on the other side). This, however, was not an issue in my final piece as I had designed my characters and set to never reveal the back of each figure: Red only ever travels right, and my revolving set moved with her, so there was no need to see the other side of each photographic frame as when I was experimenting with Muybridge's Horse. Furthermore, as I was photographing my own images to be animated (as opposed to using Muybridge's pictures) I was able to plan around the possibility that the back of my figure might be seen, and therefore ensure it was unnecessary to ever break the 180 degree rule.

Though the style of animation is the same, I realised in my test run that I would have liked the movement to have been smoother - I had used 24fps in my film, however had recycled the photographic frames three times before I switched to the next image. Though the movement of the figure was at 24fps, it meant that the photograph itself was animated at a third of that, and therefore became more jerky. For my final piece, I ensured that the movement of my figures worked smoothly at 24fps, however still recycled each photograph twice before changing to the next image in order to be economical. This meant that the animation flowed a lot more naturally, but still had the quirky and  'handmade' characteristics of stop motion animation.

Comparison with Existing Products

The primary influence for my style of animated photographic frames within a second animation of the 'outside' world was from a short film named 'Wolf And Pig' from Taijin Takeuchi on YouTube. The filmmaker used whole photographs to present the narrative of a wolf chasing a pig around Tokyo, while also incorporating elements in the 'real world' such as a sink or wall to create a connection between the sets. This inspired me to use a 'world within a world' style in my animation. Furthermore, since entering into the production of my film I realised the same style  of stop motion is used in the title sequence of Russell Howard's Good News on BBC, which likely subconsciously influenced the aesthetic of my stop motion.

 

As this was my first time attempting to create a stop motion animation, I wasn't able to reach the professional standards shown in both of these inspirations. Furthermore, the resources available to me and restricted time in which I was able to create my animation contributed to the fact that I wasn't able to create something so effective. The imaginative way that Takeuchi used his apartment and its various household items in his narrative is something I would've liked to mirror more closely: his use of a sink in place of a swimming pool, and a wall to show stairs created a wonderful effect - though was too ambitious for my project. I would also have liked to create more movement in my set like Russell Howard's title sequence: the props and text jerk around slightly as he moves in order to create a more vibrant and lively scene. Though my set revolved and included the animated wolf, more movement would have replicated the atmosphere of a forest more effectively.

However, I do feel like the quality of my animation is high given the circumstances, and I was able to approach a simple narrative in a similar way to 'Wolf and Pig', and also mirrored the smooth but interesting animation style following a single moving figure in a semi-static environment much like Russell Howard's title sequence.

Strengths and Limitations

After completing my animation I collected peer feedback from my classmates, and received an overall positive response. I asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how strong various aspects of my animation were. Creative Qualities, Aesthetic and Editing scored the highest, indicating I had succeeded in my goal of creating an interesting and engaging visual narrative that my target audience of 7-12 year olds would enjoy. Furthermore, the fact that aesthetic and creativity was rated highly also suggests that my secondary audience of 16-34 year olds interested in creative filmmaking would also be attracted to my animation.

However, in order to collect more data for a more accurate and reliable response, I created an online survey (which can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BP3PSDY) using the free website SurveyMonkey, that asked similar questions to those I had given to my peers. Again, I received mainly positive feedback and some constructive criticism. The results confirmed that many thought a target audience of 7-12 year olds would be interested in my animation, and there was an overwhelming positive indication that my stop motion was a creative interpretation of the classic fairytale (this again proved I had achieved my goal of creating a visually pleasing retelling).  Again, aesthetic, creativity and editing scored as the strongest elements of my film.

Specific successes people pointed out within my work was the use of colour (something I had initially aimed to exaggerate, with inspiration from Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood (2011) as inspiration), as well as the creativity of animating photographic frames within a separate set (specifically 'when Red Riding Hood is running'). Again, I was happy with this response as I had chosen my style of stop motion animation to be striking and quirky. Constructive criticism I received centered mainly around the wolf - something I agree with. I had originally planned to use shadow silhouettes of the wolf, as opposed to cardboard figures, however when it came to filming I did not have enough control over lighting to create a distinguishable silhouette, and so had to improvise with my original figures. If I were to repeat this project I would spend more time thinking of another way to present the wolf, or gain more control over my lighting. Another suggestion was that 'the narrative moves a little too quickly', and again I agree, however due to the fact this was my first time creating a stop motion animation, and I was very restricted when it came to deadlines and the resources available to me, I feel I made a strong animation given the circumstances. This is reflected in narrative scoring one of the lowest on my questionnaire, and I would definitely like to be able to take more time in my storytelling in the future - perhaps by shortening the length of my story in the first place, and therefore taking more time and care on a smaller project.

'How successful so you think the following elements are?'

'What target audience would be attracted to this project?'

'Is this an interesting version of the Red Riding Hood fairytale?'

'Is there anything else that stood out as particularly successful?'

'Is there anything else I could improve?'

Overall, I am happy with the stop motion animation I was able to create. I completed the brief of producing a short animated nursery rhyme/fairytale for children's television, as well as succeeding in my own personal goal of creating an interesting and visually pleasing retelling of Red Riding Hood. There were several elements I had originally planned to include in my ambitious first plan that had to be taken out due to restrictions on time and resources (e.g. the transition of 3D props into the 2D photographic frames; the wolf only shown as a shadowed silhouette), however I feel that simplifying my idea at the beginning of filming meant I could create a stronger animation with what I was able to carry out. In hindsight, I would've like to create a clearer storyline - but like I said in my pitch, I chose Red Riding Hood because the storyline is so well known I had creative freedom to play around with how I presented it, without making it confusing to understand. My focus on the style of photographic animation inside a set was definitely worth it, and the hours I put into pre-production, filming and then editing and sound meant that I was left with a high quality stop motion animation in the end.