I presented a report on how new media has affected film promotion. I used primary and secondary research to find out the demographics of internet film viewers. My studies showed that the majority of illegal internet film downloading/streaming is done by 16-18 year olds, the general age of students. I created a questionnaire to compile information about the users of internet film promotion websites. Another aspect of my Secondary research was interviewing two film students for their opinions on illegal downloading and streaming. I also compared different illegal streaming websites to see whether they were easy to use and the difficulties that came with each site. This comparative study also helped me to determine whether the websites were reliable.
The sources I collected in my Secondary research helped me to gather an overall view on how new media has affected film promotion. I used the sources to distinguish the difference between reliable and unreliable websites. I spent a sufficient amount of time on my secondary research, looking through illegal downloading websites, discovering that the majority of these illegal sites are unprofessional in design and unreliable with a lack of confirmation of where the information was from. The heavy advertising was for gambling and pornographic sites which is generally not trusted amongst users, if it was a highly recognized brand like apple being advertised then people would be more likely to trust the site. Each of the film links on the website were untrustworthy because they came from potentially dangerous websites, when doing the comparative analysis on four different illegal downloading/ streaming websites my anti-virus program warned and prevented me from using links on some of the websites.
My sources were found both methodically and randomly, methodically using intute.com which gives me a tighter search result of just media related websites. I randomly searched using google.com to see what results came up. I found that there was a majority of useless websites when using a random search. I came across unreliable websites which supported my research. By doing secondary research first I gained more knowledge on what I was researching so I found it easier to decide how to do my primary research. I went through the last pages of the search. The sources I found were useful in my report as I had a range of similar websites to compare. I used the same film on each website to see how different it was on each website and how trustworthy they each were. I chose the websites to study in my Primary research comparative analysis using the primary research of my interview with the film students to see what websites they used to watch films online. I noticed that one or two of these appeared in my sources table. This meant that I would choose those particular ones. For the others I looked at my survey to see what websites they use. By choosing the most popular ones I could see the films how the people who regularly use them see them.
I used googlebooks to look through books about film promotion; I used the actual book but I found it easier to find the page I wanted on googlebooks as you can type it into the search bar rather than look in the contents of the printed book. It will highlight every part in the book that has the particular searched result. The book ‘The Guerilla Handbook’ gave me several opinions from people working in the industry about how the internet has advantaged or disadvantaged them. The book itself is about Independent film makers so the people being interviewed are independent film makers with lower budgets, they all had positive things to say about the use of the internet when promoting their films. In hindsight I should have researched books that would contain mainstream film makers opinions as well. With that information I would have contrasting views, making my research stronger.
For my primary research I did two interviews, using film students. I chose film students because I knew they were interested in film and would be likely to use the internet as a source of finding out about new films. From the interview I gathered different opinions on illegal downloading and streaming. One of my interviewees does it frequently and doesn’t mind the decrease in quality and the risks that come with downloading illegally. The other doesn’t use the internet for viewing films, but occasionally looks at review websites and Imdb to research particular film makers or actors. They both agreed that when studying a film for their course they do not use illegal downloading/streaming sites as they want to see the film in high definition in order to analyze it properly. One of them said that overall they watch more films online than on DVD or in the cinema. From these two interviews I can gather that some people don’t mind viewing illegal poor quality films on the internet because they watch lots of films. The other said that they prefer the cinema experience and will go for the buzz of a good film they have been eager to see. From interviewing film students I knew I would be talking to people interested in film, and who study film so as part of their course they would be required to watch certain films. I wanted to find out whether they still streamed illegally online when the reason for watching the film was education related.
As another piece of primary research I created a questionnaire to hand out to various people, not particularily film students or people of a particular age. The information I collected in this questionnaire supported my secondary research in that the age group were between 16-18 years of age. In my presentation I put the information gathered in the form of pie charts to show the percentages clearly. This information is reliable because I gathered it personally. It showed me that the majority of illegal online film viewers were of student age and/or unemployed. This supports my secondary research that the reason for online viewing illegally could be partly due to cost issues. If the majority are unemployed then they can’t afford to go to the cinema often or buy DVDs. The questionnaire also showed me that people don’t tend to watch films online legally. This could again be due to cost issues. I used a website called ‘Survey Monkey’ to distribute my questionnaire, I simply added as many people as I could to the email list and I got many responses. By using simple questions to answer more people were willing to take the survey. I had a good range of questions which gave me an idea of the demographics of the people who watch films illegally online. My secondary research supported my primary research therefore I think that it was a good idea that I completed the secondary research beforehand as it gave me points to go on. If given the opportunity to go back to the stage of Secondary research I would have done the primary research questionnaire beforehand to find out what sites people use. As I didn’t do this I was unaware of a number of sites that people use to watch films illegally. This would have helped me to research these sites in particular. I found out a great deal of information using google search engine as well as links from film festival websites on film promotion. Overall I think I have shown that the internet is a good place to promote independent film. It also promotes mainstreams films well but comes with problems, mainly being the easy access to these new releases through illegal downloading/streaming sites.
