The Purpose and Nature of Primary Research

The main source of research is primary research. Primary research is when you do your own individual research so that all the research is brand new as you don't take it from any other sources otherwise that is secondary research. Examples of primary research are questionnaires that you make and hand out and then analyse the answers people give you and it should be relevant to the area/topic you are studying.

The advantages and disadvantages are taken from the website at the bottom and was written by Penna Sparrow.
Advantages

• Targeted issues are addressed - This relates to the issues you are researching for example favourite genre of short films.
• The data interpretation is better - The data collected can be examined and interpreted by the makers depending on their needs rather than interpretations made by people in the secondary data.
• Recency of data - Secondary data is no normally recent whereas primary data is very recent and a fresh piece of data.

Disadvantages

• It is time consuming
• High cost
• Inaccurate feedbacks - Feedbacks given back are usually biased of just given for the sake of it.
• More number of resources are required - Human resources and materials are needed in larger quantity to do surveys and data collection. 

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/primary-research-advantages-and.html 

Interview techniques - Interview techniques refer to whether the interview is formal or informal. If the interview is formal then the interviewee would dress in formal dressing such as a suit and if it is informal then they would dress up in casual trousers a t-shirt trainers etc. This is relevant for short films because they are going to be less formal than retail for example. In the film industry they recruit people based on their relationships, who they are and creativity.

Observations - studying behaviour -  Observations come under how someone observes someones behaviour, for example maybe a trainee who wants to become a director would observe the director for a film and would try and pick up the traits and qualities needed to become a director. 

Questionnaires - Questionnaires are a form of primary research which asks the audience specific questions on what they want to find it and has more in depth answers.This can be relevant to short films because it can get an insight into what the audience wants.

Survey - Surveys are a quicker way to gather quantitative data as it captures closed question responses. Surveys are another form of primary research and in short films can get an insight into what the audience wants. 

Types of questions - The types of questions asked all depend on what you want to find out. Open questions are useful especially in short films because it will give an in depth answer to what the consumer wants and needs. Also closed questions will give a basic yes or no answer to something that you want to find out about your audience. 

Focus groups - Focus groups are really useful because its a small group of people who have a discussion about certain topics. This is really useful with short films because it will get verbal feedback to what you want from it and find out what the people want.

Audience panels - Audience panels are useful to find out what the audience wants and example of this is the television show Gogglebox, this show is all about the audience and they pick a few families on different economic backgrounds and they decide what to watch for the rest of the UK. This could be very useful for short film directors because it gives an insight on what their target audience wants out of the film and what genre and topics they want within it.

Participation in internet forums - Participation in internet forums are very useful for short film directors because they get first hand feedback from their audience to find out what they want and gets asked questions about their film which audience members are curious about.