Audience Research Report

My aim for the project as a whole was to create an animatic with a series of
photographs that could be used for an article/front cover for i-D Magazine. I
began by researching about the actual image i-D magazine has and what I
concluded was a human identity behind every picture. I wanted to continue with
this image, which is why I had in mind to use a female model, then from here I
chose my themes in which I wanted to portray. How does the use of fashion
imply a sexual identity for females? I thought this would be appropriate because
if I worked with the opposite sex, I could mold her into what I define as
desirable, as well as hitting my target audience, which are males aged 16-25.

One main point I had to ask myself about this question I have presented was how
intense is the validity and reliability? When asking my question to members of
the public, I had to think about if this question will actually give me an answer
that will actually be useful to me. For example, I could get the result that fashion
does enhance a sexual appearance, but so does any other clothing in some cases
or maybe itll be the model that doesnt appeal to my target audience. Therefore,
I would be focusing on the clothes but my target audience will not be positive
about by decision. This makes my test unreliable. Reliability is a main factor in all
research because if an anomaly appears, it could severely affect your results and
put you back a step in your findings. Unreliable findings can be found within
qualitative and quantitative data. Within my research I used quantitative and
qualitative data collection for both my primary and secondary research to move
forward in my project and be molded by what my audience wanted to see, mixed
with my own original ideas. Along with this I had to be careful of the research
methods I used, in case I fell into the trap of choosing members of the public who
I know may be most likely to help me and instead get a whole range of ideas.

Within my secondary research, I began by using the Internet to discover the
definitions of certain sampling methods I will be using, which was Quota,
Volunteer and Stratified sampling. This just helped me to gain a better
understanding of the methods I could use for my primary research. All the
definitions are posted on my blog. Next I though to myself about a colour scheme
I wanted to stick to being black, white and red, so I looked through Google
Images for some pictures to create a mood board to create a certain feel for what
I wanted my photography to look like. After creating it, I felt like I had a clearer
vision of what I wanted to happen within my own pictures. Thinking of these
images, I wouldnt have said they linked with the theme of consumerism, but
they had character and gave each female an identity. Next, I decided to view
pieces of art online linking with advertising. I found a lot of pieces to be company
logos but the slogans reworded to highlight an issue with the company; for
example, the BMW logo was reworded BUY. I started seeing consumerism in a
different light when I began finding sexual pictures to sell certain products.
Everyone knows sex sells and I thought that was an interesting route to follow
because obviously I want my overall piece to scream sex through fashion. The
main theme around sex was clothing and food.

I chose a few pictures to include on my blog, just because they seemed very
iconic to the theme of consumerism, such as Jesus holding shopping bags as well
as a naked female holding a bag over her vagina with pubic hair on the bag. I
thought this second picture was a perfect depiction that consumerism creates
our identity because It shows how the bag has molded onto her. All over these
pictures made me want to get creative, so I decided to construct some pictures
for myself. I began by obtaining a picture of a barcode and using Photoshop I
places the words, consumerism sucks below it. Clearly stating that the barcode
was a jail cell and the lines were represented as the bars. Again, I stuck with the
same method, using the barcode and typed certain wording between the lines.
The feedback I obtained was appreciative, yet critical, due to my lack of
Photoshop skills at the beginning of the project, although the rough outline of the
picture portrayed what I wanted.

I found out about an artist called Jessica Griggs who was linking some of her
work between fashion and consumerism, as well as reading a blogpost from
Katie Fletcher who gave me a detailed analogy of the link. This led more onto
certain practitioners Id found out about; Michael Landy, Lauren Greenfield and
Nadav Kander all base their work around consumerism. Michael Landy went to
the extreme with his work and spent years counting/cataloguing every item he
owned, then afterwards burnt every piece and recycled what he could till he had
nothing, but after all that, he fell into consumerism itself and had to rebuy the
essentials to live. Personally, I think Landy was silly to make such a statement
through the way he did because he achieved nothing in my eyes, whereas Lauren
Greenfield brought the connection between our younger generations and money
together. The short film she created, highlighted the fact that kids were spoilt
and believed all they needed was money in their lives. Its a sad truth. Then
finally, Nadav Kander was a personal favourite because he focused on the body
mostly, which links in closer with my work. One piece that stuck out to me was a
short film he created called Shadows, which is a hard piece to depict the
meaning of, but I just though tit was really effective in a way thats indescribable.
I believe the music enhanced it perfectly.

I continued to collect more secondary data by including previous work from a
Film Studies course, which was a scene from the film Fight Club where the
camera pans around the main characters room and highlights the prices of all his
items, representing an Ikea catalogue. I would love to have this effect within my
animatic if possibly although it will be very difficult. My last piece of secondary
data was an award winning short film about identity. All this information helps
me to view other peoples work and gain ideas and inspiration from it.

Id already began my primary research by creating small images on Photoshop,
so I decided to continue by constructing a short piece of music on Adobe
Audition as well as a short film skit to market my final product more efficiently
and create a bigger fan base. Before I chose my themes of sex and fashion, I put
together a questionnaire to help me. Two of the main questions were:
1. What is the main thing on a teenage boys mind?
2. What is the main thing teenage boys spend their money on?
I asked thirty random boys aged between 16-25 for each question and gave them
a range of answers to choose from. For question one, I received a high number of
21 for the answer sex, then for question two I obtained 14 for the answer
clothing. These answers pushed me into the direction I needed further and
further. I conducted some interviews as well, my first interview gave off the
overall opinion that the boy aged 19 wanted to see a hot girl in knee high socks,
but wearing fashionable clothing. This brings me back to the validity point; what
this boys definition of the word hot, may not be the definition I call hot. This
qualitative data helped me boost my acknowledgment with the certain clothing
options I could choose as well as look at my target audiences answer more
carefully. When I conducted a short interview with a female ages 21, she didnt
seem to be very appealed by the fact shes about to watch a sexy woman, but
she related the themes of consumerism with buying objects. Obviously shes
correct, but her answer really made me think; everyone Id interviewed and
spoken to about the definition of consumerism had the same answer.
Consumerism can be a lot more than just buying objects, which is what I want to
explore.

I have also been obtaining multiple pieces of feedback from each piece of work I
create from friends, family and tutors as outside/extra research. This all helps
because even though its not always valid, due to the audience being out of the
age range, it still gives me a little bit of input that I could potentially ask my
targeted audience. Personally, I think my idea is strong enough to move forward,
even having done very little research and so far I believe it to be successful. The
main area where I have to be careful when thinking about my production will be
the legal and ethical issues because I need to make sure I credit my model as well
as being considerate with the pictures I take of her and which ones I present to
the public. My model Danielle Tara Griffiths has given me consent to taking
photos of her and is happy to help me in anyway she can.

Looking over my research objectives that I set myself in my research plan, I
havent met most of them because I decided to heavily base my secondary
research on qualitative data, whereas, I mixed my primary data with both. I
believe it wouldve been better to use quantitative data in my secondary
research, but then again, qualitative suits me more as a person because I like to
depict a certain meaning behind what people are telling me. This is why I went
into depth about the three practitioners I found out about. I feel as if the
questions I asked during my interviews where completely valid because I was
able to use them and enhance my production. The full interviews and
questionnaire are shown on my infographic. If I were to do anymore further
research, Id most likely look into i-D Magazine further by possibly reading the
magazine more closely and view a wider range of materials they have created
over all these years.