Exit Polls Research

BFI Exit Polls

Every Monday, film distributors and cinema programmer
negotiate which films will start, continue and stop playing
in cinemas. These negotiations are largely based on the
performance of the films over the weekend and the cinema
programmers perception of the films ongoing commercial
prospects.
The three main questions that they ask include:
Gender
Age
Baits to attendance
Source of information
These can vary depending on the genre of film and the
films audience.
 Age
Some exit polls will have to be cautious with age.
For example questions for a group of 30-40 year
old will be different to 10-13 year olds. This will
be because they will watch completely different
genres. Also the detail in which the answer can
be phrased will have to change with each.
Asking the wrong set of questions can make the
poll unreliable.
When creating my own exit poll, I will make sure
to do target audience feedback on the age group
i am aiming for which is 30-40 year old people.
Gender and Genre
This exit poll shows the ratio of
men to women that see certain
genres of films. It is clear that
men prefer films with more
action this may be because they
can easy tolerate more violence
stereotypically. However, on the
other side, women are shown to
like Family films and romantic
films more than men. This may
be because of the caring and
nurturing side of women. This
will be important for the making
of my film. The thriller genre sits
at 50% of both men and women
liking it therefore it will not have
to be targeted at a particular
audience. However, because our
sub genre is a crime thriller
which has more women than
 Baits to Attendance
The top bait to
attendance overall is
that the story line
appealed to them,
followed by genre/type
of film and reviews. The
least popular is for the
film to be shown at a
The story appealed to me is a very broad reason why cinemagoers
festival or would choose
to see a particular film however this suggests audiencesnominated/received
enter the cinema with
an
some idea of what the films about. It also tells us that, in the case of specialised
award.
films at least, audiences find it much more useful to know what the films is about
than who made it or whos in it.

The same could be said of genre: the fact that horrors, thrillers or martial arts
movies stick to the same basic conventions (even if they sometimes play around
with those conventions) gives audiences a fairly clear idea of what to expect.
Reviews likewise provide potential viewers with a plot outline as well as an
indication of whether the film is any good.
Source of Information
If audiences want to
know about the story
before they decide to
watch a specialised
film, then their main
source of information is
word of mouth,
followed by cinema
trailers and
features/reviews in the
print media, by
contrast, radio
adverts/trailers, social
media and radio
reviews/features are
the least popular
source of information.
 Effective Marketing
The best way to market a film is to get the trailer into
cinemas. Cinemas are so important for movie
campaigns as they are carefully selected to go before
similar films. Also because cinemas are so popular to
film lovers.
A cinema may also do preview screening of the trailer
for fans to build up hype and suspense for a film.
Because the main bait of attendance it is clear that
people see a film because of the genre therefore in
trailers there must be an emphasis on the genre.
Finally I will make sure I take all of these facts into
account when making my movie trailer.
A Cock and Bull Story Exit
Poll
The type of people asked for this movie is
very even with only a few more men than
women and only a few more over 30s than
20s. This makes the poll more reliable and
this is why I chose it.
The main source of information is
strangely through magazines and
newspaper articles, this shows that it had a
very big movie campaign. However word of
mouth which is usually the most popular
source of information was only 20% which
is only 4% lower than newspapers and
magazines.
The main baits to attendance is the genre
type of the film. This confirms the BFIs
theory that genre is a main selling point for
a movie.