The Academy Quantitative Questionnaire

By Von Villanueva

I included this question to make sure I am aware of how many males and how many females took part in my questionnaire and gave responses. I felt that it was important to collect responses from both genders considering my soap opera trailer was targeted towards both males and females. As you can see, there were 6 males and 4 females who took part in the questionnaire.

The primary target audience for my soap opera trailer is 12-19 year olds, however, the results show that 9 out of the 10 participants were between the ages of 16 and 19. Although none of the participants were between the age of 12 and 15, one participant was between the age of 20 and 23. I feel that by collecting results from people with different ages will give me a better overview on the thoughts on my soap opera trailer.

This question made me aware of how often the participants watched soap operas. This means that I can collect results from people who never watch soaps, watch soaps as often as they can and also people who watch soaps daily. Furthermore, I feel that the participants who watch soaps daily will be more strict when evaluating my own soap opera trailer as they can compare it to other existing soaps. The results show that 1 of the participants never watches soaps, 2 of the participants watch soaps as often as they can and finally 7 of the participants watch soap operas daily.

There were a few themes present in my soap opera trailer, however this question informed me of the more prevalent themes that the participants were able to identify. 50% of the participants thought that ‘relationships’ was the most prevalent theme, whereas the other 50% found ‘disequilibrium’ to be the more prevalent theme. This also means that the audience may be more interested in relationships and disequilibrium when it comes to soap operas.

Many verbal and non-verbal codes (diegetic/non-diegetic) were used throughout the trailer which was used to emphasize tension and even emotions in certain scenes. 10% of the participants said they did not particularly pay attention to the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds which leads me to believe that they were not used effectively, therefore, as an improvement I can use sounds in a more creative manner for the viewer to notice. On the other hand, 90% of the participants found that the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds were used effectively.

I was able to identify the camera angles/shots/movements that the participants found to be the most interesting. 7 of the participants found close-ups to be the most intriguing, 2 found the over the shoulder shot to be the most intriguing and lastly the pan movement intrigued just 1 participant. These results suggest that I should repeat the use of close-ups since that is the camera shot type that the majority of the participants liked.

It was important for my group to make sure that the soundtrack/background music was in parallel with the trailer as it gives a sense of professionalism which was our aim. However 1 of the participants did not notice whether the tempo of the music synchronized with the trailer. This suggests that we should improve the music by either increasing the volume or editing it in a certain manner. Although, 9 of the participants responded that the tempo of the music did in fact synchronize well with the trailer.

Jump cuts were used a couple of times in our trailer to demonstrate a sense of disequilibrium, but whether the viewers found it interesting or not was the question. The results suggest that the jump cuts were used effectively as 100% of the participants found the jump cut scenes interesting.

The cartoons were a ‘hit and miss’ when it came to soap operas since they are not conventional to soaps, evidently, since no other existing soaps contain cartoon images. However I gained positive results as 0% of the participants said the use of cartoons were not very effective. Instead, 10% of the participants said the use of cartoons were effective, and 90% of the participants found that the use of cartoons were used very effectively.

My group and I hoped that people found our soap opera trailer to be authentic since many aspects were similar to the ‘Waterloo Road’ soap which is why we tried to include unique features that would hopefully differentiate from other soaps. 40% rated our soap a 4 out of 5 in the authenticity scale and 60% rated our soap a 5 which means the majority of the participants found our soap to be very authentic.