Research Techniques.

Introduction

I will be discussing different research techniques in TV and Film, these techniques will include the difference between primary and secondary research, what the purpose of research is, why it is needed and some other important elements.

Primary Research

Primary Research is any type of research that you go out and collect yourself, an example of this would be going to interview someone and finding out what they have to say for yourself, another example is collecting surveys or getting observations, primary research always has to be your own research. We had collected primary research for one of our stories, the terrible news in Seevic college about the man on fire in his own car, our primary research was talking to some of the students who go to Seevic College, this helped our story as it seemed more interesting to speak to some of the students and to get a sense of how they felt on that tragic night.

Secondary Research

Secondary Research is not your own research so you would collect it from the internet or a newspaper, secondary research is usually used to back your own primary research up, this helps evidence your story. Quite a lot of our research was secondary as it was hard to find more local news in little time, one of our stories was about a drug raid in Pitsea and we had secondary research on this from the internet and in the newspaper, secondary research helped our live production a lot as we were not able to speak to police officers and drug dealers about this incident.

What is the purpose of research?

The main purpose of research is to inform people about what is going on and to give evidence of what your story is about, I think there are many different purposes for different types of research in TV and Documentary, Research helps to plan and gather information on a certain topic, for example in my live news show I had to gather primary and secondary research in order to help tell the story which I was focusing on. For example in our live production the purpose of our research was to inform people about it, on the story about the rising prices in train tickets.


Why is it needed? Who needs it? Who does the research?

Research is needed for many reasons, most of the reasons are covered in the purpose of Research but the main reason for research being needed is to learn a little more about it, for example in a news show they collect a lot of information which is given to them and they have to know a little bit about it before they can produce this story on a live show. In our live show research was needed so that the presenters could learn more about our stories like the train ticket story and the incident that happened to the cab driver when he demanded is fare money, our presenters needed to know more about the awful incident that happened so that they could feel the sadness in it and so the audience could see that.

Many people need research, but mostly an audience, without research they would not know what is going on in the world, research is important as you cannot produce a story without evidence to back it up. Or presenters and crew needed research for our live show so they knew more about the stories.

Research is done by the Researcher, as a researcher you would support the producer by finding the information and people and places needed for TV and Documentary, for example if someone was needed for an interview the Researcher would research on how to get there, what places are good to meet, what information would be vital to know about the interviewee and much more. In our live show I was the researcher for some of the stories, I had done the research on the taxi driver who had been attacked, the story about the two young girls who were being lured into a van by two men and the researcher for the theft story about the two wanted women in Basildon, some of these stories were harder to find than others as our live show was about local news and many big stories were out of the local area.

My News Show - Examples

In our live show we had a lot of different stories and a lot of vital information to collect, One of the stories was how the prices in train tickets have risen and we had to gather primary and secondary information, in our primary research we included interviews, phone calls and an interview with one of the security guards at a local train station, this research helped a lot as it was our own research and we could really get how they felt about the rising prices in train tickets, we spoke to locals who got the train daily, some said it hadn't really affected them and others were very annoyed at this. Our secondary research was off the internet and on the c2c website, this website showed a table of last years fares and this years fares which was massively different in prices, this helped a lot as it backed our own primary research up. The purpose of this research was to inform people about this increasing problem.