2. What are Exit Polls?
Exit Polls are used to find out facts about the audience which will help
the distributors of the film attract consumers.
The reason the distributors use exit polls are to find out the gender and age of
the audience watching the film. As well, what media distribution attracted them to
go watch the film, and what aspects of the film’s premise interested them. For
example, for youth-orientated films, distributors would usually create a
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account for the film, so it gets media buzz and
get more notice among young people, therefore encouraging them to watch it in
the cinema. An example could be the DUFF.
In addition, they want to see what information/advertising convinced them to go
see the film and what made them want to attend. For example, The Fault in our
Stars had many reasons for it’s attendance, such as it being a #1 New York
bestseller, it containing famous teen actors, the synopsis revolving around an
important social issue and it being a heartfelt romantic film.
Why do the distributors use them?
3. Examples of Exit Polls (Age and Gender)
We can see from these two exit polls that they have different ratios of men to women. The Invisible Woman
has a higher female percentage because it revolves around a romance writer’s affair, which would seem to
appeal to a female audience. Whereas, Catfish seems to be quite equal when it comes to the men to women
ratio, this is due to the fact that Catfish is a psychological thriller about romantic relationships online being
scams, therefore it has a gender-neutral synopsis. In addition, the film The Invisible Woman has a high
majority percent of people over 35, since the genre of period films are mostly aimed and appeal to an older
audience. On the other hand, Catfish has a higher percentage for people under 35, since the synopsis
revolves around technology and fake relationships online.
4. Examples of Exit Polls (Sources of
Information)
We can see from these two
exit polls that they have
quite similar sources of
information. For example,
both Blue is the Warmest
Colour and The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo have as
their highest sources of information, newspaper and magazine reviews and word of mouth. From this
information, I know that this is probably the most effective way for people to go see the film, therefore
for my film opening I will be making a newspaper advertisement. Despite this, other sources which were
popular among Blue is the Warmest Colour were online articles, trailer before a film and underground posters,
the film’s underground posters were likely to be popular due to the controversial subject matter of the film. The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s other popular sources, such as online adverts and posters.
5. Examples of Exit Polls (Baits to Audience)
We can see from these two exit polls there
are some similarities regarding the baits to
audience. For example, the cast was not
important in attracting the audience, since
for Populaire, the least picked option was
that it stars Deborah Francois and for Africa
United, the least picked option was the
cast. From this I
can learn that the cast was not the key
aspects of both films. For the film
Populaire both the French-aspects and
the 1950s era, were some of the main
baits and hooks of the audience’s
interest. Whereas, for Africa United the
story was the major main factor which
appealed to the audience. Overall, both
these films have different selling points
when it comes to baits for the
audience.
