Experiencing film: Subjective personal introspection and popular film consumption

• Used SPI to understand how the lead author makes sense of his film consumption
• Analyzed a snapshot of experiences including pre and post consumption processes
• We introduce a film consumption experience model based on three classifications.
• This consists of film characteristics and the viewing and situational environment.
• This facilitates consumption choices while impacting the overall film experience.

How and why audiences consume films is a much-researched yet inconclusive area of film marketing. Film is an experiential product and qualitative research methods are a suitable way of gaining insight into how people choose between different film offerings and how they assess their film viewing experience. Before we can understand others' choices and experiences, we first must understand ourselves. We therefore begin our investigation by taking a snapshot of our experiences facilitated by Subjective Personal Introspection (SPI) to gain insight into how the lead author makes sense of his film consumption. The key findings complement and advance current debates in film and experiential consumption. Indeed, the theoretical contribution is two fold; the development of a film consumption experience model based on three-interrelated classification dimensions (film characteristics, viewing environment, situational environment), which collectively impacts the lead author's consumption behavior, and our expansion of Schmitt's (1999) SEMs model.